Senator Godswill Akpabio, the Federal Republic of Nigeria’s Senate President, has declared the administration of President Bola Tinubu’s determination to improve Catholic hospitals and schools in Nigeria.
During the opening ceremony of the Second Plenary Meeting of the Catholic Bishops Conference of Nigeria, or CBCN, which took place on Sunday in Obot Akara, Akwa Ibom State, he made this statement in his speech titled “Church and State as Partners in National Transformation and Human Development.” As the event chairman, Akpabio recognized the Catholic Church’s unwavering commitment to education—which, in his view, trains the soul as well as the mind—and hospitals, which provide shelter to the impoverished and ill.”You can be confident that the Tinubu Administration will support your educational institutions that educate the mind and the soul,” he said. We will collaborate with your hospitals and clinics, which have served as a haven for the sick and impoverished for many years. We will enforce laws that protect the dignity of all Nigerians, irrespective of their ethnicity or religious beliefs, in the interests of justice and human rights. We will work with faith-based organizations to empower young people by educating, motivating, and preparing them for the challenges of the future.
Recalling how the church was crucial in holding the government responsible and supporting its social welfare initiatives, Akpabio urged greater collaboration between the government and the church.
He claimed that by working together, the federal government has raised young people’s hopes and expanded access to education through the Student Loan Act. We held off on raising tariffs so that the impoverished wouldn’t be crushed under unmanageable burdens. By enacting a new minimum wage, we upheld workers’ rights and the dignity of labor. And we opted for the more difficult path of peace rather than the simpler one of conflict when the war drums sounded in Niger,” Akpabio stated.Akpabio cited the Catholic Church’s historical assistance to the government, saying, “The history of nations is replete with examples. Under Cardinal Karol Wojtyła, who would go on to become Pope John Paul II, the Catholic Church in Poland stood side by side with the Solidarity movement until oppression fell and freedom emerged from the ashes like a Phoenix. Armed with her social doctrine, the Church took on the burden of the impoverished in Latin America when governments failed, establishing hospitals where diseases thrived and schools where none existed. Together, the voices of Presbyterians and Catholics in South Korea rang the bell of liberty, releasing the nation from the shackles of dictatorship and putting it on the path to prosperity.
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