Vice President Yemi Osinbajo says teaching and imbibing of cherished values, integrity are veritable measures to build and rebuild a nation.
Osinbajo said this in Abuja on Monday night in a key note speech at a workshop.
The workshop, with the theme “Building the Nigeria of Our Dream “, was organised by Apostles in the Market Place (AIMP), a non–governmental, non-denominational and non partisan organisation.
The AIMP is a community of Christian leaders and professionals from different fields committed to nation building and the birth of a new and functional Nigeria.
AIMP is a network of change agents that are passionate about social transformation; they mobilise, equip and support reformers that are committed to building a new Nigeria.
The event was attended by top government functionaries, ministers, senators, captains of industries, religious leaders and youths.
The vice president said:“I am to speak on the theme of the workshop, what can we do to rebuild our nation, but I have also decided to ask the question why do we need to rebuild?.
“Obviously it is because a lot has been destroyed, values, principles, have been destroyed, moral efforts and all of the other various things that have been destroyed.
“But the reality is, of course, that as the years have gone by, we simply have not paid much attention as we ought to , especially to questions of values.
“So today people are not even certain any more what those values should be.
“One of the things I discover why pastoring was just the fact that very many young people do not understand any more, what the real moral questions were.
“It is not just a matter of values being lost, many young people don’t understand what is wrong any more.“
Osinbajo, who quoted Psalms 11:3, Mathew 28 :19 and Romans 8: 19, said the responsibility of rebuilding a nation was in the hands of the righteous.
“It turns out that there is a whole lot that the righteous can do, when the foundations appeared to have been destroyed.
“The reasons why the question was asked the righteous, somehow God has decided that it is the duty and assignment of the righteous to build and rebuild the nation.
“The scripture tells us also that the righteous are the salt of the earth, the light of the world.
“In other words, everything that was done wrong with our society is just waiting for the righteous to take action to rebuild them,“ he said.
Osinbajo also said it was also expected of the righteous to be a good role model by living a life of integrity .
“We must recognise that even when we make mistakes, we must not give up on doing the right thing; we must set examples of what we want the world to be.
“We must teach this values, we must teach righteousness in our churches
“We must teach the values everywhere, we must teach the values to young people , it is so important that we recognise that righteousness has to be taught somebody.
“ So, we need to teach integrity, we need to teach the ways of righteousness, it is really up to us to let young people understand that integrity pays.
“The currency of the world is trust, if you can’t be trusted it becomes extremely difficult to do business and sustain any kind of relationship.“
The Minister of Industry, Trade and Investment, Dr Okechukwu Enelamah, who also quoted from Ezekiel 22:30, said God was searching for faithful individuals to rebuilt the society.
He said God was looking for a man to stand in the gap to remedy the challenging situations in the society.
Enelamah said it was necessary for Nigerians to take responsibility individually by faithfully committing to proffering solutions to identified challenges in any area.
He said Nigerians must accept responsibility individually to become the person God could use to rebuild the country.
“It has been said that it takes only one committed generation to rebuild a society.
“ If we can individually accept responsibility today, not pointing our fingers at other people but each make a personal commitment to our beloved country, we will be a generation that can rebuild Nigeria.“
“You can make a difference, I can make a difference; God is searching for people in business, family, government to make a difference and rebuild the nation.
“Man is God’s preferred method when it comes to solving human problems,“ the minster said.
Pastor John Enelama, Founding Executive Director of AIMP, said what truly made a nation great were the values passed from one generation to another.
He said only a transformed people could transform a society, adding that Nigeria required men and women who would lead transformation in all sectors of the economy.
Enelama said :“The biggest thing a nation needs is a transformed mindset, God cannot change you until you change the way you think.“
High point of the event was the presentation of “Make an Impact“ awards to some individual Nigerians that passionately embarked on an impact projects for the needy.
The projects are centered on provision of health care services to people with disability, scholarship to out of school children, free legal services to prison inmates, among other empowerment services for vulnerable Nigerians.
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