Sunday 20 October 2013
My agenda for Methodist Church, by Uche
•Backs national conference
The new Prelate of the Methodist Church Nigeria, His Eminence Dr Samuel Uche, has pledged to move the church to the next level.
He spoke last week shortly after taking over from Dr Ola Makinde, who retired on Thursday after attainment of the statutory retirement age of 70.
Uche, who was Archbishop of Enugu until his election, said he would take over from where his predecessor stopped.
According to him: “My main goal is to grow the church holistically. I want to grow the church spiritually, in terms of structure and social evangelism.
“Everybody will have a fair share of the gospel and we would build the church and Nigeria together.
“I want a church that is spiritually vibrant, peaceful with high emphasis on social evangelism. We want all Nigerians to have a feel of the gospel that takes care of human needs.”
Uche also threw his weight behind the proposed national conference.
Nigeria, he said, needs to sit down and talk on several challenges facing the nation.
“We need a dialogue that is all encompassing and embracing. We should not be afraid to talk because we need to determine how we want to coexist and develop as a nation.”
The Prelate Emeritus, Dr Ola Makinde, said the process that led to the election was smooth, transparent and devoid of human manipulations.
He said: “The system, which we run is such that the process and procedure of choosing a new leader is so straight forward that it is absolutely impossible for any person or group of persons to manipulate or distort the process.”
Makinde was speaking against the backdrop of the statement credited to Prelate Emeritus, Dr Sunday Mbang, who alleged the process that produced Uche was anything but transparent.
Mbang, who led the church for 22 years, alleged:”The election that took place was an ecclesiastical fraud of the highest order. Can this church, her leaders and her people have any conscience left to condemn political leaders on election manipulation and rigging? Can the pot now call the kettle black?”
Uche was said to have defeated the Archbishop of Ibadan, Most Rev. M.K. Stephen, who was considered by many as more deserving of the position.
It was learnt that Stephen initially polled 65 votes as against Uche’s 63 but lost during the run off.
But Makinde insisted Uche’s election was transparent.
He said: “The Conference Connexional Council, which is the highest organ of the church, the Registered Trustees and the three conference legal advisers, commended the process and outcome as free, fair, transparent and credible.
“The election was absolutely devoid of manipulation or fraud of any kind, be it ecclesiastical, executive recklessness or otherwise. In this wise, the church has continued to set the pace for the society to follow.”
Culled from The Nation Newspaper
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