The Archbishop of Abuja, Ignatius Kaigama has advised Nigeria’s political leaders not to forget the critical role the family plays in national development.
Archbishop Kaigama stated this in his opening remarks at the 4th Abuja Archdiocesan General Assembly, AAGA, held at Our Lady Queen of Nigeria, Pro-Cathedral, Abuja, the nation’s capital with a theme: ‘Marriage and Family in Contemporary Society’.
The Cleric said that while national issues of politics; governance, economy, and climate change are on the front burner, leaders must remember that the family as a nucleus of the society is seriously in danger of breakdown.
“We hope that the 5 billion naira palliative allocated by our President to each state and the FCT to cushion the effects of the fuel subsidy removal, and the N25,000 monthly grant, allocated to 15 million struggling Nigerian families from October – December 2023, will truly get into the hands of these poor and vulnerable people.
“We hope too that the fundamental causes of family breakdown, divorce, cases of domestic violence, lack of care for the sick and the elderly, etc., will be investigated and remedied by our government,” he said.
He also charged families to ensure that their members are patriotic and law-abiding to foster peace in the society, saying that it is disturbing that perpetrators of crimes are young people.
Kaigama also identified the need for families, communities, nations, the continent and the world to be dedicated to God.
He stressed that even though this year’s General Assembly focuses on biological families, yet parish family, archdiocesan families, Convents, parish houses, schools, hospitals amongst others are also families, where love, peace and joy should prevail.
“So that is why we pray for God to give us peace in our hearts. And then it translates into the family. The family is the basic cell of society. If the family is healthy, peaceful, well focused, I can assure you the society will also be a healthy and peaceful society. And that will lead to the state to the nation, then to the continent and to the world. Peace is possible, all we need to do is to realize that we are all agents of peace, we are instruments of peace and nobody should joke about it. We should take this task seriously. And work fervently and God will grant us the peace we need.”
Kaigama called on Israel and Palestine to embrace dialogue in the ongoing war between the two countries.
“Our Holy Father the Pope has spoken at length as he has prayed. This happened when we were in Rome for the Synod and we collectively offered prayers for peace. That is the best we can do. We are also advising them to calm down the ceasefire, that violence does not solve any problem conflicts and armed conflict for that matter, does not solve any problem. The dialogue, negotiation will bring peace and it is less expensive than all the weapons and instruments they’re using for war. Dialogue is cheaper and less painful and less expensive. So we always ask the Palestinians and the Israelis to remember their humanity and return to the discussion table, because what they are doing does not please God, either Muslims or Jews or Christian. God is not happy when we embark on violence, destroying lives and properties.”
On insecurity and economic challenges in Africa, he noted that those issues formed part of their deliberations during the Synod in Rome.
“We did talk about those things. It is not only in Africa, it is everywhere. So we did talk about it and we are concerned and our own is to pray and to hope that these crises do not occur. Then the next step is to ask the governments of these regions to be sincere and to really work. Seriously, it was peace, because peace is possible if we work towards it, and sometimes the governments don’t take it seriously, and that is why violence erupts and then destroys so many lives and so many properties. We feel our government will do a lot as well as the United Nations and the various regional governments can do so much to restore peace in Africa, in Asia, in other parts of the world. It is not helpful at all. We are suffering, people are dying, and it is not good news at all.”
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