By Akaiso Akaiso, Uyo.
Hundreds of Christians of Northern region extraction living in Akwa Ibom State, under the aegis of Northern Christian Forum gathered on Monday for Easter rally and banquet that many attendees are still talking about, after Bishop Prof Daniel Mako delivered one of the most direct and searching charges heard in Easter celebration in recent memory.
The Bishop who is chairman of the group, addressing a congregation that filled the auditorium of All Saints Protestant Church, Police Mobile Force 26 Squadron Barracks, Idoro Road Uyo to capacity, wasted no time on pleasantries. He told the gathering plainly, straight and direct that they should not be too complacent and self serving but should exist in love with their neighbors and other brothers and sisters of the same extraction living in the state, irrespective of their faith.
“We want the blessings of a sacrificial Saviour without living a sacrificial life,” he said. “That is a contradiction the Church can no longer afford.”
” Jesus came to die for our sins. That’s a sacrifice no man has ever done, and will ever do for his friends. We owed the debt we could not pay and he paid the debt he didn’t owe.”
His message landed in a room full of people who memories understand hardship of man’s inhumanity to man, not as theology but as daily experience. Northern Christian communities up North have lived for years under the weight of displacement, economic pressure, and in some areas, open violence. Churches have been razed. Families have buried loved ones. Entire congregations have been scattered. The bishop did not pretend otherwise. He looked his audience in the eye and said that their suffering, as painful as it was, did not excuse them from the demands of tolerance of one another’s faith.
He defined sacrificial living carefully, separating it from what he called passive endurance. True sacrifice, he argued, was a deliberate choice, the conscious decision to place the needs of others, the welfare of one’s community, and the witness of the gospel above personal comfort and personal safety as Jesus did which culminated into the season.
He challenged believers to resist the urge to flee their communities when tension rose, to give beyond their tithe to support displaced brothers and sisters, and to live in a manner visible and compelling enough to speak to their neighbours of every background.
“Every Christian who abandons his community without cause,” he said, “leaves a vacuum that darkness is always ready to fill.”
Three of the clergy seated beside him on the platform look turn to adumbrate the same charge in their homilies. He turned to them directly near the close of his address and called on church leaders to model the sacrifice they preached, beginning with transparency in the management of church finances and a willingness to speak boldly to those in power on behalf of the vulnerable, and also stop betrayal as it was not pleasant to the man who betrayed the Saviour.
Members of the congregation who belong to Northern christian Forum but are yet to register were called upon to do so without further delay to enable them be partakers of the benefits accrued to the group, even as he announced that the largesse Gov Eno promised was yet to be released, to debunk the ground swelling rumour that is making the rounds.
On his part, the head of Hausa community in Akwa Ibom State, Alhaji Hassan Sadauki who corroborated the previous speaker, preached peaceful coexistence of Northern christians among the host community and their brothers and sisters of the same extraction, urging them to be good ambassadors of the North.
He thanked Gov. Umo Eno for accommodating the non Indigenes in his administration by appointing a Senior Special Assistant to him to take charge of them, who is even a Christian and called on them to vote for President Tinubu, Godswill Akpabio and Gov Pastor Umo Eno come 2027 general election.
The Governor’s aide, Emmanuel Ogbole who didn’t say much as the day wasn’t for long speeches, donated one hundred thousand Naira to the group to offset some of their expenses while promising to balance up at the end of the month.
