• Tuesday, March 19, 2024
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NCPC: Burnishing Nigeria’s image, enhancing its economy

NCPC

As preparation for the 2019 pilgrimage get underway, the Nigerian Christian Pilgrims Commission (NCPC) has re-strategised to improve the Christian pilgrimage and use it more as a tool to burnish the image of Nigeria abroad and exploit the economic opportunities available in the State of Israel and other countries where Nigerian Christians go to perform pilgrimage.

This perhaps is against the backdrop of some unsavory stories about the negative exploits of some Nigerians in some foreign countries and the need to inform the rest of the world that the country beyond any negative appellation has a great number of its citizens, who can make meaningful and productive contribution in diverse areas.

The Executive Secretary of the NCPC, Uja Tor Uja buttressed this during the NCPC thanksgiving service to mark the success of the 2018 pilgrimage at the Redeemed Christian Church of God on Sunday, April 14, attended by Board Members, Management Staff and well wishers of the NCPC.

During the thanksgiving service, the protracted battle stop pilgrims from absconding and staying illegally in Israel gained traction as the commission appeared to have developed the requisite model to stop the menace.

READ ALSO: NCPC boss solicits support of governors for better pilgrimage

In the words of Uja “in the past year, we flew about 9,800 pilgrims in the cause of the year. We had an abscondment of below 20 and the government of Israel commended us for the feat. Even the government of Nigeria commended us for the feat. Nigerian Christian pilgrimage has never recorded anything about drugs, about theft. So we are already on a good ground and we want to do better, we want to come to zero abscondment. The pilgrims were extremely well-behaved, nothing about contraband or any illegality and more importantly our arrangements were very good and successful.”

There is also a strong factor in the last three years for the commission as records show no deaths as everybody who went on pilgrimage came back alive.  “Looking back at 2018, we are going to strengthen our structures and infrastructure both in Nigeria and in Israel and influence the world with the Nigerian brand of the gospel as we travel around,” Uja added.

Uja Tor Uja (middle) with press members covering the Commission at NCPC corporate headquarters in Abuja

The NCPC had since 2014/15 initiated training sessions in collaboration with the Institute for National Transformation, to train Nigerian pilgrims on good leadership, capacity building in fish farming, poultry, industrial capacity and management including training in high-tech. Thousands of pilgrims have been trained and equipped with the necessary skills, which have transformed lives and created employment opportunities for the youths.

As part of this expanded vision, pilgrims camps worth about N559 million will be built in May this year, both in Israel and Nigeria to provide the pilgrims with the facilities that will make them acquire skills for productive development to help exploit the potentials of the country to enhance its economy.

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This expanded vision however requires adequate funding of pilgrimage activities which the government alone cannot foot. Since he emerged as the Executive Secretary of the Commission in 2016, Uja, adopted Pilgrimage mobilization and outreach to critical stakeholders especially governors and many business ventures in Nigeria. The idea is to challenge all agencies of government in Nigeria to join in the crusade to assist the commission to meet its expanded vision and process Israeli amazing strides in agriculture, high-tech and other innovations to give Nigerians technical skills.

During a dinner interaction with the media on Tuesday, April 16, Uja said “Many visions require a little time to get gestation and bear fruits. Our people need to go there and think of something bigger. That is why we conceived the idea of farmers’ pilgrimage by 2020.  We have not only taken Nigerians to Israel for training we have also brought Israelis here to train  both in agriculture and in high-tech and also in skills including carpentry.”

He stressed that his vision is also to move pilgrimage from too much government into a more private-driven enterprise even as he called on Nigerian Christians to invest in pilgrimage either by sponsoring somebody or sponsoring a group or some of the pilgrimage activities as government may no longer subsidize pilgrimage from this year.

In the past two years NCPC was subsidized but from this year the commission appears no longer in the position to subsidize. Therefore pilgrimage in 2019 according Uja, is going to cost about N740, 000 per pilgrim as government has no intension of subsidizing pilgrimage.

Tor Uja intimated that 2018 came with so much difficulties and challenges, but God saw the Commission through it all and gave NCPC the best pilgrimage ever.  “Despite the Challenges we faced as a Commission we had the best pilgrimage ever and ended the pilgrimage with surplus.” He added “no live was lost and every activity of the Commission in 2018 recorded a huge success”, he said.

He further informed that the Commission has registered over 120 Christian Pilgrimage Operators (CPOs) and challenged the northern Christians to set up CPOs and take up their responsibility so that they can own the land and endear people’s attention to the north.

The NCPC helmsman said that the major goal of the Commission is that Christ should be at the center of pilgrimage and to use pilgrimage activities to preach the gospel in Nigeria and the world at large. According to him, “we want our pilgrimage to be such that everyone who goes on pilgrimage should have an encounter with Christ.”

The expanded vision of the commission despites its successes so far have some challenges needed to addressed especially in the area of funding amidst lean resources.

Innocent Odoh, Abuja