Sunday, 4 October 2015

US will Continue to Partner Nigeria for Peace, Stability



The United States Government has said it will continue to partner Nigeria to achieve peaceful co-existence and sustainable development especially in the country’s drive towards attainment of enduring democracy.
The US Consul-General, Mrs. Dehab Ghebreab, restated this at a news conference shortly before the premiere of ‘Captive’ at the House on the Rock Cathedral along Lekki-Epe expressway, Lagos at the weekend.
At the conference, the consul-general noted that peace “is not negotiable in any nation that aspires to achieve sustainable democracy and development.”
She said the US “is in partnership with The Rock Cathedral to send a strong message that will change people’s lives. We are partnering on a theme to look at a purpose driven life. The movie, Captive shows how the struggle between hope and despair play out.”
The consul-general noted that every society “learns from one another and in order to extend the American democracy beyond America. We decided to share that experience with Nigerians through Selma.
“It is a long term commitment and that is what we are doing today to send the message about a purpose driven life which will help contribute to having a purpose driven nation,” the consul-general said.
In his remarks, the Senior Pastor of House on the Rock, Pastor Paul Adefarasin, emphasised the need for Nigerians “to live a purpose- driven lifestyle too.”
He said in her 55 years as an independent nation, Nigeria “has faced a series of challenges such as oppressive regimes, misgovernance and now terrorism.”
However, the cleric noted that the country has overcome most of these challenges that posed great daunting threat in the past.
Adefarasin therefore recalled that the public premiere of the movie, Selma in the twilight of Nigeria’s general elections achieved a lot as the movie spoke to the subject of peace at a time when it appeared that Nigeria was going to disintegrate.
He said the success of Selma “may not have been seen in the physical, but several discerning Nigerians will agree that the peace we enjoy today is very soothing. The House on the Rock is working assiduously hard for the attainment of peace because it is only a peaceful atmosphere that brings about development in a country.
Adefarasin charged Nigerians “to see themselves as one family. Do we continue to view one another as different people? Do we accept that we are a united nation or do we insist that we are an amalgam of different nationalities?
“Do we accept that we are Yoruba, Igbo, Hausa, Fulani, Kanuri, Bini, Kalabari, Ibibio, Tiv, Birom, Idoma, Efik or the many more tribal distinctions that exist in our country or do we accept that we are simply and proudly Nigerians.
“All the great nations of our world today only became great because they purposed to do so as one people of one nation around an uncompromised system of shared values. Value systems that invariably included equal opportunity, equity, justice, freedom, peace, progress and the majority principle,” Adefarasin said.
The pastor therefore urged all Nigerians to team together “to build a country that offers her citizens progress and development in an atmosphere of justice, freedom and equal opportunity.”

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