The Pentecostal Fellowship of Nigeria (PFN) has called on the President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s administration to prioritise food security, economic stability, amongst other pressing challenges of the citizens, even as policies are formulated.
PFN made this call on Tuesday at a press conference addressed by the re-elected National President, Wale Oke and the new executives, at the secretariat in Lagos.
The body who acknowledged the current stability of the exchange rate and reduction in fuel pump price, said that the instability in foreign exchange and escalating prices of goods and services due to the floating of the exchange rate and removal of subsidy after Tinubu came to power, affected the nation’s economy and the common man in no small way, hence the hardship in the land.
On the closure of schools in the North because of the ongoing Ramadan fasting, the body asked that such be discouraged as it is not the practice in Saudi Arabia, where Islam originates from.
“The education of our children is fundamental to their progress and greatness of our nation and should not be tempered with.”
Oke who reacted to a question on the economy through the PFN National Treasurer, Samuel Aboyeji said: “I remember the last time that we had a press conference like this, the President appealed to President Bola Ahmed Tinubu to please take cognisance of the common man.
“This is because at the end of the day, the common man bears the brunt, and we still want to repeat the same appeal, that in the formulation of policies, the common man should be taken into consideration.
“Thank God the exchange rate is stabilising. Thank God prices are stabilising. Thank God the subsidy that was removed, the oil price and the fuel price is also responding by coming down.
“We believe that these are all in answer to prayers. As a Christian body, we are going to pray for wisdom for our president, that the Lord will continue to give him direction.
“But in whatever policy that the government wants to bring out, they should always take the common man into consideration.
“This is because the pain in the last six months or so has been very, very, very, very tough for the common man.
“We pray that the signs of improvement we are seeing in the economy will continue, so that these prices can further go down, particularly prices of food. Prices of food will further go down.
“The exchange rate will get further stabilized and the fuel price will also go down. I think when all these happen, there is no way and no doubt that the common man will be taken care of.”
Earlier in his address, Oke noted that PFN will “bring the spiritual abilities that God has bestowed on us to bear on our national life, to see to the rebirth of our great nation according to the Scriptures.
“We will pray for, labour and contribute to the economic prosperity of our nation. Nigeria shall prosper greatly through the mercy of God.”
He, however, pointed that in the 40 years of PFN’s existence the last election of its national officers “regrettably became a subject of media speculations. This has never being so, and it gave us grave concern as a body.”
He noted that with the “cooperation of the founding fathers, and members of National Advisory Council (NAC), who maturely handled the last election peacefully and successfully, we will ensure that this does not happen again.”
