The Executive Secretary of the Nigeria Christian Pilgrim Commission (NCPC), Rev. Tor Uja, has charged Christian Pilgrimage Operators (CPO) to develop working capacity, improved efficiency and acquire added access to global practices and networks to deliver efficient services to pilgrims.
He said no nation is as vibrant in spirit like Nigeria, and that with a better harnessing of its strength, it will translate into the development of human and environmental resources. According to him, the spiritual movements going on in Nigeria draw diverse people from other countries to participate in such activities, thereby investing in Nigeria’s economy during their stay.
Rev Uja, who spoke at the Conference of Christian Pilgrimage Operators (CPO) in Lagos recently, said pilgrimage must achieve the designed purpose of serving Nigeria, projecting Christ and promoting development ideas. He stated that the main aim of the conference was to create the needed environment for CPOs to succeed, to create an avenue for more CPOs to emerge and for more organised, coherent and predictable pattern for pilgrimage operations in Nigeria.
He identified funding as a major challenge confronting the commission, adding: “We cannot totally begrudge government because of the present financial predicament, we have to take it courageously.” According to him, the commission decided to re-organise its internal operations by cutting cost drastically. “When I came in and met the financial situation, we didn’t have any funds at all. I called all our service operators whose contract had already been agreed and sealed and asked for a reduction in the cost of pilgrimage and flights. After much haggling we were able to achieve the reduction, and we also did the same thing with ground handlers.
“Also in our internal operations at the headquarters, we reduced expenditures on travel, fuel, cleaning services and so on, thereby enabling us to save funds. Strangely in the course of saving here and there, we have some good savings now in foreign exchange. We don’t look like we can ever be embarrassed financially; my intention is that we increase our areas of revenue drive. If we have the cooperation we need, then we expect pilgrimages to run soon without hitches,” he added.
Continuing, he said: “Our greatest challenge is to remove the dependence on government for pilgrimages and let churches, organisations and individuals whom God has blessed and have the wherewithal sponsor people for pilgrimage because government largesse is reducing drastically by the day. Right now, just about 35percent of states sponsor anybody at all, and they sponsor little numbers. We don’t expect a drastic increase except something miraculous happens but we don’t want to work on that, we want realities.”
He however appealed for government support for the next five years so as to be able to put the agency on a sound footing, noting that “if government can give this agency support by giving us some strategic funding on facilities we need for the next five years, we will never need government support for ever.”
On staff reduction, he said: “We have not reduced manpower, instead we will like to increase manpower. While we are cutting costs, we are interested in other areas. For example, we are opening eight new offices in the country. We call them metropolitan offices. They are focused on the big cities of Nigeria, where we think we can target and get good manpower and revenue to support our work, including Lagos, Abuja, Kano, Port Harcourt, Kano, Gombe, Awka and Asaba.”
He explained that such offices would help build linkages with churches, schools and organisations in that milieu. “They are engagement and mobilisation offices, we want them to break into the economies and populace of these areas that have opportunities for wealth creation. These areas are strong in their economies and establishments are concentrated, especially universities that are also strategic entry points for us.
He assured that though the commission could not ignore the role of states in pilgrimage programme, “we want to move away from dependency on government both at federal and state level.”
Reacting to possible synergy between NCPC and other tourism parastatals, Rev. Uja said: “We can only have a synergy when they see our successes. We are going to invite people in their communities to come to Nigeria. Part of the programme on this conference is to train our pilgrimage operators to develop themselves to manage tourists for religious tourism. Most of them don’t have equipment, some don’t even have buses. So when we get strong, the world will naturally come.
“The painful truth is that the world sees Nigeria as a rich fool, all they want is to get the petro-dollars and kick her out, they don’t need us. I want to change that perspective. I want the world to reckon with Nigeria. I am hoping the media will help reduce negative stories about the country in their publications. They should increase the positive stories published, there are many positive things going on in Nigeria.”
On the existing bilateral agreement between Nigeria and Israel, he said: “The argument of his predecessor was that if Nigeria is able to do bilateral agreement with Israel, we can fly directly and that will reduce the cost of pilgrimage. Unfortunately that bilateral agreement has not taken off. It is slightly below the elementary stages. I have seen the document and it says nothing. Israel says it cannot go forward with any agreement except Nigeria addresses their concerns. Such concerns include security and there are many dimensions to that. “Secondly, we need a Nigerian indigenous airline that is capable of running flights straight from Nigeria to Israel, there is one. I have been asking the Nigerian government severally to do a bail out for the aviation sector because any airline that flies us to Israel that is not ours will definitely stop at its hub, which is usually its country. It’s a shame that a big country like this has no airline to fly us directly. It is embarrassing.”
Rev. Uja commended state governors for supporting Christians to embark on Holy pilgrimage over the years, noting that “this can still be improved so that greater numbers of Christian believers are given the opportunity to visit the Holy Land at least once in their lifetime.”
Lagos State Commissioner for Home Affairs Dr Abdul-Hakeem Abdul-Lateef, who was represented by Permanent Secretary, State Civil Service Commission, Mrs. Toyin Awoseyi, said Nigerians who embarked on pilgrimage should see the exercise as a platform for soul searching, cleansing and not a jamboree.
“The idea of going on pilgrimage is for us to go there and come back better citizens, it is not for jamboree; it is for us to come back and make our country a better place. We want a situation whereby as Christians, everything about us professes Christianity and there should be dignity and honour to those that have the title of Jerusalem Pilgrim (JP),’’ she added.
