The President/ General Overseer, United Apostolic Church of Christ UACC, Rev. Dr. James Bayo Owoyemi

The President and General Overseer of the United Apostolic Church of Christ UACC, Rev. Dr James Bayo Owoyemi has lent his voice in condemning the incessant cases of kidnap and killing of Nigerians, especially men of God, saying that the country’s leaders should seek the face of God to end the nation’s woes.

The President, who spoke against the backdrop of the 56th Annual Supreme Executive Council Meeting of the church in Lagos at the weekend, also observed that nothing is particularly wrong with the Nigerian nation but blamed many of her woes on leadership failures over the years.

He noted that men of God as well as women and children have not been spared in the wanton kidnap for ransom and killings across the country, which he argued, was not part of God’s original design for the country, an indication that Nigerians, especially the leadership need to turn to God at the point in time to heal the land.

According to him, God in His infinite mercies has blessed the country with abundance of natural and human resources, but regretted that the leadership overtime failed to put these resources into good use for the benefit of the entire citizenry, a development that is substantially responsible for the worsening insecurity and economic challenges, which manifest in scarcity of staple foods and general high cost of living.

He said: “It is obvious that the government is doing its best but you can agree with me that this is not yielding the required results. That tells you that what the leaders need to do now is to turn to God in prayer for the cleansing and healing of the land. We must love and pray for the peace of the land and anyone who does the contrary is an enemy of God.

“Parents should also endeavour to introduce God to their children and wards early as a way to curb the growing cases of crimes because when the youths are under the control of the Holy Spirit, their tendencies to take to criminal activities would be reduced”.

He is however optimistic that despite her current political, social and economic predicaments, Nigeria remains God’s own country and assured that she would emerge stronger and better at the end of all her current challenges.

While speaking on the activities of the mission, Rev. Owoyemi, who mounted the saddle as the 4th President and General Overseer of the mission in December last year, observed that while the world population was growing very fast, the spreading of the gospel of Christ was not growing on an equal proportion.

To this effect, he assured that the mission under his leadership has already embarked on an aggressive spreading of the gospel of Jesus Christ to every part of the world, noting that though the church currently has members spread across the country, it plans to establish parishes in all the 36 states of the federation and Abuja in the next five years.

He also projects that the church, which is currently only in two continents of the world; Africa and Europe, would spread to all the continents of the world within the next 10 years.

On the structure and ownership of the church, he said: “UACC is unique in nature as it was founded by the Holy Spirit himself so nobody can lay claim to founding it. Our focus is to spread the gospel to all the ends of the earth and to serve humanity.

“Since the assumption of duty in December last year, I embarked on familiarisation of all our churches, we have visited Ondo, Osun and many others. We are in Lagos in continuation of the familiarisation visits. We also visited many traditional rulers because we believe that the traditional rulers and the church leaders must synergise in order to restore peace in the land. Many of them we visited are not happy with the worsening insecurity in the country.

“The essence of the Annual Supreme Executive Council Meeting of the church is to discuss some crucial issues such as pastors that would be recommended for ordination ahead of the mission’s annual convention slated for Akure, Ondo State in November this year”.