Expose the thieves in your midst, Osinbajo charges churches

Acting President Yemi Osinbajo has challenged churches to expose and ostracise members whose income do not match their wealth.

Speaking on Sunday at the Aso Rock Chapel, Abuja, Osinbajo charged Christian leaders to start questioning the wealth of their members.

The acting president said Nigeria will not have many of its present problems if only the church will stop allowing thieves to join its fold.

Osinbajo urged Christian leaders to embrace the role of nation building, while lamenting that the “greed of many” is behind the many problems of the country.

“I want to say that all of our leaders, the Christian leaders; the PFN and CAN, that it is the role of the church to build this nation. And the church has that role because God has said concerning us that we are the light of the world and we are the salt of the earth. That role is a very difficult role. We are not to teach the world how to be like the world but to teach the world how to be like our saviour, Jesus Christ,” he said.

“Every time we come to the church, we are told about giving, but we need to talk more about honesty. Just now His Eminence said Nigeria’s great problem is not an absence of prosperity but that we have enough for our needs but we don’t have enough for our greed.

“The greed of many is what has landed this country where it is today. Many of those who are in position of authority, it is the greed that has landed us to where we are. Many who say the reason why they are stealing is because they need to have an arsenal for future political experiment, it is a lie! It is greed.

“And if the church says you are not allowed to steal and we will ostracise the thieves in our midst. If a man’s resources, what a man has does not measure up to what he earns, if you found that a man has more money than he should have, if a man is earning a salary in a civil service or public service and he has houses everywhere, we have to hold him to account.

“He must first be held to account in the church. He must first be told in the church, we will not allow this. If the church ostracise the thieves; if the church says we will not accept thieves here or we will ensure that we expose you, you are stealing the resources of our nation, you are stealing the resources of a private company or other establishments, then we will not have the kind of problems that we have in this country. If only the church can.”