RCCG inaugurates Gombe Province 2

The Redeemed Christian Church of God (RCCG) has inaugurated a new provincial headquarters in Gombe State, named: “Gombe Province 2” following its approval at the just concluded RCCG Convention held at the Redemption City located along the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway.

The new province located in Nasarawo Community in Gombe Local Government Area of Gombe State held its inaugural service on Sunday to welcome the newly posted Pastor-in-Charge as members and workers of RCCG from the state graced the occasion.

In his welcome speech, Pastor-in-charge of Province 1, Pst Johnson Akinsehinwa expressed gratitude to God for the establishment of the new Province, viewing it as a divine mandate for evangelism, discipleship, and community impact.

He described the inauguration of the new province as historic and a proof that God’s covenant of increase is alive amongst the RCCG family in the state.

He expressed special thanks to Pastor E.A. Adeboye, the General Overseer, and Pastor Julius Olalekan, the Regional Pastor, along with their wives, for their vision and support to the establishment of the new province.

“This Province is a divine mandate, an opportunity for greater evangelism, discipleship and community impact. As Isaiah 54:2-3 declares, the Lord is calling us to enlarge, to expand, and to break forth.

“We trust Him(God) that, in years to come, we shall witness more Provinces birthed in this land, if Christ tarries,” he said.

The PIC, Gombe Province 1 called on RCCG members in the state to remain united and steadfast in Christ while recommitting to soul winning and service.

He prayed that the new province would flourish and its leadership blessed with wisdom to pilot the activities of the church towards making its light shine like a city on a hill.

In his speech, Pst Joshua David, PIC, Gombe Province 2, thanked the RCCG family for their warm reception, noting that the love shown to him had made him feel at home.

David while recounting his experiences in Imo, Bayelsa and Delta States, said: “it pays to serve God”, encouraging members to rededicate their lives to the service of God.

According to him, his coming to Gombe Province 2 is not to lord over anyone or exercise authority but to advance the kingdom of God.

He commended Pst E. A Adeboye and Pst Olalekan for their support and vision in approving the establishment of the new province which he said would become a place for God’s children to be favoured.

Our Correspondent reports that there are 117 RCCG parishes in the state, which have now been split amongst the two Provinces in the state with Gombe Province 1 having 60 parishes while Province 2 has 57.

RCCG inaugurates Gombe Province 2

Armed men attack cattle herders, one killed, one kidnapped in Bauchi

By: Zagazola Makama

An adult man was killed and a 12-year-old boy kidnapped after unidentified armed men attacked cattle herders in Yankari bush, Alkaleri Local Government, on Sunday morning.

Alhaji Ibrahim of Kunkar village reported that at about 7:20 a.m., while his family members were tending to cattle, the assailants approached and demanded to know who was the son of the owner. During the confrontation, 35-year-old Adamu Ibrahim attempted to flee but was shot in the left leg.

The injured man was rushed to the Primary Health Centre in Gar, where he was pronounced dead. The assailants subsequently kidnapped Sule Ibrahim, aged 12, before fleeing the scene.

Local hunters and community members have intensified search efforts in the area to rescue the boy and apprehend the attackers. Investigations are ongoing.

Armed men attack cattle herders, one killed, one kidnapped in Bauchi

The Pathfinder Clocks 56

Zulum’s age showcases life in years, not years in life

By Dauda Iliya

What matters in the life of a man is not the number of years in his life but the quality of life in those years. This should even be more applicable to leaders than to the led in all aspects of human affairs.

Every person entrusted with the responsibility of political cum public office should be rich in the capacity to uphold the trust reposed in him by his people, and discharge the concomitant duties and responsibilities to them according to their needs and aspirations.

As he ages on in life, counting the number of years he has lived on Earth, should savour satisfaction from, and build his inner peace with, his accomplishments that purposefully and qualitatively impact the life of the people whose affairs he, by sheer divine providence, has been entrusted with the management of.

How rich is he in the capacity required for the discharge of his political cum public office duties and responsibilities to the people? How much has he accomplished in the discharge of those duties and responsibilities on the scale of the resources made available for the purpose, surmounting all towering challenges, and how has he converted challenges to opportunities, obstacles to stepping stones, in the course of service to the people?

How has he towered above board in the conduct of public service? How much enviable value has he added to the service of the society according to the needs and aspirations of its people? How well has he performed in building and sustaining his personality as a compass in the search for guidance towards purposeful and qualitative public service?

How high and remarkably does he stand out among all other leaders, in person and personae, before and after him in the history of purposeful and prosperous service to the humanity?

All these considerations factor vitally in determining the quality of life in the years he has lived on Earth, not merely the number of years he has lived in life.

It is pertinent to weigh the present Governor of Borno State, Professor Babagana Umara Zulum, on the scale of these vital factors in determining the quality of leadership and public service to his beleaguered Borno State and its peoples, as he attains the age of 56 in life on Earth, Monday, August 25.

As a pacesetter, Zulum is the first Professor to govern the state in its history. To some, this historic educational attainment may not be striking enough to warrant any spectacular recognition that should enviably stand him out of all other personalities that governed the state before him.

However, to others, this educational attainment is remarkably striking, because it serves as the most-desired foundation for him to conceive, craft and efficiently coordinate the deployment of the most-relevant, most-potent and, indeed, cutting age programmes and projects desired for the rescue of an entity out of its epochal humanitarian crisis which, hitherto threatened to crush it out of existence.

Gifted with rare foresight and proactivity, Zulum has governed a Borno ravaged in all sectors by a global-scale terror and its attendant humanitarian crisis over the last fifteen years, steering it out of the global-scale turbulence it has been floundering in, and repositioning it for comprehensive rehabilitation and reconstruction for a prosperity that fast restores its pre-Boko Haram/ISWAP terror glory.

The pathfinding Zulum has purposefully and efficiently deployed his intellectual prowess to craft and drive sustainable reforms for the rapid resuscitation of Borno. The Borno Model of societal recovery he crafted earned him dazzling praises from the United Nations Secretary-General, Antonio Guterres.

Most-spectacular of such reforms are the 25-year Development Plan, Borno State Strategy for Durable Solutions to Internal Displacement, the Borno Model for Peace, Reconciliation and Development, Transitional Justice Framework, under which he has closed all IDP camps that has littered Maiduguri over the last fifteen years, and returning the IDPs to their ancestral lands to rebuild their lives, with the prime purpose of fast-tracking the reconstruction and rapid growth of the state economy.

Faced with the stark reality that there is certainly no shortcut to the desired comprehensive restoration of the state in all sectors from the crisis, and such restoration cannot be achieved with hundreds of thousands of IDPs surviving on handouts from international donors and food palliatives by government, the Professor of Agricultural Engineering carefully coordinated the relocation of the entire IDP population to their ancestral communities to resume their farming, fishing and trading activities that built and sustained an enviable economy for Borno over the ages.

His foresight and vision led him to invest in the health sector, building quality healthcare delivery institutions, most notably the Borno State University Teaching Hospital, Orthopaedic Hospital, Dental and Eye Hospitals, and scholarship for hundreds of the state indigenes to train as medical doctors and other health related personnel.

Zulum’s six years as Borno State Governor are six years of purposeful leadership that reshaped state’s economic, social, and infrastructural landscape from the epicentre of insurgency to a hub for viable economic investments. Consequently, Presidential Enabling Business Environment Council (PEBEC) ranks Borno among the top 10 ranking states in the federation on ease of doing business.

This remark is contained in a presentation on ” Sub national ease of doing business report” by the project manager SABER secretariat Abuja Ms Aimeya Okpebholo.

His humility, generosity, perseverance, simplicity, resilience and, uncommon commitment to justice and fairness in the distribution of development across Borno State and, above all, his impeccable passion for good governance to rescue the state from the sticky humanitarian crisis breathe bubbling life to the years he has lived on Earth.

His exemplary passion for service to humanity has enabled him to write his name in gold in the pages of history with regard to leadership and good governance in Nigeria.

At 56, Governor Babagana Umara Zulum of Borno State proudly exhibits that what should matter in one’s age is the quality of life he has lived on Earth in his given capacity, rather than the mere number of years he has lived.

Happy birthday, Your Excellency

The Pathfinder Clocks 56