Acting President Yemi Osinbajo has urged church leaders not to glorify the looters of the nation’s treasury but to ostracise them.

Osinbajo, who expressed concern on how those who fraudulently amassed wealth have landed the country to where it is, called on the church to desist from holding such people in high esteem.

The Acting President, who spoke today at the Aso Villa Chapel Service to mark the 2017 Father’s Day Celebration, called on all fathers in the country to be exemplary leaders that build a generation of righteous men and women.

His words: “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.

“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 to where it is today. Many of 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 allow 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.”

Prof. Osinbajo also called on the fathers to bring up their children with the virtue of integrity.

“When I listened to His Eminence a few minutes ago talking about the importance of the type of training we received as a child; the type of training where you were taught primarily about integrity; that you must be a person of integrity; that you must be truthful, you must be honest. That is the foundational teaching.

“Even knowing the Ten Commandment was enough to teach you about righteousness. That is so important especially for us who are Christians,” he stated.

The Acting President urged all fathers in the country to follow the foot-step of Abraham in the scripture that God chose in order to “command his children and household in the way of the Lord, to do righteousness and justice.”

He called on fathers to love their wives and refrain from any forms of domestic violence.

There were also song presentations by the children and the fathers to celebrate the day.

Other dignitaries in attendance included Archbishop of Methodist Church Abuja, Oche Job; and the Solicitor General and Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Justice, Taiwo Abidogun.

Update news