Edo State Deputy Governor, Philip Shaibu, has urged the need for parents to imbibe the culture of Godliness in their homes by bringing up their children in the way of the Lord.
He said it is the pinnacle in an efforts of dealing with the issue of insurgency and kidnapping in the country.
According to him, the starting point of building a nation is by building the homes. He called on fathers to amplify those things that will unite the nation.
“A father or leader should not say or do in secret what he cannot own up to in public because nothing is secret. If we can act as St. Joseph in the Bible then the issues of insecurity will be history in Nigeria,” he said.
Shaibu, who serves as an altar boy to mark Father’s Day, gave the charge, yesterday, while serving as the chief man servant at the St. Paul Catholic Church in Benin.
He describes fathers as soldiers of Christ with the task of training children in the way they should go so that when they are old they will not depart from it (Proverb, 22 vs. 6).
While urging parents to be agents of unity and love, he advised fathers to work with mothers to build homes that will contribute to the development, peace and security of the nation.
“We must continue to build a bottom-up society in which parents draw strength from their homes just as leaders draw power not from themselves or even their office but the masses,” he said.
He said the Governor Godwin Obaseki’s administration has been engaged in the implementation of developmental programmes to enhance the economic status of parents and assured the administration will continue to empower parents to enable them take care of the needs of their children.
“As a government, we will continue to create opportunities for wealth creation through the necessary infrastructural facilities that will enhance commercial activities in the state. It is the responsibility of fathers to provide for their homes and we shall continue to create opportunities for self-realisation to enable fathers to play their statutory roles at home,” he said.