BY: VITALIS UGOH, Calabar
The President of the Pentecostal Fellowship of Nigeria (PFN), Cross River State chapter, Pastor Lawrence Ekwok, says any Pastor arrested for violating the Covid-19 lock down on churches should not involve the association.
This is so because, PFN is a law abiding association and has no right whatsoever to disobey or disregard government directives.
Pastor Ekwok was reacting to a telephone chat with the the Publisher and Editor-In-Chief of PatriotNews Online in Calabar yesterday over the alleged arrests of some PFN members in Cross River State by security personnel monitoring the government directives that churches should not hold.
He said “as a body we have a platform where we circulate information concerning government directives as far as COVID-19 is concerned. We receive these information’s and put it there and we encourage our people to obey government directives.”
According to him, “so any Pastor who has gone against government directives will as well answer for himself. As PFN do not have anything to say outside of what Christian Association of Nigeria CAN has said”.
He said “we are in block under CAN. That is the umbrella body for all Christians and once a decision is taken we are bind by that decision whether it is good for us or not so long as it is CAN’s decision we obey it.”
In our own church, “Christ For the World” for instance, we don’t meet. We only meet in the house and not in the church since government says five people and we cannot have a church service with only five people.
He however denied that no member of PFN, Cross River State chapter s arrested. I am not aware. I have not been informed officially.
Said he, “what I can only tell you is that we have been encouraging our people to obey what government says and what CAN says.
The lock down has entered its second week as the situation gets tougher and tougher as markets and other places remained locked as security personnel were seen monitoring the observance on daily basis.
Hundreds of defaulters on the road without nose masks were reported to have been arrested and quarantined.
Cross River State government had announced a fine of N300000 on offenders.
