In the news
President
of Uma Ukpai Evangelistic Association Inc., Evangelist Uma Ukpai, spoke
with Sunday Oguntola on how the renowned ministry has been affecting
lives in the last 42 years. Excerpts:
Your fellowship yesterday was on helping the poor among the poorest. Why did you take up that issue?
Our society is getting to a place where
we are becoming a selfish community and we are unfeeling to the less
privileged among us. We have become political lepers. A leper feels no
pains or feelings for others.
A selfish community will have the demon
of greed rule but our God blesses people so that each man may protect
the weak around him, cover the naked and feed the poor. God blesses us
so that we can bless people.
God is an insightful, strategic planner.
He blesses us so that we can bring the mad out of the roads into a
place of dignity. The bible teaches that whoever helps the poor has
given loan to the poor and God is committed to paying back with
interests.
Worship that does not involve helping
the poor is a waste of time. When you give to the poor, your light
begins to shine. You see what others cannot see; you see what others see
but see hidden treasures. He will let you see gold in a trash.
God is in the love with the poor for
reasons that I cannot say. When we mock the poor, we are mocking God.
Every poor person you see around is a gateway to financial blessings and
relevance.
How far has the ministry exemplified this?
For more than 30 years, we run a free
medical outreach. There was a time I was giving all the South East
states N10million worth of drugs every year. I did this for over 15
years. I used to have a team of 23 medical doctors from overseas with
drugs worth N50million a year.
I will bring nurses, pharmacists and
doctors for the outreach. I have also sited a hospital in my village 15
years ago. Those in villages are so hopelessly poor that no one can make
money off them. We now have an eye hospital with six doctors full-time.
It is called Uma Ukpai Eye Centre. I send make-up from here regularly
to make the hospital run.
We partner with ophthalmologists
overseas that can be part of surgeries via internet should the doctors
run into trouble. They now when they run out of salaries, they can run
back to me for make-up. I have done this for 18 years.
It is called King of Kings Specialist
Hospital. It serves the people in Abia, Akwa Ibom and Cross Rivers
States. I have tarred the streets to the two hospitals.
What is the scholarship scheme all about?
It is a scheme for 102 undergraduates
that run for five years. Once a student is taken in, it runs for five
years. There are 102 beneficiaries on board. They are students from
UNIUYO. I don’t even know them or where they come from. My job is to
make the money available every year. Also, half of the students in our
Bible School are on scholarship.
How about the widows’ support scheme?
It is not a permanent feature but we do
it from day to day. I don’t feel comfortable talking about all we do for
widows. This morning, we just sent N200, 000 to a widow whose police
husband was killed recently.
You are working on a Polytechnic. Tell us about it.
The Polytechnics is on 350 plots of land
and the community has just given me 250 additional plots. I intend to
erect College of Agriculture for girls. I want to show them how to turn
one goat into 20 in one year; one ram into 20; one pig into 100 in one
year.
Women are humble enough for that kind of
training. I want our girls to marry out of love, not out of financial
pressure. Our women do not need to depend on anybody even when they are
married. The Polytechnic is taking off by September. We are offering
Electrical Engineering, Computer Engineering, Computer Science,
Statistics and Accounting. I intend to have a research centre at the
Polytechnics.
If you notice, we are a consuming
nation; we have not been part of human inventions. All the cars we drive
are imported; same as our generators and phones. I believe we should be
part of the competition, not just consuming. We can create whatever
others have created.
You always encourage people to give. Why is that?
Everybody has to give to somebody who is
poorer. You cannot be the poorest around. If you are a maid in my
house, you have a chance of going to the university if you choose to. We
will pay your way to university education. About 45 people have passed
through us. One is a medical doctor while another is a lawyer. There are
many others like that. I believe every help to the poor is a loan to
God.
Where do you get the resources for all these projects considering that you don’t draw tithes and offering like churches?
That is a question I cannot answer
because truly I don’t know myself. My wife has been asking me to tell
her where I get money from and I say, ‘at least we sleep on the same bed
every day and so I am not an armed robber.’
But you will be amazed somebody will
just call and say, ‘God has told me to lodge N10million into your
account for the next 20 years. Check your account because I have paid
for the first three years.’
And when I want to know the identity, most of the times they say don’t worry about that.
How do you feel when some churches and leaders do not engage in CSR?
It all depends on their backgrounds. I
lost my father at the age of 10 and my mother was sick for five years.
My uncle drove me away in 1958 when the governor visited school. He
asked us, the best three students in the school, what we will be in the
future.
I said I will be a preacher, the other
said he will be a doctor and the third said he will succeed the
governor. To be prominent at that age and asked to answer the governor
gave my uncle the hope I will ask for a high-sounding pursuit. So, he
sent me away in anger. He said I had no drive and will not waste money
on me. He asked me to show him a preacher with good car.
So, I know what it means to lose a
father and be a father from that age. I know what it is to save money to
pay school fees. I paid my way to schools. So, I have feelings for the
poor. I learnt early enough to know that Satan throws at you can become
stepping stones. For me, it is a lifelong commitment; I have signed up
to help the poor for the rest of my life.
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