Executive Secretary, Nigerian Christian Pilgrim Commission (NCPC), Rev. Tor Uja, has called on Christian leaders and those who are blessed with the resources in the Church to fund pilgrimage and the commission’s activities.

Uja made the call in an interview, on Thursday, in Abuja.

Uja said that the privileged ones should assist in sponsoring the weaker or the less privileged ones instead of begging for free tickets to travel to the Holy Land.

“One of the things I have noticed is that it is those who are millionaires and billionaires that come to me that I should give them free tickets, which we pay for.

“We spend over $3,000 per pilgrim so if we give free tickets that is at the minimum cost without additions of anything.

“When we add other things it will be over $4,000 per pilgrim and for our economy it is expensive yet it is those who have that come and put pressure on us to give them free tickets.

“I want to appeal to Christian leaders, who have the means, to sponsor Christian pilgrimage and to even fund NCPC’s activities.

“They should help us fund our camp construction, help us build some of our infrastructure and help us also establish safe houses in Greece and Rome,’’ he said.

The NCPC boss further described leadership as an inspiration that enables a people to rise up, possess their destiny and stand up to walk as a team.

He advised that a framework of leadership should be built so that everybody would see himself as a leader and behave as such, adding that the nation would attain its goal by so doing.

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“We need a nation that will build a framework of leadership that everybody sees himself as a leader and behave as such and then we can attain our goals.

“It is not that people are not in positions, but the inspiration that leadership gives the people to move to a direction is not there.

“Right now people see appointments and offices as opportunity to get out of poverty; poverty is not an issue.

“We need to move beyond ‘Panadol treatment’ and pursue the cure. One of the biggest things we have suffered in this country is lack of leadership,’’ the cleric said.

He, however, said that places like Israel have one succession of leadership into another.

According to Rev. Uja, I went to David Ben-Gurion’s house in Israel that is the longest serving Israeli president.

“If you go to his house, it is a three bedroom apartment that is all, which he also donated to Israel when he was dying so it is now a tourist attraction.

“Today somebody who is a clerk owns all kinds of mansions that he will never use because there is a lack of leadership generation.

“If it is war they fight it together in Israel, if it is peace they pursue it together,” he said. (NAN)