A group of Christian professionals and businesspersons under the aegis of the Africa Kingdom Business Forum (AKBF) has inaugurated its international headquarters in Abuja.

The forum, which aims to transform Africa, staring from Nigeria, will have its activities coordinated from the corporate headquarters as it works in collaboration with other organisations towards mobilising Christians ahead of the 2023 general elections.

This was disclosed by the Continental Chairman of the Forum, Engr. Steve Olumuyiwa in a chat with newsmen after the commissioning of the AKBF headquarters at the weekend.

He said that the Forum, which is pushing to change the narrative of limited participation in politics by Christians, began ideologically in 1997 when God spoke to the founders “that as Christian people praying, in order to see change in our nation, we need to get involved in the day-to-day of what we call the market place in the nation so that we can be part of what is being done.

“The second thing is that the only people who can change the society are people who themselves have been changed and that’s why we talk about what we call self-government – someone who knows how to do the right thing whether someone is there or not.

“For us today, it is a joy that, finally, we’re able to open an office here in the city of Abuja from where we’re going to do strong advocacy through raising of men and women that will change society”, the Continental Chairman said.

To achieve the desired aims, he said, “we train them through our institute and this facility here which we’re opening today is both an office as well as a training centre where we train people.

On centres established by the AKBF for the purpose of training people, the Engr. Olumuyiwa, who is a professional Electrical Engineer and businessman, said, “We have a centre for Spiritual Education, we have a centre for Economics, Innovation and Entrepreneurship to teach about business and enterprise.

“We have a centre for Leadership and Management Development. We have a centre for Good Governance and Political Development.

“These four Centres have already done their curriculum development that will be used to produce what we call a radicalized Nigerian population who will do the right thing when it comes to church, when it comes to economics, when it comes to government. These are the key areas.

“We have a fifth centre we call the centre for National Transformation; the centre for National Transformation will take courses from the four centres: Centre for Spiritual Education, Centre for Economics, Innovation and Entrepreneurship, Centre for Leadership and Management Development and Centre for Good Governance and Political Development and run short interactions in different places aimed at transformation.

“So, through training, capacity development in our institute, we are hoping to impact and advocate for ethical and value change in our nation in different areas”, Engr. Olumuyiwa said.

The AKBF, the Continental Chairman further said, is to get members of the forum to network among themselves to carry out what the forum calls initiatives.

According to him, such initiatives “are things we do over a period of time to see how to change a particular area.

“For example, we talked about education. Education is such a vital mountain in the nation. There is a brand of education which we call Christian Education.

“Christian education is biblical and it helps to develop children, adults in a godly manner, whether they are engineers, in law, arts, or humanities, there is an approach that is biblical and changes society.

“What we want to see as AKBF is a Nigeria where the citizens have self-government – they don’t need people to tell them what to do, they just know what to do and they do what they should do”, he explained.

He observed that a leadership that is influenced by morality values, a sense of righteousness and justice, a sense of compassion for the poor in the nation is the type of leadership that we envisage and that is the leadership that we believe that it will provide for Nigeria that type of environment where things can start functioning.

Speaking on how the achievement of the AKBF objectives can be measured, Engr. Olumuyiwa said, “What we see now is a beginning; a beginning where men and women of like-minds are coming together.

“We’re looking at issues that are critical to changing the nation and we will measure our achievements over the years by the quantum of men and women that we’re able to make in the image we’re projecting – the image of ethics, morality, values, the image of patriotism, the image that is different from the current transactional “what is in it for me” before I can do anything.

“So, over the next few years, by the grace of God, through our various initiatives – schools, masterclasses – we want to see how God will help us to multiply men and women who understand this perspective of societal change and we believe that if, maybe we are to impact a thousand people over the next one year, maybe two thousand, maybe three thousand because we know that there are men that are out there that believe that this is God’s hand upon them, talking about a different perspective to politics and government.

“But a tree doesn’t make a forest. So, we want to see how God helps us to multiply the volume of men and women as we will look for them and join hands together with them to form a network and over time we’ll see how we multiply by producing for Nigeria thousands of men and women who can change this country. This where we’re going”, he said.

On the roles of the Forum in the forthcoming general elections, the AKBF boss said that “we have a masterclass that we’re starting in January and that masterclass is to sensitise believers in terms of the need to really be election-sensitive and be participative because credible election begins with people who participate to make it credible, otherwise people will participate to make it incredible.

“The masterclass is part of our contribution; it’s part of our sensitisation and engagement with men and women who are already in politics – people who are already in active politics like people in the national assemble, people in various state assemblies.

“We want to see how we can reach them so that we can see how their worldview can change. I believe that many of these people are tired.

“The old style of politics won’t take Nigeria out of her problems. So, AKBF will be running a masterclass, by the grace of God, and even though our auditorium here is where we are going to run the physical class, we have put world class equipment for teleconferencing here.

“We have a website and a module that allows people to join internationally from anywhere around the world virtually so that we can have as many as possible in the class.

“So, we have an eight weeks duration for this masterclass and the details of it will available but it is an eight module class aimed at producing the men and women that we believe are the category of people Nigeria needs.

“If God helps us to succeed with this, we would have influenced a good number of people within the eight weeks duration, starting from January even though it is spread within the election period itself.

“Part of it is about stirring people to change the narrative of non-participation (in politics).

“We will do that through speaking to members of churches. We’re working with various institutions; we’re part of the political mobilisation that CAN (the Christian Association of Nigeria) is doing to help churches to improve Christian participation in politics for change for better”, Engr. Olumuyiwa revealed.

Members and key stakeholders at the grand opening ceremony of the AKBF international headquarters were the elder statesman, Barr Emeka Nwankpa, Dr. Tom Okon, Pharm. Iheanyi Uzoma, Rev. Dr. Willy Okoye, Barr. Godwill Iyoke, Dr. Sam Eziokwu, Mrs Remi Olumuyiwa, Mrs Becky Iyoke, Pastor Godswill Davies, Prof Kalu Ndubuisi, among others.

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