Following the successes of previous visits to other Christian worship centres in the ongoing “Speak Out” campaign, the Family Empowerment and Youth Reorientation Path Initiative team today Sunday 24th August 2025, embarked on another visit to another worship centre in the heart of Uyo, the Capital City of Akwa Ibom State to further spread the gospel against Violence Against Persons (VAPP) and Gender Based Violence (GBV).
Armed with the knowledge that Akwa Ibom State is inhabited predominantly by Christians, the decision to take the campaign to end gender-based violence in the state to churches in both rural and urban centres is an indicator of FEYReP’s firm and unshakable resolve to reach out to the greater population directly and to create an awareness that encourages the larger population to become participants in the end gender-based violence campaign by SPEAKING UP. To this end, the campaign team today visited one of the biggest Apostolic Church Nigeria’s congregations in the state, The Apostolic Church, 69 Oron Road, Uyo Akwa Ibom State. A church which gathers worshipers in their thousands every other Sunday.
The delegation to the Apostolic Church, 69 Oron Road was led by the Coordinator of FEYReP and had at least 10 members of the advocacy team in attendance. The spokesperson for the team Pastor Idorenyin Attih who addressed the congregants, expressed sincere gratitude to the church leadership for opening the doors of the church and allowing the church platform to be used for a course as noble as the fight against gender-based violence, spearheaded by FEYReP in partnership with the Nigeria Women’s Trust Fund (NWTF). In his speech, Pastor Attih defined gender-based violence as acts of sever physical, verbal, mental and psychological abuse meted out on a person based on the person’s specific gender. In his expose he made it known that people of all gender, age and class can be exposed to or suffer gender-based violence, and this includes but are not limited to men, women and children, he also pointed out that due to available statistics, the most vulnerable set of people who suffer gender-based violence in Nigeria and Akwa Ibom State are women and children, with very few recorded cases indicating men as victims of GBV.
Among the many forms of GBV, Pastor Attih listed sexual assault, statutory rape, domestic violence involving husband and wife, house help abuse and maltreatment, trafficking, harmful widowhood practices, female genital as some of the recorded cases of gender-based violence recorded in the state.
Pastor Attih went on to inform the congregants of the strides of FEYReP and NWTF in combatting the social scourge, he highlighted the Violence Against Persons (VAPP) Law of 2015, which was amended and domesticated in Akwa Ibom State in 2020 as the most potent tool for fighting and ending gender-based violence in the state. He urged the congregants to become active ambassadors in the war against GBV, to report such incidences within their localities to law enforcement officers or to FEYReP physically at the office or via phone lines provided on shared flyers, assuring that FEYReP will ensure no stone is left unturned till justice is served on VAPP and GBV offenders.
“The clarion call for all to SPEAK UP, is based on the need to break the culture of silence which for so long a time has enabled predators and offenders to continue thriving in their evil deeds and wicked ways unchecked. Silence is an enabler, if good people do not act to stop evil, then evil will prevail, as such we must all speak up, not only for ourselves, but for our neighbours, for the safety of our women and children, and generally for a better society.”
The preacher for the church service was Elder A, Ebong, who preached on the topic: THE TOTAL RESTORATION, drawn from Joel 2: 25 – 26
Copies of an abridged and simplified version of the Akwa Ibom State VAPP LAW 2020 were presented to the church leadership by the FEYReP Coordinator, Dr Idorenyin Ekanem while flyers and pamphlets on GBV were shared to the congregants.
