The Abia State government has commenced the screening of intending pilgrims for the 2025 Christian Pilgrimage.
The government advised the intending pilgrims to be good ambassadors of the state during their stay in the Holy Land.
Flagging off the screening in Umuahia, Governor Alex Otti emphasized the need for intending pilgrims to shun every behavior that may attract shame to the state but to focus on their religious mission.
Otti who was represented by the Secretary to the State Government, Professor Kenneth Kalu, lamented that the Abia contingents have not participated in the pilgrimage for the past few years.
He explained that it was the value placed on the trip to Holy Land that made his administration to reactivate the sponsorship of pilgrims.
The governor pointed out that the reduction in the number of those to be sponsored was necessitated by other competing needs in the state.
Earlier in his speech, the Chairman of Abia State Christian Pilgrims Board, Apostle Emmanuel Agomo, encouraged every person that would be successful in the screening to be a good ambassador of Abia while in Israel.
He however informed the intending pilgrims that the filling of forms is not an automatic guarantee that they would make the trip. According to Agomo, only those who were successfully screened would head to the Holy Land.
