The Metropolitan Archbishop of Abuja, John Cardinal Onaiyekan, yesterday tasked the President Muhammadu Buhari administration on the need to device effective means of ending the wanton killings of innocent Nigerians by herdsmen, and kidnapping, among other social vices.
The Catholic Bishop noted that there is so much tension in the country that makes preaching of unity and mutual natural love difficult.
“There are so many people who are fanning the flames of discord and of hatred and it is becoming very difficult to preach unity and mutual natural love and there are those who are already envisaging a clash between Christians and Muslims”, Onaiyekan said at the inauguration of Marian Soup Kitchen (MSK), a centre for free humanitarian services in Gwagwalada Area Council of Abuja, alongside the Sultan of Sokoto, Alhaji Muhammad Sa’ad Abubakar.
The Cardinal, who recently narrowly escaped death in an ambush by suspected herdsmen in Delta State added: “there are those who are interpreting the clash between Fulani’s herdsmen and farmers as the front line of this battle. Some are shaping their cutlasses getting ready for the big battle”.
“Everybody knows what government should do because one of the primary duties of government is to ensure security of life and property of all Nigerians, which means where you have any group of people whether they are Fulani’s herdsmen or kidnappers, or armed robbers, government should device ways of effectively checkmating them.
“There is a terrible wind blowing around our country right now. Thanks-be to God that there are many Nigerians who do not believe that we are doomed to kill one another, that there is hope for us to live together as fellow Nigerians.
“We have done it for many years. Despite the civil war, we have lived together and the civil war in any case was not a war between Christians and Muslims. How can it be? When the then Head of State, Gen. Yakubu James Gowon, was a Christian. We have proved to the whole world that we can live together.
“I go all over the world boasting of this, telling them that in Nigeria, that we have not less than 80 million Christians, 80 million Muslims, living side by side, day by day at every level of our lives.
“From the Executive Council meetings at Aso Villa down to the women in Wuse market we must live together because nobody has anything to gain from conflicts and confusion.
“What the Sultan and I have been preaching all along is that the things that we have in common are much more important than the things that divide us. Even in doctrine, to believe that there is one God, that is something great. Only a few mad people will tell us that the God of Christians is different from the God of the Muslims. How many God do we have?
“To believe in this one God, that is something great. When we suffered Ebola in Nigeria, there was no Christian Ebola or Muslim Ebola. We all faced it together”.
In his remarks, Sultan Abubakar advised government to do more for the less privileged, saying Islam will never teach violence, insurgency and killings.
Represented by the Executive Secretary, Abuja National Mosque Management Board, Alh. Ibrahim Jega, the Sultan urged Nigerian youths to shun violence and stick to the teachings of their religion.
The founder of MSK, Rev. Father Willy Ojukwu, said, religion should not separate us but unite us, hence, the promotion of inter-religious harmony from grass roots.
“We should be our brothers/sisters keeper, hence the feeding of the hungry, counseling the downtrodden and giving hope to the hopeless all for free”, he said.
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