ConFab - Islam - Nigeria .... Where are we going?

Pastor Bosun had bemoaned the wanton killing of hundreds of Christians across Nigeria, stressing the need for the conference to address the issue with a view to putting an end to the massacre and avert the resultant effect of a division of the country.

His words: “Nigeria as of today is producing widows and orphans in thousands.  Mr Chairman, permit me to show this stone.  I picked this stone personally in a village called Dogo Nahawa in Jos at the mass grave of 501 Christians slaughtered in one night.  They were not thieves and they were not criminals but were killed because they chose to be Christians.

Our country today is facing a terrible calamity as religion has become a manipulative tool that is being used to cause destruction all over the nation. This conference needs to address religion squarely before religion is used to scatter Nigeria.

Mr President in his speech on pages 14 and 15 made reference to the need for us to review the constitution because it is inadequate. And when we look at the issue currently on ground, the bloodshed that is all over Nigeria, we find at the root, constitutional inconsistencies.  Section 10 of our constitution says the government is prohibited from adopting any religion as state religion, and the same constitution gives room for establishment and funding of one religion.

In the 1999 Constitution Sharia is mentioned 73 times, Grand Khadi 54 times, Islam 28 times, and Muslim 10 times but there is no single mention of Christ, Christian, Christianity or church. Some mischievous elements have taken this lapse in the constitution to come to the ungodly decision that probably the state is an Islamic state, and wonder what Christians are doing here.

Hundreds of our churches are being burnt, Christians are killed and in fact it has reached the stage of genocide and I will cite just one example: In just one denomination in Plateau State, the Women’s Fellowship as at 2001 had 500 registered widows.  By 2008 they had 900 registered widows, as at February 2014 they have 25,000 registered widows.  We have to talk to ourselves.