From Gbenga Omokhunu, Abuja
The Sultan of Sokoto, Sa’ad Abubakar III, has again come under fire over his comment on the ‘persecution’ of Christians. The leadership of the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) expressed shock and described his comment as that which could trigger religious crisis if not properly handled. Abubakar who is also the President of the Supreme Council of Islamic Affairs went hard on the leadership of CAN on Wednesday December 25, at the 77th Islamic Vacation course, organised by Zone A of the Muslim Students Society of Nigeria.
Sultan at the event said Christians are not going through prosecution while reacting to the recent United States’ placement of Nigeria, on the watch-list of countries where religious intolerance and breach of freedom of worship is rampant. CAN accuse the Sultan of not saying the truth adding that: “We respect the Sultan very much but what he said requires response in order to put things right. It was painful reading from the media that the Sultan of Sokoto, His Eminence, Sa’ad Abubakar, saying that there was no case of Christian persecution in the country where Christians are being killed on daily basis and their landed properties confiscated. It would have been better if the Sultan had remained quiet the way he did when those killings were taking place”.
A statement issued on Saturday and made available to The Nation by CAN’s National Director, Legal and Public Affairs, Evangelist Kwamkur Samuel, said: “The leadership of the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) has not seen the full text of the speech of Sultan of Sokoto, His eminence, Sa’ad Abubakar III and as a result, we can only react to what newspapers reported him to have said in Kano. But if he truly said that Christians are not being persecuted in Nigeria simply “because not all Fulanis are Muslims”, then, with due respect, he got it totally wrong.
“Recalling the several hundreds of the innocent people whose lives were cut short by the Fulani herdsmen in Southern Kaduna, Benue, Plateau, Adamawa and Taraba states, (states with Christian majority), it is an insult and insensitivity for anyone to be claiming that the unprecedented persecution which victims are well known did not occur. It is also an act of disrespect to the dead. If those who were responsible for the genocide in the Middle belt of the country were Fulani atheists “whose main interest is to protect their cattle,” what stopped him from condemning the unprecedented genocide? By the way, if Fulani atheists took it upon themselves to be killing Christians the way they did in Benue, Southern Kaduna, Plateau, will it still not be called Christian persecution? Do the Fulani atheists have the right to be killing people the way they did and are still doing in some part of the states?
“We are happy that the Sultan did not fault our claim that there was unprecedented killings in those areas may be the security agencies would have helped us to unmask the culprits and their religion if they had not appeared powerless while the killings lasted. It is reprehensible that to date, those who killed our brothers and sisters after raping and maiming them for weeks are still at large as if they were spirits.
“On the observation made by His eminence that if there have been cases of Christian persecution in the country we would have raised it at the Nigerian Inter-Religious Council (NIREC), where the leadership of the both religions meet, we wonder why the Sultan too could not come to NIREC to fault our position instead of using the public forum. The Sultan should not pretend as if he was unaware of several times we had gone to President Muhammadu Buhari to complain about systematic and deliberate killings of our brothers and sisters and the need for the killers to be brought to book and the killings stopped to no avail”.
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CAN went further that the fact that CAN and NIREC are meeting: “does not mean that all is well. We believe that having dialogues with our Muslim counterparts can reduce the tension in the land if there is sincerity. As long as a highly placed traditional ruler who is also the head of the Muslims in the country is denying the obvious then we are not surprised that other Muslim groups talk in the same vein. The government to whom we had complained about the plight of our people in the hands of over-zealous Muslims who said they were fighting Jihad was not convincing enough to show us that the action was not deliberate. We as well complained about lopsided appointments, especially of security chiefs, which has not been addressed till today.
“Going the memory lane, five young men were arrested, prosecuted and convicted in Yola for killing a Fulani herdsboy but till today, none of the herdsmen killers has been apprehended. Those arrested for turning the Southern Kaduna to a graveyard were later released while those who killed two Christian women in Kano and Kubwa are still at large, yet the Sultan has joined MURIC in faulting CAN and the US government that Christians were being persecuted. Thank God, it wasn’t the Fulani atheists and Fulani Christians who constitute 98 per cent of the Security council and those who are presiding over most of the security agencies and the paramilitary agencies. Was it Fulani atheists that kidnapped Leah Sharibu and refused to release her because she professed Christian faith?
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