REJOINDER – “INSECURITY, ALLEGED ISLAMIZATION: PETITION BY CHRISTIAN ELDERS, PRANK TO SCORE CHEAP POLITICAL POINTS”
This rejoinder is in response to the publication in Vanguard Newspaper of 7th June, 2019, with heading: "Insecurity, alleged Islamization: Petition by Christian elders, prank to score cheap political points - by Muslim Groups.”
It is unfortunate that Muslim Groups would make such claims of “prank to score cheap political points” against the Christian Elders as no member of NCEF is neither a politician nor have anything to gain from political patronage. The claim is divisive, which rather than contribute to the efforts of the Christian Elders to find a peaceful and lasting solution to current national crisis, and ensure Nigeria can benefit from the gains of democracy, like other advanced democratic countries around the world, is trying to cause disaffection amongst the people.
It should be repeated here for emphasis that the root or main cause of the crisis in Nigeria, as stated by the NCEF, has nothing to do with Christianity or Islam, neither is it about North against the South, East against West, nor is it Farmers and Herders clash as some call it, and neither is it a clash of personalities or political parties. All these are symptoms. The Nigerian crisis is caused by the dual conflicting ideology of Sharia against Democracy as practiced in Nigeria, and is now enshrined in the 1999 Constitution and here it is being downplayed and simply called Islam against Christianity by these Muslim groups; no, it is not. This is nothing short of mischief which can actually create tension in the polity that can incite the public.
The position of NCEF on this dual ideological conflict is not new and it is not different from the EU Report (Sharia, the Cairo Declaration and the European Convention on Human Rights http://assembly.coe.int/nw/xml/XRef/Xref-DocDetails-EN.asp?FileID=25353&lang=EN ) that states categorically that Sharia and the Human Rights which is enshrined in Democracy are not compatible. Yet, some people think it can work in Nigeria and we can see the attendant consequences over the last 59 years of becoming an independent sovereign nation.
We hope our Muslim groups and Muslim leaders will begin to work on addressing these issues and resolving this conflict in favor of Democracy for Nigeria's secularity and Human Rights enshrined in our Constitution as the only ideology and type of governance in place for peace and development to thrive. Rather than throw views and counterviews, we should be sitting together to discuss how to resolve the conflict in our National Ideology so that we can all have peace and make progress.
God bless Nigeria.
Bosun Emmanuel
Secretary
NCEF
7th June, 2019