A SPECIAL WARNING TO THE ENTIRE CHRISTIANS LIVING IN NORTHERN NIGERIA.
(This Message must be taken very seriously by every Church Leader, Christian and any responsible man or woman that wishes to live in safety in Northern Nigeria)
A Special Publication of the Hausa Christians Foundation (HACFO) on 3rd August, 2018
The federal government has said that the Nigerian Educational Research and Development Council (NERDC) has completed the separation of Christian Religious Studies Curriculum and Islamic Studies Curriculum. The decision was taken at the 63rd meeting of the National Council on Education (NCE), held at the International Conference Centre, Abuja, from Wednesday 1st to Thursday 2nd August, 2018 which was presided over by the minister of Education, Malam Adamu Adamu and supported by the minister of State for Education, Prof. Anthony Gozie Anwukah.
Dear Madame Prosecutor Bensouda,
We want to commend you for the more rigorous engagement on human rights violations in Nigeria since your ascension to the pinnacle post of Chief Prosecutor.
Given your robust inquiries into potential war crimes and crimes against humanity in Nigeria, it is with grave concern that we note the announcement by Nigeria’s presidency via the News Agency of Nigeria that General Buhari will be meeting with you in The Hague this week.
(Presented and adopted at the Middle Belt Summit in Makurdi, Monday 16 July 2018)
Introduction
Our country Nigeria is constitutionally a federal state. By federalism, we are referring to a constitutional arrangement whereby power is shared between a central government and the constituent federating units. The federal system tends to predominate in diverse societies where the people choose to live together within a broader political community while seeking to preserve their cultural, linguistic and ethno-religious diversities. Central to the federalist idea is the devolution of power, with clear constitutional provisions regarding the rights and prerogatives of the centre and the federating units.
The various interventions and advocacies of the National Christian Elders Forum (NCEF) have reached the point where definite actions have to be taken. Since its inception on January 15, 2015, the NCEF has undertaken, amongst many others, the following actions to uphold freedom and democracy in Nigeria:
Coordinated military style attacks ravaged 15 communities in some local government areas of Plateau state from 23rd - 24th June, 2018, which resulted to the death of 233 persons with many others injured and several properties destroyed while thousands of villagers were displaced.
Below is the list of districts, communities and people killed in the attack
(Intersociety, Nigeria: 7th July 2018)-The central Government of Nigeria headed by Mr. Muhammadu Buhari-a retired major general; has continued to make inflammatory, diversionary, deceitful, threatening and other injurious statements over the orgy of ethno-religious and state killings in Nigeria. These are followed by complicit government policies and conducts, which see the killings escalating and worsening in the country day in day out.
Despite several expert recommendations and pieces of advice given or offered to the central Government of Nigeria arising from research findings of various local and international research and investigative groups on how to end the ongoing killings by Government and non state actor Jihadist armed groups in Middle Belt and old Eastern Nigeria and fish out the perpetrators and bring them to justice; the Buhari Administration has not only failed woefully to heed or act on such independent expert recommendations, but also clannishly chosen to remain inescapable complicit in same.
The Chairman of the US Congressional House Subcommittee on Global Human Rights and a senior member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, Mr. Chris Smith, has requested that President Buhari should publicly speak out in condemnation of mass killings of Middle Belt Christian farmers in their ancestral homelands by the MACBAN-sponsored Fulani herdsmen militia. The powerful US congressman made his wish known while welcoming the release of the State Department’s annual International Religious Freedom Report by Secretary Pompeo’s announcement of a Ministerial Committee to Advance Religious Freedom scheduled for July 25-26, 2018. The committee on religious freedom, which shall be constituted in late July 2018, shall focus on collating reports of mass extrajudicial killings throughout Nigeria since the outset of the Muhammadu Buhari's presidency.
TEXT OF PRESS CONFERENCE BY NATIONAL CHRISTIAN ELDERS FORUM (NCEF) ON THE CAUSES AND SOLUTIONS TO CONFLICTS IN NIGERIA HELD AT THE NATIONAL CHRISTIAN CENTRE, ABUJA, ON FRIDAY 22ND JUNE 2018 AT 4.00PM
Ladies and Gentlemen of the Press,
The National Christian Elders Forum (NCEF) welcomes you to this Press Conference which is aimed at expressing its concerns about the state of the Nigerian State as well as propose solutions. As this Press Conference coincides with the 67th World Congress of the International Press Institute (IPI), taking place in Abuja, the NCEF wishes to appreciate Journalists worldwide for their immense contribution not just to provide information, but for acting as guardians of freedom, justice and equity in nations of the world. Without the Journalists, dictators and tyrants would have made the world unbearable for the human race. As Christians, we pray that the protection of the Almighty God shall rest on the Journalists, worldwide.
TEXT OF PRESS CONFERENCE BY NATIONAL CHRISTIAN ELDERS
FORUM (NCEF) ON THE CAUSES AND SOLUTIONS TO CONFLICTS IN
NIGERIA HELD AT THE NATIONAL CHRISTIAN CENTRE, ABUJA, ON
FRIDAY 22ND JUNE 2018 AT 4.00PM
Ladies and Gentlemen of the Press,
DEMOCRACY IS THE FUTURE OF NIGERIA
PRESENTED BY BOSUN EMMANUEL AT CATHOLIC MEN’S GUILD ANNUAL CONFERENCE, CATHOLIC CHURCH OF ASSUMPTION, FALOMO, IKOYI, LAGOS HELD AT MUSON CENTRE, ONIKAN, LAGOS, ON SATURDAY 16TH JUNE, 2018 AT 10.00AM
PRESENTED BY NATIONAL CHRISTIAN ELDERS FORUM AT RCCG MEGA POLITICAL CONFERENCE ON FRIDAY 15TH JUNE, 2018 AT REDEMPTION CAMP LAGOS
Nigeria is currently embroiled in myriad of crisis and distresses that stagger the imagination. For careful observers, it is a mystery how the country still exists. National distresses range from corruption to insecurity, unemployment of gigantic proportions, collapsed social infrastructure and dysfunctional institutions, kidnapping, drugs, armed robbery, ritual killings, human trafficking, unimaginable poverty, bastardized democratic institutions, conflicting Constitution, and other unbelievable social ills.
There Is intense debate on the cause of the distresses. To some observers, the problem of Nigeria is corruption while others believe it is militocracy, the interference of military in politics and governance. Some generous observers simply put it as bad governance and are very sure that if the right people are in charge of government, the nation would be straightened out. This group place very high premium on the emergence of a new political class dominated by youthful intellectuals.
Since the proclamation of the 8th Assembly, I have noticed a consistent effort to emasculate the National Assembly, particularly the Senate. This matter has assumed an alarming intensity in the recent weeks and I am getting really worried for our democracy.
First effort, was the challenge to the power of the Senate to confirm certain executive appointments. Both the constitution and other extant laws gave powers to the Senate to approve, confirm or ratify specific appointments from ministerial through Commissions, Security service leadership, Boards and Agency leadership. But we have seen some effort to deny this power of the Senate. The classical and subsisting case is the refusal of President Muhammadu Buhari to replace Ibrahim Magu as the Chairman of EFCC after the Senate rejected his nomination twice due to adverse reports from a sister Security agency-DSS. Three years down the line, the President has ignored the Senate and has kept Magu on the job, effectively rendering the Senate irrelevant and impotent.
