My attention was absorbed by the above title article published on 22 July and written by Babatunde Qodra. The writer threw some light on the hazardous politics of religion suffocating Nigeria’s unfledged democracy and posing a grave threat to the country’s national security and future stability.
In my view, as Nigeria is now gearing up for the 2023 presidential election, the country’s religious clerics of both Islam and Christianity should help keep their religious identity, self-absorption, and inclination aside and become God-sent agents of promoting sustainable peace and instilling the spirit of patriotism and nationalism to call a halt to their country’s multidimensional cumbersome challenges, invigorate peaceful co-existence and build a brighter future for their young ones. In other countries around the world, this patriotism and nationalism have been placed part of their religions. Does this not deserve to be replicated by Nigerians?
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Now that Nigeria’s peace advocates and activists have pinned their hopes and faith on the Inter-Religious Council (NIREC) set by some religious leaders of the country, these patriotic religious leaders should resuscitate Nigeria’s comatose democracy and snatch it from the jaws of death by placing patriotism and nationalism as their leading mission to build a sense of peaceful co-existence.
It is very interesting to note that the adherents of some religions around the world love their country from the bottom of their heart and always look to it as their biological mother. So, in this egregious moment, the NIREC should spare no effort to urge religious clerics of both religions and ensure that they inculcate the above much-needed nobility of spirit or patriotism in Nigerians as adherents of the two major religions place their clerics on a pedestal.
NIREC should organize weekly peace programs on radio and television stations throughout the 36 states of the country, including the FCT to unite the two major religions for the interest of their country. The three tiers of government should also play their part in spurring and supporting the NIREC financially.
Mustapha Baba Azare writes from Bauchi, Bauchi State
