His Eminent, Archbishop John Cardinal Onaiyekan says, despite all the bad news in the media, the fact still remains that Nigerians are living together in relative peace compare to other countries of the world.
John Cardinal Onaiyekan, stated this during breaking of fast with Muslims at Al -Habibiyat Foundation in Abuja Nigeria’s capital .
Cardinal Onaiyekan, who noted that when you go to markets or offices, people are living together as Christians and Muslims, added that some of them who come from Yoruba land and Middle belt have Christians and Muslims in the same family.
The religion leader added that, It is the duty of religious leaders to make sure that they do not only preach and plead for members of their own faith, but they should plead for everybody and pray for everybody.
He urged Nigerians not to the outside world the impression that we are killing ourselves every day.
” We are not. There are some bad people who are creating serious problems, this is where the politicians comes in because they are the one with political power and political power also come with what we call it kenitic energy, they are the ones that has gun and can shot and force people“, he added.
The Cardinal further stated that it is the duty of those in the corridor of power to ensure that good people are protected and the evil ones are disarmed within the society.
Also making his remarked at the occasion, the Chairman of Northern Governor Forum and the Governor of Plateau state, Governor Simon Lalong has called on the politicians to encouraged this kind of religious harmony across the country for nation’s developments.
According to him, ” what I learned here was that every day both Muslims and Christians met here to break fast.
If God wanted, He can create you a Christian or a Muslim. When I was told of this event yesterday I told them that I will attend because I can do anything to promote peace in the country”.
He prayed for God to use this kind of programme to continue to answer Nigerians prayers so that there would be peace and unity all over the world.
” Well, let me tell you an example of what I have in my state, we didn’t only established a peace Agency which is the only one in the country today, I have also established and created an inter religious Council and we have it in the National too, Cardinal here is a member, Sultan of Sokoto, all of them are together, this is the kind of things that we want. I made a team of over a hundred people and all of them with the same number for the Muslim and Christians. Inter religious council in Plateau state, just yesterday they had a meeting and I say they should be having their meeting on quarterly basic, where they see evidence of conflict, they come back and sit down together and they tell me, they advice me because it is an advisory Council and theasame thing is happening at the National where His Eminent the Cardinal and His Eminent the Sultan are co-chairing this peace committee. So we should have that in all of our state and when we have that we will know how to track and to also curb religious intolerance in most of the state and when we have it in most of the state we will then have peace in this country” Governor Lalong explained. He urged Nigerians irrespective of their religious and ethnicity to do everything humanly possible that would promote peace in the country.
Earlier, Chairman of the committee with the AL- Habibiyat breaking of fast, Malam Faruk Suleiman, stated that they fed two thousand people everyday in Al-Habibiyat during fasting.
” From the beginning of Ramadan we are a little bit slow, is about 60 percent of what we do but now we have already reached our peak about two thousand already, we about fourty coolers that takes fifty for each and we serve them simultaneously
” Well, we are all created by God, and the way you are actually serving God, whom ever you see, you see God in them and when you see God in them every thing is equal and that’s all.
We have feed about two thousand people here today and not only Muslim that we are feeding, we fed both Muslims and non Muslim who come here during the iftar. There are no different, what is more important is feed.
You see we do it with mind and trust, as you can see in fifteen minutes we have finished serving about two thousand people and they have gone and there are no issues. So we thanked Allah that make it easy for us and continue to bless us”, he said.
Ustaz Suleiman enjoined all Nigerians irrespective of their religious or ethnic differences to come together and be as one.
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