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The Nigerian government has said that there are no cases of human right abuses and religious persecution in the country as insinuated in some quarters.
The authorities stated that all claims and narratives of right abuses and religious persecution are baseless as they are false.
This was revealed on Thursday in Washington DC by the country’s Information and Culture Minister, Alhaji Lai Mohammed when he was engaged in a media parley by the Washington Post and Reuters wire service respectively during his International media engagement.
Alhaji Mohammed said Nigeria is among countries in the world that respect rights of individual and corporate entities.
“I want to persuade the western democracies not to be victims of fake news they read on social media and other platforms that churn out false contents about happenings in Nigeria.
They should also be wary of some individuals and groups that travelled to the western world to dish out falsehood in the name of religious persecution and human right violation, all in a bid to get donations and assistance for personal gains.”
He said as a country the constitution guarantees everybody’s right because it is a secular state. As a state, Nigeria cannot afford to pitch one religion, ethnic group or body against the other.
Mohammed further stated that the Nigerian government has policies and constitution that covers and protects every citizen irrespective of religion and creed.
“A country with a Muslim President from the North and a Christian Vice President from the Southern part as well as cabinet members drawn from every religious group and part of the country cannot be said to be unfair to a particular religious group.”
The Minister the unfortunate insecurity challenges in some parts of the country does not have any religious correlation.
According to him, in the northern part where they are predominantly Muslims, the same Muslims are the worst hit.
“I appeal to the people from the Western world to come into Nigeria with open minds to see things for themselves. Nigeria’s constitution will not and cannot accept a thing like that.”
He said Nigeria is grappling with insecurity challenges for some time now, however, the authorities have done everything practically possible to stem the tide and the results is beginning to show positive signs
Lateefah Ibrahim
