The Federal Government has urged religious leaders in the country to refrain from stoking the embers of hatred and disunity, warning that resorting to scorched-earth rhetoric at this time could trigger unintended consequences.
Though the Minister of Information and Culture, who stated the position of the Federal Government on Saturday did not mention any name, the statement came a day after the Bishop of Sokoto diocese of the Catholic Church, Rt. Rev. Hassan Matthew Kukah, took a swipe at the Muhammadu Buhari-led Administration in his homily on Christmas Day.
“While religious leaders have a responsibility to speak truth to power, such truth must not come wrapped in anger, hatred, disunity and religious disharmony,” Mohammed said in the statement issued in Lagos on Saturday.
He said it is particularly graceless and impious for any religious leader to use the period of Christmas, which is a season of peace, to stoke the embers of hatred, sectarian strife and national disunity.
“Calling for a violent overthrow of a democratically-elected government, no matter how disguised such a call is, and casting a particular religion as violent is not what any religious leader should engage in, and certainly not in a season of peace,” Mohammed said, adding that instigating regime change outside the ballot box is not only unconstitutional but also an open call to anarchy.
He said while some religious leaders, being human, may not be able to disguise their national leadership preference, they should refrain from stigmatizing the leader they have never supported anyway, using well-worn and disproved allegations of nepotism or whatever.
The Minister said whatever challenges Nigeria may be going through at this moment can only be tackled when all leaders and indeed all Nigerians come together, not when some people arrogantly engage in name-calling and finger-pointing.
Kukah, in his 2020 Christmas Message, had alleged that President Buhari is presiding over a country with prospects of a failed state.
The cleric contended that “there is no way any non-Northern Muslim president could have done a fraction of what President Buhari has done by his nepotism and gotten away with it.
“There would have been a military coup a long time ago or we would have been at war.”Below is the full message of Bishop Kukah, titled: “A Nation in search of vindication.
”Christmas 2020 Message By Matthew Hassan KUKAH Bishop of the Catholic Diocese of Sokoto1: Another Christmas with Dark Clouds of Death :Let me paraphrase the holy prophet Isaiah who said: “For Jerusalem (Nigeria’s sake), I will not be silent until her vindication shines forth like the dawn…..No more shall people call you forsaken, or your land desolate, but you shall be called my delight and your land espoused.” (Is. 62:1,4). ReplyForward
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Nasir Sambo
