President of the Christian
Association of Nigeria, Pastor Ayo Oritsejafor, fears Boko Haram’s terror
activities could lead to the division of the country along religious lines.
A suspected Boko Haram suicide bomber
rammed his car into St. John Catholic Church, Bauchi on Sunday, killing himself
and four worshippers.
Oritsejafor spoke at the commencement
of a six-day meeting of Niger-Delta Christian Leaders Forum hosted by the
Christian Central Chapel International in Calabar, Cross River State.
Oritsejafor said, “Boko Haram is a
fundamentalist Islamic religious group created and sponsored by those who want
to create political space for themselves and in the event of failure to achieve
that, they seek to divide Nigeria along religious lines.
“It is fuelled by extreme religious
ideology and not poverty because they have not come out to tell us that they
are killing people because they are poor,” he said.
He dismissed the claim that the
terrorist group was a creation of poverty.
The CAN boss said, “The leader of Boko
Haram is from a very wealthy family background and even that young man who
wanted to blow up an American airline is the son of one of the richest men in
Nigeria. The claim by its sponsors and apologists that the fundamentalist group
is created by poverty is false.”
According to him, the sponsors of the
sect have control of a section of the media so that they can feed the public
with half truths.
Oritsejafor debunked claims that he
is a fundamentalist, adding that he had never encouraged any Christian to kill,
but rather to stand and abide by the truth.
Speaking on the Niger Delta region,
Oritsejafor lamented that despite being the source of Nigeria’s wealth, the
region had remained poor.
He said, “Niger-Delta is a region of
great people and it has given Nigeria its greatness, yet we are poor. The
region is powerful, yet we are weak. This is time for exchange of all those
things that have eluded us. We shall reclaim them back.”
Oritsejafor, who said he would make
similar pronouncements in Abuja during the October 1 Independence celebration,
called on the political to respond to the needs of their people.
Meanwhile, Conference of Nigerian
Political Parties has warned that Nigeria could break up if the government
fails to address the continued destruction of lives and property by the sect.
The CNPP stated that the unresolved
security challenges in the northern part of the country could be a pointer to
an eventual disintegration of the country.
Speaking in an interview with The PUNCH on Monday in Port Harcourt, the
Rivers State CNPP Chairman, Mr. Manaidi Dagogo-Jack, observed that the Boko
Haram onslaught had was not political both religious.
Credit: Punch
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