In the history of religious crisis in #Nigeria, never have Christians been massacred like under President Muhammadu Buhari. Between 2015 and 2019, over 5,000 Christians are known to have been massacred in Benue and Southern Kaduna parts of Nigeria.
In the space of three weeks in February 2019, hundreds of Christians in #Kajuru LGA in #SouthernKaduna were slaughtered in cold blood on daily bases and their villages burnt down by suspected Fulani herdsmen Muslim terrorists. Christians are murdered in #Benue, #Plateau and many other states in Nigeria daily without effective coverage by both local and international media houses.
It is expected that the leadership of Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) would solidly stand firm, criticize the heinous acts and attract the attention of the international community to stop the daily genocide and massacre.
Regrettably, the Christian Association of Nigeria have continuously betrayed the people they claim to be representing. Recently, the association paid a courtesy call on President #Buhari hailing him for winning the just concluded rigged presidential election in Nigeria despite how glaring and evident it was that President Buhari militarized the electoral process, rigged the elections and stole the overwhelming mandate given to the main opposition candidate Atiku Abubakar of the Official Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) Nigeria by Nigerians. It’s shameful and disgraceful for the leaders of #CAN to endorse a man like Buhari who has openly displayed gross negligence towards exercising his constitutional duties of ensuring that the perpetrators of the killing of #Christians in Southern Kaduna are brought to justice.
The leadership of CAN has shown that they are carnally minded, money conscious, greedy, deceitful, misleading and ungodly by endorsing bad leadership. These qualities emanates from their selfish gains and interest. As a result, they are quarrelsome, full of division, envy and jealousy amongst themselves.
In the light of these negative tendencies,
(i) Christians in Nigeria are called upon to rise up and call the leadership of CAN to order. #Churches should come together and pass a vote of no confidence on the leadership of CAN and new set of leaders elected to stand for the common interest of Christians in Nigeria.
(ii) Other churches should look into the leadership of CAN. It is no longer convenient and proper to have CAN as the sole body of Christians in Nigeria because they’ve obviously deviated from their core/moral mandate. Other Christian organs should be formed immediately to stand as balance for the defence of the interest of Christians in Nigeria. There could be organs such as Association of Nigerian Christians, National Union of Nigerian Christians etc. Even in the Nigerian academia, there are different organs such as Academic Staff Union of Nigerian Universities – ASUU, Senior Staff Association of Nigerian Universities SSANU, Association of Non-Academic Staff of Nigerian Universities etc. It follows therefore, for Christians in Nigeria to form other organs that will positively speak up on their behalf.
(iii) There should be liberalization of the concept of mandating every denomination to go through CAN for endorsement before securing Federal Government approval in the event of their request to the government. The Christian Association of Nigeria has consistently shown discrimination and segregation against some denominations which they deem more successful or progressive than them.
It is time to provide effective and efficient leadership for #Nigerian Christians.
