Centre condemns use of religion to destabilize Nigeria

Speaking ahead of the centre's upcoming roundtable on "The Role of Religious Leaders in Building Inter-Faith Tolerance", it's national coordinator, Comrade Ikpa Isaac raised concerns over what he termed an upsurge in inflammatory utterances around our religious differences.

He said if not urgently addressed, the hostilities could escalate.

Ikpa said this has become a national challenge that must be addressed quickly, stressing that unguarded utterances by religious leaders in the country, has further worsened the tension in the country.

While acknowledging that certain situations, especially the killings by suspected Fulani herdsmen across the country could have been resolved through a peaceful approach, he however said when such atrocities were committed, the responses to them from the relevant authorities could also have better addressed the issue.

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He said, "It is however worrisome that the situation has rather taken the artificial division along religious lines to a new level. The conduct and utterances by leaders of the two dominant faiths have not done much to help the situation but they have rather acted to worsen things in the false belief that they will garner more following the more fiery they are perceived to be.

"Unfortunately for us the larger population, we do not have the dual nationalities that many of these preachers have, even where we have visas to other countries we possibly do not have the means to relocate ourselves and families like the clergymen do; and we also do not have the economic resilience to weather any negative impacts that a religious crisis would have on the country like those leading us do."He insisted that the realization that it is the larger population that will suffer negative consequences, has propelled his group to bring Nigerians together to stave off the looming disaster of a religious hostilities.

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He said the event will bring together a group of informed Nigerians from ten states of the federation to brainstorm on how best religious leaders can proffer solutions to Nigeria's security, economic, social, political and other challenges without heating up the polity or inciting hatred.

Reputable Nigerian scholars on peace and conflict management from the civil society organisations and Nigerian universities will elaborately discuss issues of national unity and peaceful co-existence.

"Our hope is that resource persons and participants will do justice to the sessions at the roundtable in a way that will douse the tension in the national space," he said.