Group tackles Sokoto monarch on comments against CAN

The Nigerian Christian Graduate Fellowship (NCGF) has tackled the President of the Supreme Council of Islamic Affairs and the Sultan of Sokoto, his Eminence, Saad Muhammed Abubakar III for asking the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) to analyse issues before reacting.

CAN had supported the US government for placing Nigeria on a Watch list of countries that violate religious freedom. 

On December 18, 2019, the U.S. Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo announced that the department renewed the placement of Comoros, Russia, and Uzbekistan on a Special Watch List (SWL) for governments that have engaged in or tolerated “severe violations of religious freedom,” and added Cuba, Nicaragua, Nigeria, and Sudan to this list.

Reacting to Sultan’s statement, NCGF said it finds the Sultan’s outburst as unjustified and rather unfortunate. 

In a statement by the National President of the association, Prof. Charles Adisa and the General Secretary, Mr Onyenachi Nwaegeru, the group said the response of the Islamic leader to the issue could be described as a case of the chick leaving the knife that killed it while antagonising the cooking pot. The pot is just playing its role and didn’t contribute to the chick’s misfortune.

They said: “CAN simply expressed its support for the international community who have begun to see what she has been lamenting over the years about Islamic fundamentalism and government’s tacit support and its effect on Christian faith in Nigeria.

“We thought the Sultan should address the subject matter of the international opprobrium, which Boko Haram and Fulani herdsmen have brought to the nation, rather than make scape goat of the Christian Association of Nigeria. Or is his Eminence contesting that there is no religious intolerance in Nigeria? If that is the position, we can say that the Sultan is being economical with the truth or is an accomplice.”

NCGF insisted that the information at the disposal of the US, which informed the decision to blacklist Nigeria, is a combined effort of independent investigators and domestic observers of the nefarious activities of Muslim extremists and terrorists especially Boko Haram and Fulani herdsmen.