League of Imams prays for peace as N’Assembly resume

OVER 100 members of the League of Imams across the North Central geo-political zone converged in Ilorin, the Kwara state capital to pray for peace at the National Assembly as the Senate resumes sittings yesterday.

According to the coordinator of the programme, tagged, ‘Peace for Legislators’ (PFL) Alhaji Kayode Yusuf, the prayers were needed to entrench peace at the Legislative chambers following seeming imbroglio aftermath the recent elections of their Principal officials.

Meanwhile, the Vice-Chancellor of University of Ilorin (Unilorin), Prof. Abdulganiyu Ambali said the institution’s Ebola Research Committee is working toward developing a vaccine for the Ebola Virus Disease (EVD).

Ambali, who disclosed this in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Abuja, said that the process of developing a vaccine was a long one.
“What is happening is that the committee is just monitoring events; in terms of the vaccine, it will take a while because there are processes that you have to follow before you develop a vaccine. For example, you have to isolate the virus; grow the virus; attenuate the virus; bring it out for testing; and then before the final usage. So those are the processes that any vaccine candidate will have to pass through before you can now use on victim. But right now what they are doing is monitoring events across the borders; and then we have put in place the facilities to be able to advise our staff as well as students that want to visit those places (High risk Ebola countries).

Already, some Christian leaders had last week in Ilorin, prayed for quick restoration of peace at the chambers, noting that only through peaceful relationship could the nation attain its much-desired dividends of democracy.

The PFL leader said the prayers were not said in order to lead to the emergence of new leaders but to appease the minds of those who are allegedly opposed to their leadership.

However, an Ilorin based social critic, Alhaji Abdulkarim Olola-Kasum described the prayers as “political” advising the members of the league to spend more of their time “praying against Boko Haram insurgents” for the overall peace of Nigeria.

According to Olola-Kasum, “chairs will continue to fly in the assembly, it is a normal thing in any serious democratic setting. So if we want peace in Nigerian version, we are insincere and we want to turn the assembly into a rubber stamp thing. Let them pray instead for the stoppage of activities of the insurgents in Nigeria.”

Yusuf, while speaking on the emergence of Bukola Saraki as the Senate President, he said the emergence was divine, urging Nigerians to accept what God had sanctioned “even before the emergence of Nigeria as a nation.”