Two days after the bloody Christmas Day bombings,
President Goodluck Jonathan and supreme head of Nigeria’s Muslims,
Sultan Sa’ad Abubakar III, yesterday met behind closed doors in Abuja on
how to address Boko Haram crisis. At the end of the session, they
resolved to call for an enlarged meeting involving religious and
traditional rulers.
Addressing State House Correspondents after the meeting, the Sultan condemned the Christmas Day bomb blasts, saying the group was evil and both religions (Islam and Christianity) must come together to stop Boko Haram.
“We came in here to felicitate and commiserate with Mr.
President over the unfortunate incident that happened this period. We’ve
had very positive meeting with Mr. President on so many things and how
to move this country forward, how to make our country stable and to
approach those challenges that are facing Nigeria on a common ground.
“I want to assure all Nigerians that there is no conflict
between Christians and Muslims, between Islam and Christianity. It is a
conflict between evil people and good people and the good people are
more than the evil doers. The good people must come together to defeat
the evil ones and that is the message. We want to assure all our
Christian brothers and leaders that we stand on the path of truth
according to our religion; that we will continue to work Insha Allah for
the greatness of this country.
“As I said, there is no conflict between Islam and
Christianity and I want to assure that we will do all we can in the best
of our ability to solve the numerous problems confronting our country”,
he said.
Asked what was agreed on as way out of the crisis, the
Sultan disclosed that the government will look at all the past reports
“including the one set up by the President on the North-East crisis,
also the Solomon Lar report on Plateau State and other reports and at
the resumption of work, Mr. President and his team will look through all
those reports and then call for a meeting of a larger body for
consultation with all of us, both religious and traditional leaders.
“So, we believe that is a very good way because we have to
close ranks because nowhere in our two religions, both Christianity and
Islam, that says we should be violent in dealing with one another”.
On the belief that religious leaders have not been
speaking out enough, the Sultan said: “Have we not been speaking out?
Did you read the Press statement I issued out the day before yesterday?
What else do you want us to say? We are totally against what has been
happening, we totally condemn all these. Nobody can take anybody’s life,
it’s unIslamic, it’s ungodly, nobody can take anybody’s life; all lives
are sacred, must be respected and protected by all. So, we have been
speaking out. We all know what the situations are and we can only advise
the government and we have been advising the government on several
occasions”.
On the allegation that those that have dared to condemn the
sect openly have returned to back them out of fear, the Sultan replied:
“There is no fear, I only speak as Muslim leader and you know that we
don’t say what we don’t mean and what we don’t do. It is against Islam,
there is a special verse in the Holy Quran that says so, ‘don’t speak
what you don’t do’. It is distasteful in the eyes of Almighty Allah, but
we are quite aware of Almighty Allah’s instruction to always speak the
truth because we will go back to Him to give account of what we have
done on earth. So, whatever we say to anybody or any group at any time,
we wholly mean so”.
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