The Northern Christians issued the statement after an emergency meeting in Kaduna, and they flung the blame at the feet of the federal government, as well as traditional and political leaders of the North, calling on those that are spearheading the terrorist violence to be conscious of the fact that non-terrorists could equally become terrorists by taking their destiny into their hands.
Strongly rebuking the federal government, the group said, “Telling us that it is on top of the situation with ordinary words of the mouth is acceptable to us. Something must be done practically for us to see that they are serious to put an end to this madness.”
This afternoon, just as he has done after every single terrorist attack, President Jonathan promptly issued a statement in which he repeated almost the same words, telling Nigerians the government is on top of the situation and will bring terrorism to a halt.
The spokesperson of the Northern CAN group, Rev. Sunday Oibe told journalists, “We want to let the world know that nobody has the monopoly of violence, and it is only the Holy Bible and the holy spirit that is restraining us, but for how long? If some people are tired of being in our country, the best way for us is to sit on a round table and decide to split, not to kill. So we Christians in this country, particularly the Christians in Northern Nigeria are taking the blame to the traditional rulers in the North, the political leaders of the North, the federal government because the federal government has not done anything. Telling us that it is on top of the situation with ordinary words of the mouth is acceptable to us. Something must be done practically for us to see that they are serious to put an end to this madness.”
Rev. Oibe further stated, “And let it be made known that Christians are not taught to retaliate, but Christians have been given the right to defend themselves, and we will do it with all manner of defence at our disposals. This wanton killing has justified what our National leader, has said - that as God ordained, we have moral and spiritual right to stay alive by defending ourselves. We cannot produce legitimate children, God given children, beautiful children, sent to school, then people who have no value for life will continue to kill them. Christians cannot fold their arms anymore, and we are telling President Goodluck Jonathan if he has not done anything to put an end to this madness, then he should know that there is trouble in his hand.
We are also calling on the Emirs, traditional rulers and the political juggernauts of the North that they are behind these things, and they must bring the perpetrators to book because we cannot run a country like this.”
The Northern Christians expressed displeasure with the Federal Government and security agencies, accusing them of talking too much and not taking the Boko Haram seriously.
“We are feeling serious pains and disappointment on the entire system called Nigeria,” Rev. Oibe said, turning to yesterday’s assault on church services on the campus of Bayero University in Kano in which at least 25 people were killed.
“This carnage is highly condemnable in the strongest term, because these are innocent students who were sent to school by their parents to acquire education. They went to a place of worship to adore and pray to their God only for some people to come and sniff lives out of them. We are not only condemning it, we will not sit down and fold our arms to accept this madness any more. The systematic approach of these murderers lends to the real fact that it is only Christians that are the major targets. They do it on Sundays and other Holy days of Christians and attack only places of worship owned by Christians. We have Mosques scattered all over BUK and Gombe, nobody has heard any attack on them.
"They said it is the issue of poverty, but they have not attacked any government infrastructure of note. If it is the issue of power, then they should go and fight government; why is it that it is Christians that they are fighting? The truth about this is that they have carefully put a plan in place to eliminate Christians - total annihilation of Christianity from the North; that is their target. And it seems that the government of this country led by Goodluck Jonathan is helplessly looking on; always telling us that security is on top of the situation. We want to use this medium to tell the world that [the government] has not stepped up to arrest and to bring to book the people who carry out this heinous crime; who are behind these things, the country is at the verge of collapse. Nobody has ever survived two wars. We had survived civil war. No country has survived religious war.”
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