By John Oba
Abuja
Catholic Bishop of Sokoto, Most Rev. Matthew Kukah, has called for caution over the recent clash between the Nigerian Army and Shi’ite members in Zaria.
He urged aggrieved members to embrace dialogue and negotiation so as to douse the tension the crisis seems to be generating.
Kukah stated this in Abuja at an inaugural forum on religion and social transformation in Sub-Saharan Africa.
In Nigeria as a democratic country, he said, agitations against the government should be made responsibly to avoid its escalation into crisis.
“I think what we can do is to condole with the bereaved and also to let Nigerians know that we are in a democracy, people have the right to make their claims but they must make them responsibly.
” There are processes and channels and I think that these are challenging times for our nation nobody needs all this crisis, those who are agitating have made their point it is now time for us to now develop the capacity for negotiation but government won’t be able to solve the problems if everyone is on the street agitating.” he said
Speaking on the importance of the forum, he said this is aimed at providing a blueprint for Policy makers and other political stakeholders to help address the challenges posed by religion differences in Africa.
He said the panelists, who were drawn from different countries and institutions of higher learning, are scholars drawn from both the Christians and Muslims community.
Kukah noted that various crimes, have be committed on the premise of religious difference saying;”Religion is gradually being held responsible for most of the crisis that is going on in the continent.”
“We can see from the calibre of scholars all of which are professors, across the country. What we try to do is draw scholars from different backgrounds, Christians and Muslims to deliberate on the future of religion most specifically Christianity and Islam in sub-saharan Africa to deal with the fact that religion is becoming a problem. ” Religion is gradually being held responsible for most of the crisis that is going on in the continent.
“Our idea is to see whether we can help provide a blueprint that can help policy makers to figure out the kind of things that can help us very coherently use religion for the growth and development and peace of the country”, he explained.
The Emir of Zazzau, Dr Shehu Idris in his response, commended the Governor and security agencies for maintaining peace in the state, adding that traditional institution would continue to assist government in bringing permanent peace to state.
“We thank Governor Nasir El-Rufai and security agencies for their efforts for peace to prevail in the state. We will not relent on our part in preaching peace to our subjects for development and progress to take place,” the monarch said.
