By Daji Sani
Bishop Mathew Hassan Kukah of the Catholic of Sokoto Diocese has called on the northern governors to resolve the lingering religious crisis bedevilling the region.
Kukah stated this yesterday in Yola the Adamawa State capital, at the inauguration of Sangere-Marghi Housing Estate, a settlement constructed to accommodate Internally Displaced Persons (IDP) displaced by Boko Haram, who were taking refuge at the Catholic Diocese of Yola.
The Bishop said a situation where the governors meet in Kaduna or in Abuja without properly addressing the religious problems tearing the North apart was unacceptable.
He said the governors should take decisive actions that would resolve the lingering religious crisis permanently in the North.
Kukah also tasked the state governor, Hon. Ahmadu Umaru Fintiri to remind his counterparts in the North that they should properly guide and lead the religious leaders out of the present religious intolerance in the region.
“They should not only be talking about dialogue with Bishops, Imams and Emirs, sitting together and taking photographs and drinking tea but there should be concrete magnifications of ideas and innovations to address these problems permanently.
“If the spirit of Islam and Christianity exist in Nigeria actually between members of the two Faith, we will not be fighting, shedding blood as we are seeing today.
“Nigerians are too religious in paper and not in practice and this has made religion to be a liability to us.
“It is therefore important for both Christians and Muslims to appreciate what the Catholic Diocese of Yola has done today in bringing people of the two faith dislodged by the Boko Haram under one umbrella,” he said
Also speaking, Fintiri tasked Muslims and Christians to co-exist despite their religious differences.
The governor recalled that the issue of religious intolerance in the North began with the Maitatsene uprising of the 1980’s, noting with regret that since then, the religious crisis seems to have defied solutions.
Fintiri lamented that the insurgency, kidnapping and other forms of criminality bedeviling the North were offshot of the Maitatsene religious uprising that rocked almost all the states in the North.
In his remarks,
Catholic Bishop of Yola, Bishop Stephen Dami Mamza recalled that the years of insurgency and counterinsurgency operations had resulted in the displacement of approximately 1.9 million people and created a crisis on food, shelter, nutrition and loss of livelihood in Nigeria’s northeast.
Mamza stressed that the Yola Diocese have been rendering assistance in feeding and free medical care for over 3,000 families.
