CAN to convene meeting of denominational leaders

Posted by admin Boko Haram, Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN), Latest Politics Wednesday, December 28th, 2011

Worried by the spate of attacks by the Islamist sect, Boko Haram, Christian leaders in the country have resolved to convene a meeting of all denominational leaders to review the security situation in the country and fashion an appropriate response.

The meeting expected to hold soon will address current sectarian violence across the northern part of the country which has virtually driven all adherents of the Christian faith into hiding and left several northern cities deserted by Christians who have been under ceaseless attacks from the members of the Boko Haram sect.

Pastor Ayo Oritsejafor, national president of the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN), who dropped the hint in Warri, Delta State in his first formal response to the Christmas Day attacks in different parts of the country which had left several hundreds of innocent worshippers dead, urged well meaning Nigerians to await the outcome of the crucial meeting.

According to the CAN leader and founder of Word of Life Bible Church, at the end of the said meeting there would be appropriate response by the Christian community which had been at the receiving end of incessant violent attacks which had left countless number of children orphans and women widows while several others had been displaced.
Pressed on the likely outcome of the planned parley, he noted: “I cannot say anything on it now, but we will meet and find a way out for the nation.”
He described the December 25 attack as “barbaric and most uncivilized action of human beings in a civilized world.” According to the visibly angry cleric, “Even animals have respect for each other. It is inhuman! It is inhumane! It is barbaric! It is satanic”

Continuing, the CAN president wondered why certain characters were sponsoring these acts of violence on fellow human beings “and go home without any feeling of guilt. I am not talking of people who are used to carry out the dastardly acts but those who sponsor them. So these people go home, eat and probably have children who they play with in their homes. Let us not deceive ourselves, as good as religion is, it can be a terrible thing because it is only religion that can give a man the conviction to do this kind of thing. It is incredible. Christmas is a day when over 80 million Nigerians join billions of fellow Christians across the globe to celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ, wouldn’t you just respect that?

“I don’t think anybody who cannot respect such a sacred date will have any respect for human life. It is totally barbaric and unacceptable. I am short of words to describe how I feel, because I finished the first service in my church and came to the office when I began to receive calls from different parts of the country of the shocking news of the attacks,” he said fighting back tears.
He dismissed insinuations that the current incessant terrorist attacks in different parts of the country, had ethnic colorations neither would he accept the theory of poverty being the motivating factor.

In the same vein, Oritsejafor debunked the poverty theory, saying that there were hungry people in the six geo-political zones of this country, “why are they not killing men, women and children of different religious backgrounds? Osama bin Laden did not do what won him the global attention as a result of poverty.”
According to him, the reasons behind the attacks go beyond the election of President Goodluck Jonathan from a minority tribe in the country.

He said any reasonable person would tell you that this country would be administered better by a minority person for very obvious reasons. “When you talk about northern elders not being happy about the election of President Jonathan, what about northern elders who are not Muslims? Are they also sad that Jonathan is president? I don’t think so. There is a section in the North that is not happy and that is where we are not bold enough to face the truth. The truth is that, it is not the North that is not happy; it is a section of the North that is not happy.
“It is a segment of northern elders that are not happy with the election of President Jonathan; and some people will now say that I am inciting people; but these are the truths.”

According to him, Nigeria must brace up to face the truth that there was a grand design to Islamise the nation, and that is why Christian leaders would soon meet to address the issue frontally once and for all.
To underscore his claim of Islamisation plot, Pastor Oritsejafor directed skeptics to history to find out how Egypt, Libya and most of the North African nations, which were originally Christian nations, became Islamic countries.

The CAN president, therefore, lent his voice to the call for a sovereign national conference to determine the future of this Nigerian project. “I don’t care what name you call it but definitely we cannot continue like this. Everyday, I receive calls from pastors who are daily being denied their inalienable rights to worship their God and somebody will pacify me that the problem is political and not religious. We must sit at a conference to renegotiate this entity called Nigerian,” he said.

-Sunwp_posts