The national President of the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) Supo Ayokunle has berated the Nigerian President Muhammad Buhari for donating $1m to Afghanistan an Islamic country with an illegitimate Government.
The President’s insensitive posture in the face of the strike by the Academic Staff Union of universities and the harrowing experience of university Students who have been locked out of school since three months.
Ayokunle speaking against the background that the Nigerian constitution only captured the legal system of one religion out of the rest which he said has always continued to generate tension because of those that were not captured.
He spoke recently at an Emergency Political Reforms Dialogue on the Constitutional Future of Nigeria organised by the National Consultative Front (NCFront) in collaboration with the Nigeria Political Summit Group, (NPSG)
According to him, “The President recently, by executive fiat donated $1m to Afghanistan an Islamic country that came into existence through the barrel of the gun by violence to overthrow a legitimate government. Yet we are saying there is no money to fund the university system.
“The question you ask by a reasonable logical person is that, is the president promoting violent overthrow of Government by supporting Afghanistan?
“Yes the people of Afghanistan are worthy of being supported but that government does not worth it because they did not come in through a democratic means and should not be encouraged in anyway at all.”
He also called for the Sharia clauses in the Nigerian constitution to be removed so that Nigeria can truly be the secular State it claims to be
“The Problem of federalism is also in our constitution. Nigeria is said to be a secular State but we dont know whether it is a secular State or a religious State.
“It is a secular state with a condition that we are partly democratic and partly religious and the problem there which is causing tension is that we are also a plural society in terms of ethnicity and religion.
“If it only captured the legal system of one religion without funding it would have been better but our common wealth is being made to service the legal system of that religion to the exclusion of others.
“We need to really sit down if we want to do pilgrimage together there must be sincerity, there must be justice.”
Explaining further, he said when talking of a secular State, “I need to point it out again that a secular state is not an irreligious State or anti religious State no, rather it is a state that recognizes that there are religions in the society and the best policy for peace and stability is for the Government not to interfere in religion in any manner so that the accusation of patronising one religion more than the others might not arise.”
By so doing he said it will provide a good model to build a resilient democracy however he reiterated the fact that in Nìgeria that has been set that aside.
Speaking in favor of the clamour for restructuring of the country he said,
“Before going there, we call for the removal of the Sharia clauses from the constitution completely so that it would be secular or we have to factor in the legal system of other religious organisations both and African traditional religion into our constitution. But if you should ask me again I will say let religion be a private thing not a public thing that the Government would be funding.”
He decried the situation whereby the country by military fiat was taken to belong to some islamic organisations as the government keeps funding them.
Explaining further, he said the Lack of true federalism is a major problem that is troubling the country adding that those that are benefitting from it are vehement that it should continue. “We need to be very very sensitive to the feelings of others as noregion can do it alone but we can better do it together if there is mutual respect for another’s opinion, if there is justice and if there is fairplay. Without this in a plural society with about 500 ethnic group it will not go well.”
