Nigerian Christian elders have reacted to the allegation that they conspired with the military to destroy the Shiite Islamic sect members.
Sheikh Ibrahim Zakzaky, leader of the Shiite Muslim Sect
The National Christian Elders Forum (NCEF) has said there is no iota of truth in the allegation by the Iranian government that it is conspiring with the Nigerian Army to fight the Shiites Movement in the northern part of Nigeria.
According to ThisDay, the group in a statement signed by the Chairman, Solomon Asemota, SAN, urged the federal government not to allow the crisis to degenerate.
The group said: "The National Christian Elders Forum wishes to express grave regret and great sadness at the recurring decimal of violence and destruction that seem to, presently, define the northern region of Nigeria. Rather than diminish, this cycle of violence and destruction escalates and expresses itself in differing modes and formats.
"The National Christian Elders Forum commiserates with the governments, the people of northern Nigeria, and in particular the surviving victims and families that have been affected in the various orgies of violence and destruction that have afflicted Nigeria in general and northern Nigeria in particular."
Also, the forum denied that the CAN is conspiring with the Nigerian Army to destroy Shiites in the country.
It said: “The Forum wishes to refute publicly and stridently that there is no iota of truth in a video report credited to an Iranian television station in which an Iranian lecturer posited that a ‘triangle of evil’ composing of the Nigerian Army, Boko Haram, and Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) have combined to destroy Shiites in Nigeria. We wonder under which ideology would CAN team up with Boko Haram to destroy an Islamic sect.
“Apart from its sheer absurdity, this dangerous statement should not be dismissed because it is calculated to beat the drums of war in far away Iran to mobilise Muslim Shiites to attack Nigerian Christians. “The Nigerian Church has suffered tremendously under Sunni Boko Haram; the emergence of Shiite backed insurgency in Nigeria must be avoided at all costs.”
To find lasting solutions to insecurity, the forum recommended that: “The traditional, political, religious, academic, and commercial leadership of northern Nigeria are under obligation to ensure that religious intolerance, which has become the bane of the North, is eradicated. “Lasting peace can only exist in an environment where justice, equality, and fairness reign. Northern Nigeria has to imbibe the spirit and the letter of Section 38 (1) of the 1999 Constitution that guarantees freedom of religious belief.”