By Nahum Sule (Taraba State Correspondent, in Jalingo)
The Taraba State Chapter of the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) has reacted to viral video clips from some Islamic Clerics outside the shores of Taraba State, threatening religious war and the establishment of a sharia Islamic government in Taraba over the recent APC governorship primaries in the state in which a Christian, Senator Emmanuel Bwacha, was announced the flagbearer.
The reaction is coming via a press release issued by the Taraba State Chapter of the Christian Association of Nigeria, CAN.
According to the press release issued by the CAN Chairman, Taraba State Reverend Isaiah Magaji Jirapye, the association viewed the messages of the Islamic Clerics from outside Taraba State as calculated plots to instigate religious unrest in the state.
The release observed that CAN is never a participant in partisan politics but cannot fold it's arms watching outsiders threatening wars.
The release wondered why political party activities can generate such threats, adding that the messages accredited to Sheikh Ibrahim Aliyu Kaduna and several others gives the wrong impression that APC belongs to Muslims, a claim CAN described as false.
CAN said it is shocked that purely political party affairs and activities could be given a religious coloration and draw such hateful utterances capable of destabilizing the entire nation.
The statement also faulted the religious demographic composition that Taraba is 65% Muslim and 35% Christians and warned the Clerics about spreading falsehood. It also lamented over some blasphemous names given to Christian by the Clerics.
According to the release, Taraba state has a long-standing history of religious tolerance and peaceful co-existence amongst Christians and Muslims even in politics, and CAN cannot accept anyone by whatever disguise who is out to threaten and instigate crisis in the state, just as they have successfully done in some other states that they have destroyed and ruined.
The release said the messages of the clerics stand condemnable by all reasonable individuals and called on Government and intelligence agencies to arrest these clerics, especially Sheikh Ibrahim Aliyu Kaduna, and several others, who has openly threatened to create crisis in Taraba State. It said anything short of their arrest will be viewed by Christians in Taraba State, and indeed Nigeria as a whole, as government approval of those subversive propaganda.
The release noted that the tolerance in the state has been the reason it is exempted from the religious carnage ongoing in some states. "We urge the APC to settle their party issues without bringing religion into it".
The release observed that Politics is not religion but a game of numbers and that people should desist from using religion to win presumed public sympathy. It however maintains that Clergies ought to preach peace, love and tolerance, not hateful sermons and promotion of religious politics.
The release added that CAN will hold authors of those videos making rounds responsible for any harm on Senator Emmanuel Bwacha and other Christians contesting in various political parties. NNL.
