Stop Discrimination Against Christians, Bishops Tells Buhari

The Catholic Bishops Conference of Nigeria (CBCN) has called on President Muhammadu Buhari to stop discriminating against Christians in the far North.

The bishop said this would help bring the country together.

CBCN President and Archbishop of Jos, Ignatius Kaigama said the federal government’s discrimination had taken a deep toll on the moral and spiritual life of Christians in the northern part of the country; creating a big gulf between Christians and other religious associations.

“In federal institutions like Bayero University in Kano State and other establishments in the core north, they don’t give chance to Christians to express their faith. The federal government should consider that there should be freedom of worship in every part of the country,” Kaigama was quoted as saying.

Kaigama opined that unlike military formations such as the Army, Navy, Air Force and Police where they allowed the building of mosque for Moslems, a Chaplaincy for Catholics and a Church for Protestant Christians, most federal and state educational institutions in the North-west and some parts of the North-east have deliberately prohibited the building of churches and worship centres in such institutions.

To that effect, he said the Catholic Bishops “call on President Buhari to look into this crisis; that he should stop the narrow-minded religious behaviour and bias in federal and state institutions in the north.

The CBCN clarion call on the President came on the heels of several obstacles the church has continued to encounter in securing places of worship for its faithful in the north. In most instances, Kaigama explained that even when such places of worship are allocated, locals and hoodlums often demolish such structures.