SAN FRANCISCO, February 06, (THEWILL) – The Minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, has declared that the alleged Islamisation of Nigeria under the current administration is totally false and should be perceived in its entirety as a campaign of calumny.
He made this on Monday in Ilorin at the Federal Government Town Hall meeting for the North Central zone declaring that the secular nature of Nigeria’s Constitution makes the issue of religious dominance and impunity improbable.
He noted that in recent times, the media had been increasingly awash with incendiary statements designed to pitch the adherents of the two prominent religions Christians and Muslims against one another.
“Such fallacies like the Islamisation of Nigeria, the killing of Christians by Muslims, the labeling of Nigeria as the most dangerous place for Christians in the world can only serve one purpose: trigger a religious war,” he said.
“Needless to say that no nation ever survives a religious war.
“Those making the allegations were using religion as tool to demonise the government and divert attention from the government’s anti-corruption stance.
“More often than not, conflicts between Muslims and Christians were fuelled by political motivations, ethnic differences, extremism, intolerance and terrorism.
“Make no mistake about it, there have been conflicts between adherents of the two major religions in certain parts of the country.
“To now extrapolate from that to say Nigeria is the most dangerous place for Christians in the world is a disservice to Nigeria and an overkill.”
The Minister appealed to Christian and Muslim leaders to emulate Catholic Cardinal John Onaiyekan and Sultan of Sokoto, Sa’ad Abubakar who formed the Inter-faith Initiative for Peace to promote inter-faith dialogue while urging the media to desist from providing a platform for exponents of incendiary statements.
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