5th
April, 2015
PRESS RELEASE:
EASTER MESSAGE: LET NIGERIA LIVE
AGAIN
Nigerian Christians joined their counterparts all over the world to
celebrate Easter from Good Friday to Easter Monday for the year 2015.
The
Muslim Rights Concern (MURIC) sends special greetings to all Christians here in
Nigeria and the rest of the world. We affirm our love for all our Christian neighbours
and express the wish to continue to coexist peacefully in an atmosphere of
mutual respect.
We reject the hate messages of Al-Qaidah, Boko Haram and other misguided
elements who engage in killings and destructions. We denounce those who ask
Muslims to kill Americans, Britons and other people in the West. We assert
clearly and unambiguously that Islam does not destroy, it builds. Islam gives
life. It does not teach killing. Islam is a religion of peace, not of
terrorism.
This
2015 Easter celebration is significant as it coincides with the paradigm shift in
Nigeria’s political arena. We call on Christians and Muslims to unite in order
to consolidate the new wind of change currently blowing across Nigeria.
In tandem with the divine and highly revolutionary message
in the Qur’an that Allah will not change the condition of a people until they
themselves change the (evil) among them (Qur’an 13:11), Nigerians voted for
change in the March 2015 presidential election. This means that Nigerians have hearkened
to the divine message and they have taken their destiny in their hands.
Our religious leaders, Christians, Muslims and animists
must also allow this change to reflect in their attitudes. We must put an end
to mutual suspicion, unhealthy rivalry and violence. Above all, never again
should we allow politicians to use religion to divide us. We must allow Nigeria
to live again.
Finally, we urge all churches to pray for Nigeria focusing on
the following prayer points: that God should direct the minds of Nigerian
politicians to think of the masses first before their personal interests; that
God should put an end to insurgency within a very short time; calm in the Niger
Delta; peace and prosperity for the country and, above all, that God should open the eyes of Nigerians to stop seeing corruption as
ordinary stealing and to recognize it as a huge monster with jaws wide open to
swallow up the social order.
Professor
Ishaq Akintola,
Director,
Muslim
Rights Concern (MURIC)
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