President Muhammadu Buhari has spoken against attempts to divide Nigeria along religious lines.
He said contrary to the opinion in some quarters, Boko Haram is not primarily targeting Christians as Muslims form about 90 percent of its victims.
In an op-ed published in Christianity Today, titled “Buhari: Pastor Andimi’s faith should inspire Nigerians,” he eulogised the Chairmen of Michika, Adamawa State Christian Association of Nigeria, CAN, recently beheaded by Boko Haram for refusing to renounce his Christian faith.
He said his faith should serve as inspiration for all Nigerians.
Buhari wrote: “Christianity in Nigeria is not—as some seem intent on believing—contracting under pressure, but expanding and growing in numbers approaching half of our population today. Nor is it the case that Boko Haram is primarily targeting Christians: not all of the Chibok schoolgirls were Christians; some were Muslims, and were so at the point at which they were taken by the terrorists.
“Indeed, it is the reality that some 90 per cent of all Boko Haram’s victims have been Muslims: they include a copycat abduction of over 100 Muslim schoolgirls, along with their single Christian classmate; shootings inside mosques; and the murder of two prominent imams. Perhaps it makes for a better story should these truths, and more, be ignored in the telling.
“It is a simple fact that these now-failing terrorists have targeted the vulnerable, the religious, the non-religious, the young, and the old without discrimination. And at this point, when they are fractured, we cannot allow them to divide good Christians and good Muslims from those things that bind us all in the sight of God: faith, family, forgiveness, fidelity, and friendship to each other.
“Yet sadly, there is a tiny, if vocal, minority of religious leaders—both Muslim and Christian—who appear more than prepared to take their bait and blame the opposite religious side.
“The terrorists today attempt to build invisible walls between us. They have failed in their territorial ambitions, so now instead they seek to divide our state of mind, by prying us from one from another—to set one religion seemingly implacably against the other.”
Quoting from both the Bible and the Quran, President chastised Boko Haram for twisting the scriptures, which the terrorists cite for attacking their targets.
He added: “Translated into English, Boko Haram means ‘Western teachings are sinful.’ They claim as ‘proof’ passages of the Quran which state that Muslims should fight ‘pagans’ to be justification for attacks on Christians and those Muslims who hold no truck with them. They are debased by their wilful misreading of scripture—at least those of them who are able to read at all.
“Of course, there is much of Christianity and Islam—both in teaching and practice—that are not the same. Were that not so, there would be no need for the separateness of the two religions. Yet though these unread terrorists seem not to know it, there is much between our two faiths—both the word and the scripture—that run in parallel.
“For the Bible teaches, ‘Each one must give as he has purposed in his heart, not grudgingly or under compulsion” (2 Cor. 9:7), while the Quran states: ‘There is no compulsion in religion’ (2:256).
