14th October, 2013
The Christian Association of Nigeria, CAN, (Northern Zone) has decried the prevailing situation in the country especially as it pertains to high level of insecurity.
In a press statement published in a national daily Monday and jointly signed by Archbishop P.Y. Jatau and Professor Daniel Babaji representing the 19 Northern states in Nigeria, CAN expressed concerns about the menace Boko Haram continues to pose to the country.
CAN said the activities of the terrorists have perverted the course of the nation’s development and progress, signifying that the state of emergency declared by government in the North-Eastern states of Borno, Adamawa and Yobe in May 2013 has been less effective.
It declared that the “military blitzkrieg has proven fallow” in the affected states as Boko Haram still wreaks havoc in those states.
CAN condemned the killing of over 40 students of Government Secondary School, Mamudo, and a similar attack perpetrated at the College of Agriculture in Yobe State.
It said willful violence has become embedded in Nigeria’s national discourse, bringing with it the prospect of anarchy.
“The lawmakers of Rivers State demonstrated that violence is not restricted to the conventional terrorist, and their display before an awed and dumbstruck nation suggests that we have not moved as far forward as we ought to have. The utterly unrestrained manner in which members (Rivers lawmakers) conducted themselves leaves one in no doubt that we are still in our infancy in the struggle to establish a democratic culture,” the association said.
CAN said it finds it frustrating the contradiction between what government says and what it does. While the government on one hand speaks in hushed tones of trying times, on the other hand, “we hear of an order of 53 gold plated iphones to commemorate the country’s 53rd independence anniversary.
“This glorification of excesses feeds into the discontent of many and fuels a sense of having no stake in the Nigeria our gluttonous politicians lay claim to.”
CAN said the coming general elections is enjoying a foreboding presence, “a prism through which all else is viewed and reacted to, as the president’s intention to run for another term come 2015, must be the worst kept secret in Nigeria and beyond.”
CAN further warned that “unless we engender hope in the political dispensation that we have, the clamour for an alternative political dispensation will become more irresistible.”
—Sulaimon Mojeed-Sanni