The President of the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN), Revd Samson Olasupo Ayokunle, has said that incessant killings by suspected herdsmen in Benue and Taraba states are part of efforts to spread Sharia all over the country.
According to The Sun, the Christian leader made this known during a chat with the paper earlier in the week.
Ayokunle was quoted to have said that the killings were consistent with threats made by Boko Haram leader, Abubakar Shekau to take Sharia from the North to the South.
He said, “The problem is people taking laws into their hands; people becoming sick about religious ideas, mentally sick, thinking that they will by force, sweep over every place and convert everybody to their religion because Abubakar Shekau didn’t mince words about his intention. He said it loud and clear that his intention was to establish Sharia from the north to the south, to the Atlantic Ocean.”
The CAN President accused security agencies in the country of complicity in the killings.
“The security agencies were not helpless, but they didn’t do their work as they ought to do. Why should they be helpless? Is it because they were not given weapons? Was it because they were not trained? They were trained, they were given weapons. But what we see which we have been talking about is complicity,” he added.
In the same vein, Ayokunle aligned himself with an earlier statement by Catholic bishop of Abuja Diocese, Cardinal John Onaiyekan that the Christian community would mobilise against corruption and insecurity during the 2019 election the same way it mobilised against corruption during the 2015 election.
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