Embrace Peaceful Co-existence, Avoid Divisiveness, Group Urges Nigerians

The National Prayer Altar, an interdenominational and international platform of Christians who pray for Nigeria, has called on all Nigerians to embrace peaceful co-existence and shun any form of hate and divisiveness.

The group organised a colloquium recently and expressed its concern over any attempt to divide the country along ethnic or religious lines, especially following the 2023 governorship election in Lagos State.

A communiqué issued at the end of its meeting stated that Nigeria is a country made up of hundreds of ethnic nationalities living in peace and harmony with each other.

According to the communiqué, Yorubas and Igbos, the two major nationalities in the South of Nigeria have never fought each other in over one thousand years of shared history but only traded.

The group expressed concern about the tension deliberately fermented between the Igbos and the Yorubas, which resulted in the ethnic conflict that erupted during the Lagos State governorship election of March 18, 2023.

“Some agents of a particular political party, claiming to represent the Yoruba race, openly and aggressively profiled the Igbos and criminally denied them the opportunity to exercise their civic right to vote. This action was strongly condemned by the group,” it said.

The group called on the judiciary, as the last hope of the common man, to be circumspect in handling the election cases in court to prevent a perversion of justice and its disastrous consequences for the country.

Furthermore, the communiqué urged Christian leaders to be more outspoken in promoting peaceful coexistence among the citizens of the country. It called for Christian leaders of Igbo and Yoruba origins to come together and address the issues publicly in the promotion of peace and mutual goodwill.

It reminded the Igbos and Yorubas that divide-and-rule was a major policy of the colonial powers and has been adopted as an internal ethnopolitical colonialist strategy.

The National Prayer Altar urged Igbos and Yorubas to remember that the major actors in the civil war of 1967–1970 were mostly Christians who ended up decimating one another across ethnic lines under manipulation by their cleverer religio-ethnic colonialist dividers.

“The doctrine of hate and the supremacist ideology of one ethnic group in Nigeria have been major factors hindering the unity and progress of Nigeria, especially as the unity of the Igbos and Yorubas is integral to resisting local colonisation,” it stated.