President Muhammadu Buhari has disclosed that numerous ethnoreligious killings in the country depresses him and has appealed to Nigerians to learn to live together in peace and harmony.
According to a statement signed by the president’s Special Adviser on Media and Publicity, Femi Adesina, he said this while addressing the leaders of the Church of Christ in Nations (COCIN) at the Presidential Villa on Tuesday, November 6, 2018.
He called on religious, community and traditional leaders to do more in promoting peaceful co-existence among Nigerians at different walks of life. He said:
”As an organised institution (COCIN), I have no reason to doubt your report on the atrocities being committed in your communities including the killing of Idris Alkali, a retired Major-General, the dumping of his car into a pond and the body of the deceased thrown into a disused well.
”The communities (in Plateau) have lived long enough to know that there is nothing they can do without each other than to live together in harmony.
”As leaders, we must persuade the upcoming generation, using every channel particularly the educational institutions, to live together with our neighbours.”
The president further told religious leaders that they have a big role to play in making their followers get along without strife.
”It is not all Muslims that are against Christians and neither are all Christians against Muslims. The leadership in the respective religions have to work harder to make sure they convince the coming generation that they have to live together in the same country.”
The country has been besieged by a lot of ethno-religious violence that has claimed around 2,000 lives in 2018 alone.
