The National Prayer Altar, an interdenominational and international platform of Christians who pray for Nigeria, has expressed concern over the ethnic conflicts that followed the 2023 governorship election in Lagos State.
The group organised a colloquium recently where Yoruba and Igbo leaders, as well as other citizens of Nigeria, discussed the issue and proffered solutions.
Over 200 people in Nigeria and the Diaspora attended the virtual meeting hosted via ZOOM. It featured three key speakers from the North, East, and West of Nigeria.
In its communiqué, the group stated that Nigeria is made up of hundreds of ethnic nationalities living in peace and harmony with each other. It noted that the Yoruba and the Igbo – the two major nationalities in the south – 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 the two major ethic groups, which resulted in the conflict that erupted during the governorship election in the state on 18th March. It noted that some agents of a particular political party, claiming to represent the Yoruba race, openly and aggressively profiled the Igbo and denied them the opportunity to exercise their civic right to vote. This action was strongly condemned by the group.
The communiqué urged Nigerians not to accept the intimidation by those miscreants, and that any political party that bullies or encourages such act on other people could not be said to mean well for the country. It also called on the judiciary, as the last hope of the common man, to be circumspect in handling the election cases to prevent a perversion of justice and its disastrous consequences on the country.
The group urged Christian leaders to be more outspoken in promoting peaceful co-existence amongst citizens of the country. It called for Christian leaders of Igbo and Yoruba origin to come together and address the issues publicly, in the promotion of peace and mutual goodwill. It reminded the Igbo and the Yoruba that divide-and-rule was a major policy of the colonial powers, and has been adopted as an internal ethno-political colonialist strategy.
The National Prayer Altar urged the Igbo and the Yoruba 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 Igbo and Yoruba is integral to resisting local colonisation, it further said.
It called on all Nigerians to embrace peaceful co-existence and shun any form of hate and divisiveness. The group urged Nigerians to promote national unity and resist any attempt to divide the country along ethnic or religious lines.
