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Nigeria only witnessed this spate of bloodletting during the civil war – Catholic Bishops
… declare one week prayer, fasting over killings
Bishops of the Catholic Church under the umbrella of Catholic Bishops of Kaduna Ecclesiastical Province, have called for one week prayer and fasting over the spate of insecurity occasioned by kidnapping, banditry insurgency and other related crimes in northern states and the country at large.
The bishops a statement jointly signed by the Archbishop of Kaduna and Chairman of the Ecclesiastical Province, Most Rev. Matthew Ndagoso and Most Rev. John Namaza Niyiring, Bishop of Kano who’s Secretary of the Province, noted that except during the civil war, Nigeria had never witnessed the kind of widespread macabre and destruction and bloodletting going on in the land.
The men of God stated the statement titled, ‘Our hope does not disappoint us,’ released in Kaduna on Sunday.
They also knocked Northern Governors for what they termed skewed programmes and policies that geared towards one particular religion to allegedly encourage evil perpetrators to hide under them to wreck havoc on the people.
According to the Bishops, life has never been so cheap, nor has Nigeria ever been at the stage Nigerians found themselves at the moment.
They also observed that deaths in the hands of kidnappers, killer herdsmen, bandit, terrorist groups had made the Nigeria the most terrorised country in the world.
“We are now one of the most dangerous place to be born into, the least peaceful countries in the world. Everywhere you turn, funerals have become our daily menu,” the bishops said.
“The abductions of school children has presented us with the prospects of a traumatised generation of young students. Even at the best of times, our region has been behind in almost every index of human survival.”
They noted that the endless killing in the country had erected one of the most tragic signposts in the lives of the people, adding that the blood of hundreds and thousands had cried to high heavens.
The Christian community, they said, had suffered tremendously since “we entered this ugly face in the life of our nation.”
“Our Church leaders have been kidnapped, tortured and in some cases, gruesomely murdered for no reason other than that they bear the cross of Christ. We want to assure you, dear brethren that although these times test our collective will, we shall not surrender to falsehood,” they added.
- Against this background, the bishops called on their members, individuals, families, pastoral associations and parishes to embark on a week-long prayer and fasting, starting from August 15th to 22nd, 2021 across all the churches under the province.