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NSCIA kicks against CAN, US claim of religious intolerance
By Emmanuel Awosika
The National Supreme Council for Islamic Affairs (NSCIA) has faulted a claim by the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) that Christians were unduly persecuted in Nigeria.
The Special Assistant on Media and Communications, to the CAN President, Adebayo Oladeji, had made the claim following the United States’ decision to place Nigeria on a blacklist for “religious intolerance”.
Oladeji said many Northern states refused to grant Christians approval to build churches. He also added that the University of Ilorin, Kwara State, has had no Vice-Chancellor of Christian faith for the last 25 years.
However, the NSCIA has informed the US that Christians had more churches in the North than Muslims had mosques in the South, which is predominantly Christian in population.
He rejoined the CAN official’s claim about UNILORIN, saying that the University of Ibadan in comparison has had no Muslim Vice-Chancellor in 72-year history.
Chairman of the NSCIA Media Committee, Femi Abass, made these known while reacting to the blacklist placed on Nigeria by the US in an interview with The PUNCH Newspaper.
He said: “Perhaps by gaining access to records, the US government may discover and be able to explain to CAN that the churches in the Northern parts of Nigeria, where Muslims are demographically predominant in physical presence, are about 300 per cent or more than the number of mosques in the Southern parts of the country where Christians are in the majority.
“Except for the South-West, the ratio of mosques to churches in other parts of Southern Nigeria is about one to 100 in virtually every locality. The NSCIA or any Muslim group is not making any noise on it. Is Nigeria meant for Christians alone?
“As for the allegation over the seats of the vice-chancellors in the federal universities, we challenge CAN to cite the number of federal universities in the Southern parts of Nigeria, in which Muslim professors are vice- chancellors compared to those of the Northern parts where Christians are vice-chancellors.
“Even the 72 year old University of Ibadan, otherwise called Premier University, which was established in 1948, has never had a Muslim as vice-chancellor since its inception till date.”
