Boko Haram targets breaking Nigeria along religions – CAN

President of the Christian Association of Nigeria, Pastor Ayo Oritsejafor, fears Boko Haram’s terror activities could lead to the division of the country along religious lines.

A suspected Boko Haram suicide bomber rammed his car into St. John Catholic Church, Bauchi on Sunday, killing himself and four worshippers.

Oritsejafor spoke at the commencement of a six-day meeting of Niger-Delta Christian Leaders Forum hosted by the Christian Central Chapel International in Calabar, Cross River State.

Oritsejafor said, “Boko Haram is a fundamentalist Islamic religious group created and sponsored by those who want to create political space for themselves and in the event of failure to achieve that, they seek to divide Nigeria along religious lines.

“It is fuelled by extreme religious ideology and not poverty because they have not come out to tell us that they are killing people because they are poor,” he said.

He dismissed the claim that the terrorist group was a creation of poverty.

The CAN boss said, “The leader of Boko Haram is from a very wealthy family background and even that young man who wanted to blow up an American airline is the son of one of the richest men in Nigeria. The claim by its sponsors and apologists that the fundamentalist group is created by poverty is false.”

According to him, the sponsors of the sect have control of a section of the media so that they can feed the public with half truths.

Oritsejafor debunked claims that he is a fundamentalist, adding that he had never encouraged any Christian to kill, but rather to stand and abide by the truth.

Speaking on the Niger Delta region, Oritsejafor lamented that despite being the source of Nigeria’s wealth, the region had remained poor.

He said, “Niger-Delta is a region of great people and it has given Nigeria its greatness, yet we are poor. The region is powerful, yet we are weak. This is time for exchange of all those things that have eluded us. We shall reclaim them back.”

Oritsejafor, who said he would make similar pronouncements in Abuja during the October 1 Independence celebration, called on the political to respond to the needs of their people.

Meanwhile, Conference of Nigerian Political Parties has warned that Nigeria could break up if the government fails to address the continued destruction of lives and property by the sect.

The CNPP stated that the unresolved security challenges in the northern part of the country could be a pointer to an eventual disintegration of the country.

Speaking in an interview with The PUNCH on Monday in Port Harcourt, the Rivers State CNPP Chairman, Mr. Manaidi Dagogo-Jack, observed that the Boko Haram onslaught had was not political both religious.