Minister of Information and National Orientation, Mohammed Idris has alleged that religious extremists in the country were working to divide Nigeria.
The Minister, who spoke with State House Correspondents after a routine meeting with President Bola Tinubu at the Presidential Villa on Tuesday, also disclosed that the President was working hard to address the challenge of terrorism in order to stave off the threat of sanctions and invasion issued by President Donald Trump.of the United States of America (US)
According to him, the President has been engaging religious stakeholders and international community to stop the violence in the country.
The Minister said: “Nigeria has Muslims and Christians and even those who even do not believe in any of these religions and our constitution guarantees everyone should practice their faith without hindrance and Mr President is going to respect that to the letter.
“Again, yes, we have this security challenges but nowhere has there been any decision to favour one religion or the other or to inflict violence over one religion .
“What has happened is that we have these extremists that are driving this narrative and their desired outcome is to see that this country is divided and we want to caution Nigerians to look deeper. This is a time for us to reflect on our nationhood to reflect on our unity, this is not the time for division , this is not the time for rhetoric. It is the time for nationbuilding. It is the time for calling for everyone to come together so that we can continue to have a Nigeria of our dream.”
Responding to question on what the President was doing to stop terrorism and killings, Idris noted that Tinubu had earlier taken proactive steps to tackle insecurity in the country ahead of the US President’s categorization of Nigeria as a Country of Particular Concern by rejigging the Army hierarchy by changing the Service Chiefs.
He said “Only two weeks ago, Mr President in his own desire to rekindle the security architecture of the country reinvigorated the hierarchy of the Armed forces ,a new Chief of Defence Staff and other service chiefs were appointed. These were all the issues that came out pre-issues that came out before the US concerns. So, that tells you that Mr President has been working assidously to ensure that Nigeria is a country that remains safer for all Nigerians to live in.”
On the approach being adopted by the President to stave off American sanctions, be said “it is a multiple approach. Discussions with the leadership of religious groups is an ongoing efforts. Mr President has been meeting with them and he will continue to do so, they are all Nigerians and he is leading them. They are ofcourse an important stakeholder in the Nigerian project. Yes Mr President will continue to engage with the International community not just U.S; everyone, the regional bodies, the continental bodies and everyone that we think has a role to play in ensuring that Nigeria succeeds in ridding this country of this criminal element that are helping the world to drive this narrative to give Nigeria a very bad name. And we know that this is not who we are as a country. So for us to be characterise as a country that is not tolerant when it comes to religion is not accurate. This is absolutely false.
Mr President is calm, he’s taking this of course very seriously and all those that should look at this issue are looking at them with all the responsibilities and the depth that it requires so that at the end of the day we will come out of this. We believe that we will come out of this very strongly.”
