CAN Faults US Removal Of Nigeria From Religion Freedom Violators’ List

The Christian Association of Nigeria on Saturday faulted the decision of the United States of America to remove Nigeria from the religious intolerance countries.

A statement by the President of CAN, Dr Samson Ayokunle, said the American government “did not contact us when they were listing Nigeria among the countries of ‘Particular Concern’ on religious freedom, and did not seek our opinion before removing Nigeria from the list.”

The statement titled, ‘CPC list: We are at a loss on the data the US government used for the delisting of Nigeria  – CAN.’

Ayokunle said, “If they had done, we would have been able to compare the statistics then and now on the issue of freedom of religion in Nigeria. Whatever may be the data they used, our prayer is that Nigeria would be a country where no religious group is discriminated against or persecuted and that our government would see to it that all religiously biased policies are discontinued with.”

“This is because all those factors that put Nigeria on CPC list for the first time in 2020 are still there. For example, many states in the North are yet to reverse the policy which denies Christians the Certificate of Occupancy to build churches in their own country. Equally, some, if not many states in the North do not allow Christian students to study Christian Religious Studies in public schools because it is not in the curriculum. 

“Also, Christian students are still complaining that they are denied admission to government-owned universities in the North to study courses like Law and Medicine, among others. Christian students such as Leah Sharibu and students kidnapped from Bethel Baptist High School were left with the kidnappers without any purposeful rescue mission organized for them.”

“For example, for almost a year now, some of our churches have been finding it difficult with the Ministry of Interior to get new marriage certificate booklets after they had exhausted the ones they were using. Some had applied for new supply as far back as January this year without any response from the Ministry of Interior till now.

“This means that such churches licensed to conduct weddings were denied the right to do so for no cogent reason from the government! It is not only in Nigeria that churches are allowed to conduct weddings once they are licensed to do so. Why are the churches being denied the right to do so now in Nigeria?”

“Up till today, our government is still funding the membership of Nigeria in all the International Islamic organizations like OIC (Organization of Islamic Cooperation) and its allies without being part of any international Christian organization.

“Once again, we urge the US government to help us by allowing us to know what has changed between the time our country was put in the list of ‘countries of particular concern’ and now.”