N30m mosque: Build church, shr
Civil rights advocacy group, Human Rights Writers Association of Nigeria, on Friday, insisted that the Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development, Mohammed Nanono, must approve a sum of N30m apiece to build a church and a shrine, just as he approved the same amount to build a mosque for displaced Muslim herders.
HURIWA National Coordinator, Emmanuel Onwubiko, stated this in a statement titled, ‘HURIWA To Agric Minister: Build A Church And African Shrine Or Be Sued’.
Nanono had come under heavy criticisms on social media following a leaked memo conveying the approval of N30million for the construction of a ‘Friday’ mosque with taxpayers’ funds.
But following the outrage, the minister through his ministry confirmed the leaked memo as authentic, explaining that the mosque was built for livestock farmers.
HURIWA and in its reaction said the Minister’s action was “provocative, sectional and unconstitutional”.
It also rejected the explanation of the ministry, saying it was unacceptable to deploy public fund to promote private religious pursuit in a multi-religious country like Nigeria.
HURIWA’s statement read, “This provocative decision apart from being discriminatory and offensive to section 42 (1) of the Constitution is a gross breach of section 10 of the Constitution which prohibits the elevation of ant religion as the State religion.
“Section 10 of the Nigerian Constitution says: ‘The Government of the Federation or of a State shall not adopt any religion as State Religion, of the Nigerian Constitution’.
“We are by this public notice, demanding from the minister of Agriculture, that he approves about N30 million each into two places for the building of a Church to be used by displaced farmers in Benue State and a befitting Shrine for use by African traditionalists who are farmers in any part of Southern Nigeria deemed appropriate by the farmers.
“We are giving the minister a week to approve the funds to build a Church and a Shrine or we will mobilise Christian farmers and farmers who are African traditionalists to file a suit against this obviously unconstitutional and discriminatory policy.”
FirstNews
