•Tells Tinubu, Sultan to caution Muslim compatriots

The Christian Social Movement of Nigeria (CSMN), the socio-political arm of the church in Nigeria Church, has called on President Bola Ahmed Tinubu to caution his Muslim compatriots before they set the country on fire.

The organisation also cautioned the NSCIA to be careful about its comments concerning a former President of the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) and the Pentecostal Fellowship of Nigeria (PFN), Pastor Ayo Oritsejafor for expressing the pain and anguish that Islamic terrorists have been inflicting on the Church and the country.

The CSMN was responding to what it described provocative and insensitive statement of the Nigerian Supreme Council of Islamic Affairs (NSCIA) under the leadership of the Sultan of Sokoto, Alhaji Sa’ad Abubakar, which“warned” the Federal Government to act quickly before Muslims “run out of patience” over alleged “persistent attacks, profiling and marginalisation of the faith and its adherents.”

The CSMN in a statement by its Executive Secretary/CEO, Bosun Emmanuel, expressed shock that instead of being more civil, apologising to Nigerians, particularly the Christian community, for the destruction that Islamic insurgents have caused in the country since 2009, a few years after a major change in its leadership, the NSCIA, in its impudence is alleging injury and offense at a supposed wrongful profiling of the Muslim faith.

He said: "The Christian community is appealing to President Tinubu to call his religious compatriots to order. Extremists amongst Muslims have used their unbridled religious fervour to destabilize and disorganize Nigeria. The Christian community has been patient under intensive provocation, and the mischievous distortion of narratives should not continue to be tolerated. Muslims are responsible for the terrorism in Nigeria. The government should task the Sultan of Sokoto to call his followers to order.

“The bloodletting in the country started in 2009. Until then, Islam in the Federal Republic of Nigeria never committed atrocities to the level Nigerians are witnessing today. The CSMN wonders on what moral ground the NSCIA stands to “warn” anyone, especially the Federal Government of Nigeria. The attempt to gaslight the government and the Christian community is in very bad taste.

“The Christian Social Movement of Nigeria wishes to inform the NSCIA and all concerned citizens of Nigeria that His Eminence, Pastor Ayo Oritsejafor, is a highly respected and revered leader of the Christian faith. As a Christian leader, he speaks for the Church, and Nigerian Christians stand with him and behind him. The NSCIA is hereby placed under caution to be careful with its comments about the Christian leader for expressing the pain and anguish that Islamic terrorists have been inflicting on the Church and the country.

“The statement of His Eminence, Pastor Oritsejafor, during his interview with Channels TV was deliberately twisted by the NSCIA in its press statement published in Vanguard Newspaper of June 29 2026, where it alleged that the Christian leader had said that 90 to 95 per cent of criminals were Muslims.”

“That is deliberate distortion. What the respected Christian leader said was this, and daily events as well as recurrent sad tales in the public court of the social media vindicate him: “When you look at insecurity in Nigeria today, I would tell you that 99.9% of those who are practising and making this thing thrive are Moslems, not Christians.”

Emmanuel accused the NSCIA of deliberately twisting Oritsejafor’s statement to incite the gullible, probably to have further excuse for fomenting the same insecurity and deliberately avoided to quote the word “insecurity,” preferring “criminals” instead, for whatever ‘better’ reason, to describe Muslims, adding that it is deliberate mischief, for whatever next agenda.

“Pastor Oritsejafor did not call Muslims “criminals.” What the noble clergyman said was that the greater percentage of those behind the ongoing insecurity in Nigeria are adherents of the faith. They are not Sango worshippers or Catholics or Baptists. Of more concern is the fact that the Sultan of Sokoto is also the traditional ruler of the Fulanis, which means that the notorious Fulani herdsmen are his subjects.

“It is curious that the Sultan has not deemed it fit to call his subjects and followers to order for the carnage and destruction that they have brought upon Nigeria.”

According to him, in the same press statement, the NSCIA averred that the suspect linked with the kidnapping of school children and their teachers at Oriire Local Government in Oyo state was “not only a Christian but a pastor.”

He said: "It is well known that taqiyyah is a doctrine in Islam, which excuses falsehood for a Muslim in the promotion and defence of his religion. In fact, Imam Ja’far al-Sadiq (Abu Abdullah) in Al-Kafi said, “Nine-tenths (or 90%) of religion is taqiyyah (dissimulation), and he who has no taqiyyah has no religion.” It is taqiyyah for anyone to infer that a Christian was behind the kidnapping in Oyo State. Will a Christian demand the implementation of Sharia in Oyo State as the ‘ransom’ for freeing his captives, or demand that arrested Muslim terrorists be released? Was it a Pastor who beheaded one of the kidnapped teachers before his own little school children? Do these killers recite the Lord’s Prayer or sing a church hymn while performing these terrible acts? There should be a limit to this taqiyyah.”

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