Catholic Church To finally Dialogue With CAN •As CBCN Insists On Amnesty For Boko Haram

There are indications that the rift between the Catholic Church and the Christian association of Nigeria (CAN) will soon come to an end.
The President of Catholic Bishops Conference of Nigeria {CBCN}, Bishop Ignatius Kaigama gave the indications when he during a world press conference in Abuja.
Kaigama said “as of today, we are still members of CAN. Sometimes ago, we raised our concerns on certain issues and we asked for dialogue with executives of CAN. The meeting for dialogue was to have held before now, it hasn’t, but will hold very soon.”
He stated that issues would be discussed indepth and that then there would be a national body representing all the christians in the country, “so give us some chance, we shall discuss in a very amicable manner and the results would be out”, he said.
Meanwhile the heads of the Catholic Church have insisted on the amnesty programme, the same issue that CAN has vehemently rejected.
It would be noted that Pastor Ayo Oritsejafor was recently elected for a second term as the President of CAN.
While speaking on other national issues, the CBCN stated that it prayed and hoped that the declaration of state of emergency in some states would achieve the desired objectives and that genuine amnesty should mean offering pardon to repentant militants and not appeasing criminals and their sponsors to stay calm.
Bishop Kaigama said that the Catholic Church welcomed the efforts of President Goodluck Jonathan in seeking to bring the country’s challenges under control and believed that given the serious nature of the crisis, the President must use all available resources required to resolve the tensions in various parts of the country.
He said “we urge the President to mobilise the leadership of the political class especially the members of the dominant ruling Party to resolve the lingering crisis in the country”.
“At moments of national crisis such as we face now, patriotism and national interests should prevail over narrow partisan and selfish interests”.
He said that it seemed clear to all that the crisis were the direct result of the forthcoming elections of 2015.
“We must note first , there has to be a nation before we can conduct elections, democracy ought to offer a level playing field in which every citizen should feel free to aspire to any office in the land. We therefore hold the members of the political class, squarely responsible for ensuring the stability of our dear nation”, he said.
Kaigama further called on the President to find the best way to end the crises over the leadership of the Governors’ Forum and the power tussle in Rivers State.
He then condemned the provocative, unguarded and partisan utterances that threaten the national corporate existence of Nigeria and called on relevant government agencies nit to shy away from prosecuting the elements when they breach the laws of the land or threaten national security and peace.
He called on the Federal Government to continue to explore the most effective means of dialogue with a view to restoring the country to normalcy.
Kaigama stressed that the Christians were experts in forgiving and that amnesty should be given to people who were remorseful,”when you give amnesty as a bribe, then the problem of violence would be temporary”.
The President of the CBCN said that the Boko Haram crisis had become multi dimensional and that religion had become the poor victim after being obviously pinned as the major cause of the crisis.