The Archbishop of Nigeria Nicholas Okoh has warned that a blanket amnesty for
the terror group Boko Haram would see Christians driven from Northern Nigeria.
In a position paper prepared by the church in response to the creation of an
amnesty commission by President Goodluck Jonathan, the archbishop warned that
amnesty without reconciliation would not solve the problem.
“If the Federal Government goes ahead through the amnesty committee to make
peace on BH’s terms, it would have inadvertently and effectively banned
Christians and Christianity from the North. In the amnesty committee, who will
speak for the right of the church, not to be tolerated, but as Nigerian
Christians to exist side by side with Islam and Muslims, build churches, worship
freely, move about freely without being hunted down with all sorts of weapons?,”
said the document entitled “’The rough edges of the amnesty proposition”.
According to extracts published by the Vanguard newspaper on 29
April 2013 the Archbishop asked: “Will the amnesty committee ensure that
Christians are not merely tolerated in the north but are allowed to live
abundant life as Muslims as Christians do in other parts of the country?”
In the most recent clash between the Army and Boko Haram, aid agencies report
187 people were killed after two days of fighting in the town of Baga near the
border with Chad.
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