From: Laide Raheem, Abeokuta
The National Council of Muslim Youth Organisations (NACOMYO) has advocated for the establishment of Ministry of Religious Affairs or Agency that will regulate and monitor the activities of religious preachers in the country.
NACOMYO stated this in a release signed by its National President, Alhaji Kamaldeen Akintunde and made available to journalists, on Tuesday, in Abeokuta, the Ogun State capital.
The Ministry, if created, the organisation explained, would issue licence to religious preachers in the country and check their excesses. He added that it would also serve as an antidote to hate preaching and inflammatory utterances that tend to undermine the fragile peace in the country.
While noting that such agency exists in certain parts of the country, it stressed the need to empower and strengthen them to enable them carry out such function, towards making the preachers to be refined, disciplined and apply decorum in calling people to the way of God.
“Religion is taking a new trend, capable of causing Nigerians to take up arms against themselves. Therefore, government needs to rise to the occasion and take proactive initiatives at stemming the tide and averting religious crises in the overall interest of nationhood”. The release stated.
It, however, renewed call for the resuscitation of Nigerian-Inter Religious Council (NIREC), with more vigour as a means to checking religious bigotry, intolerance and to ensuring interfaith cooperation and collaboration for development.
NACOMYO also emphasized the need for caution and restraint on the part of stakeholders and especially those at the helm of affairs, asking them to eschew sentiments and be ‘part of the solution’ rather than being ‘part of the problem’.
The release, also urged Muslims and Christians in the country to close ranks for a collaborative approach to challenges facing the country, pointing out “that as stakeholders, it was incumbent on us to sacrifice and be dedicated to the cause of the nation”.