REBECCA AJANI
GOVERNOR Seyi Makinde of Oyo State has said that his administration will not allow those he said were going about to cause religious disharmony to destabilise the state.
He said his administration was committed to being just to all religions, adding that he had said, at the outset, that religious discrimination would not be allowed in his government.
The governor spoke at a special Iftar (breaking of fast) programme for Muslim faithful in the state at the Presidential Lodge of the Government House, Agodi, Ibadan.
He warned those bent on causing religious disharmony to leave the state out of their schemes and look elsewhere.
“We want to thank God for sparing our lives till this very moment. I also want to appreciate God because there is religious harmony in our state, which I believe is the will of God. So, if some people are going to other states to stoke the fire of religious disharmony, the moment they get to Oyo State to cause confusion, please ask them to go elsewhere. The Lord Almighty is making things work for us here,” he said.
Makinde said, during the electioneering campaign, he touched virtually everywhere in the state, and met both the Christian and Muslim communities.
“We went to churches, mosques. And there was no local government area(s) in the state that we went to that we did not meet the Christian and Muslim communities.
“We assured the people then that religious discrimination would not be noticed in our government. I also pledged that we would treat everybody equally irrespective of their religious or political inclinations and that is exactly what we have been doing in this government,” he noted.
The governor assured that his administration would continue to host Ramadan Iftar for Muslims in the state, while urging them to pray to God to continue His good deeds in the lives of indigenes.
The Governor stated, “For the remaining years in this tenure, I want to assure you that we won’t change the ways we have been doing our things. We still have two Ramadan events to observe together. So, let us continue to pray to God to continue His good deeds in our lives. And my prayer is that we will all gather here to witness the next Ramadan and that of year 2023. But that of 2024 is in the hands of God.
“So, what I want us to take home is, let us leave what we want to become tomorrow in the hands of God.”
