BY MAYOWA SAMUEL
The Christian Association of Nigeria has thrown its weight behind the suit filed against the Federal Government at the Federal High Court in Abuja seeking a declaration of Nigeria’s membership of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation as illegal.
Bayo Oladeji, spokesman to CAN President, Rev. Samson Ayokunle, disclosed this to The Point even as he challenged the morality and constitutionality of Nigeria’s membership of the OIC.
Last week, a human rights advocate and lawyer, Malcom Omirhobo, dragged the FG; the Minister of Justice and Attorney-General of the Federation, Abubakar Malami and Minister of Interior, Rauf Aregbesola, as the first to third defendants, respectively, to court.
Reacting to the development, the Christian religious body drummed support for the lawyer’s action against the government, describing as “wrong, ungodly, unacceptable, reprehensible and condemnable” for a government of a circular state to be supporting and promoting one religion at the expense of the others.
It said, “All Christian organisations and denominations in the country are members of one global organization or the other, they go there on their own and not expecting government to fund it for us.
“Nigeria Baptist Convention is a member of World Council of Churches and Baptist World Alliance. We don’t ask government to sponsor us to those meetings, we pay our dues there but to our dismay, the FG is sponsoring attendees to every OIC meeting and the subsidiaries. They even send government delegations, it is wrong, unconstitutional and unacceptable.”
Oladeji recalled that the leadership of CAN had once visited President Muhammadu Buhari to demand the country’s withdrawal from every Islamic organization but the cleric was disappointed that the call had not been heeded to.
The lawyer had aside from seeking for the country’s withdrawal of membership of the OIC, also prayed the court to stop the government from using public funds and commonwealth of Nigerians to fund its membership of the organization, citing the provisions of sections 1(1), 10, and 42(1) (a) (b) of the 1999 Constitution (as amended).
He asked the court to rule against states adopting any religion as state religion considering the religious and ethnic diversity in the country.
He pointed out that “the OIC is not a secular global organisation like the United Nations, ECOWAS and the AU, but an Islamic body established to promote, protect and preserve Islamic interests and values for the benefit of Muslims worldwide.”
The human rights lawyer is seeking, “A declaration that Nigeria’s membership of the OIC, which is being funded, sustained, managed and ran with public funds and/or the commonwealth of Nigerians by the 1st defendant is the adoption of Islam as the official religion of Nigeria and therefore improper, illegal, unlawful and unconstitutional.
“A declaration that Nigeria’s membership of the OIC with public funds is to the advantage, pride, prestige and privilege of Nigerian Muslims to the disadvantage, restriction and disabilities of Nigerians of other religions and therefore discriminatory, improper, illegal, unlawful and unconstitutional.”
