Religious leaders: "Development and the fight against corruption to stop Boko Haram"

            Hatred and mistrust sown by Boko Haram in northern Nigeria are likely to last for years even after the disappearance of the Islamist group. This is what emerged from the seminar titled "Religious Extremism and Its Challenges on Interfaith Dialogue in Western Africa", organized by the Catholic Bishops Regional Conference of West Africa (RECOWA), in conjunction with the Mission and Dialogue department of the Catholic Secretariat of Nigeria (CSN). The meeting was attended among others by Cardinal John Olorunfemi Onaiyekan, Archbishop of Abuja, and His Exc. Mgr. Mathew Hassan Kukah, Bishop of Sokoto, who organized it. The purpose of the initiative was to find concrete ways to counter the threat of religious extremism.
            A Muslim scholar, Prof. Kyari Mohammed of Modibo Adama University, strongly condemned the actions of Boko Haram who he defined a local group with global ambitions. The expert stressed, however, that among the factors that led to the emergence of the group are impunity, bad governance and corruption of the Nigerian elite. The latter, recalled the expert, were termed by the extremists as an offshoot of western education. "Educated people have not been good ambassadors of Western education", said Prof. Mohammed.
"If Boko Haram ends today, the sub-region will be left with a violent and broken society” because, there all groups in the affected areas have been victims of the insurgency; structures demolished; many have lost their properties and as a result, many people have lost confidence in government". Moreover, the presence of civilian self-defense groups in the future is likely to be a source of new instability. (Agenzia Fides 16/03/2015)