Buhari’s ban on Islamic movement of Nigeria is a bad omen for Catholic too!!!- Catholic cardinal John Onaiyekan warns

Catholic’s Cardinal John Onaiyekan says
President Muhammadu Buhari’s proscribing the
Islamic Movement in Nigeria (IMN) is a step
taken too far and forbodes a bad omen for
Catholics living in Nigeria too.

Speaking to Vatican Radio, Cardinal Onaiyekan
said the government crackdown was unjust and
a move that sets a worrying precedent for
religious freedom in the country.

“Nobody is safe: today it’s the Shiites, tomorrow
it could be us Catholics too,” he said.

Cardinal Onaiyekan explained that recently, for
the government in Nigeria, the question of Shiite
Muslims has become an issue.

He said IMN followers had held a lot of protests
to demand the release of their leader, Ibrahim El-
Zakzaky, who has been detained in prison for the
last four years.

Various tribunals and courts, he noted, had
ordered that he be released, and the government
has refused to obey the courts’ order.

Thus, Cardinal Onaiyekan said, the established
Sunni majority in Nigeria “doesn’t want to
recognize that the Shiites are also Muslims, and
because of this the government treats them with
serious violence”.

He said the Shiites had been holding almost daily
protests in the streets of Abuja for over a month.
“From my own understanding, the protests were
always peaceful and we never saw them armed,”
he said.

And yet, he noted, the government soldiers and
policemen had attacked them with arms, rubber
bullets, and tear-gas canisters.

“As for us Catholics”, the cardinal said, “we are
deeply concerned about this development: “if the
government can influence a Court to declare a
religious group proscribed, then nobody is safe –
today it is the Shiites, tomorrow it might be us
Catholics too.”

Noting there has not yet been an official
response by the Catholic Church to the situation,
he said he expects it is soon to come:
“Personally my own position is that we cannot
keep quiet and allow this kind of thing to keep
going on”.

“If the Shiites break the law of the land they
should be held accountable,” the Cardinal said,
“but to simply proscribe them, it is going too
far.”