Nigeria’s top Muslim spiritual leader sought to calm tensions on Tuesday after meeting the country’s president over deadly Christmas attacks claimed by Islamists that risk inflaming sectarian divisions.
“I want to assure all Nigerians that there is no conflict between Muslims and Christians, between Islam and Christianity,” Sultan of Sokoto Muhammad Sa’ad Abubakar told journalists after the meeting that lasted about 90 minutes.
“It’s a conflict between evil people and good people. The good people are more than the evil ones, so the good people must come together to defeat the evil ones, and that is the message.”
President Goodluck Jonathan did not speak publicly after the meeting, but his national security adviser urged Christians not to retaliate over the bombings, the worst of which killed worshippers as they left a Roman Catholic church near the capital Abuja.
“We are Nigerians. I don’t see any major conflict between the Christian community and Muslim community,” Owoye Azazi said.
“Retaliation is not the answer, because if you retaliate, at what point will it end? Nigeria must survive as a nation.”
Boko Haram attacks
Islamist group Boko Haram claimed the Christmas attacks that killed 40 people, 35 of them at the church near Abuja.
Nigeria has seen scores of attacks claimed by Boko Haram, but some analysts said the Christmas bombings marked a dangerous escalation in a country divided between a mainly Muslim north and predominantly Christian south.
The sultan said Jonathan agreed to look at previous reports issued by government panels on the violence linked to radical Islamists and the country’s sectarian divisions.
The Muslim leader also said that more discussions would be held with religious and traditional leaders and Jonathan.
Previous studies on Boko Haram have delved into the roots of the crisis, including poverty in the north and alleged political links to some who have been involved in violence.
‘Ungodly’
The reports have produced no visible changes despite the government’s pledges to take them into consideration.
Muslim leaders have come under pressure to take a more active role in seeking to stop attacks by Boko Haram. The sultan condemned the attacks as “un-Islamic, ungodly.”
Jonathan, a Christian from the south, has faced major opposition in the north of Africa’s most populous nation. The president did not speak publicly after the meeting with the sultan. — AFP