Dapchi girls: CAN praises Leah for standing for her faith

By Adoga Michael Oyi


… Boko Haram trying to set us against each other, Ahmadiyya
The Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN), has praised the lone Dapchi girl Leah Sharibu, being held captive by Boko Haram for standing for her faith.
CAN says that people saying that Leah should have denounced Christ and repented later do not understand the tenets of Christianity.
Federal Capital Territory (FCT) CAN President, Rev. Dr. Jonah Samson explained that Christianity is all about conviction and not denial.
Speaking at the Ahmadiyya Muslim Jama’at Nigeria, Northern Region, 6th Northern Region Jalsa Tarbiya, 3rd national peace symposium that was held in Abuja. Samson who was represented by Rev. Dr. Samuel Kajeyale said,
“In the aspect of people saying that Leah should have denounced her faith, it is not possible. If you know what Christian beliefs is all about, it is all about conviction and denial is not part of the tenets of Christianity, if you have given your life to Jesus and made him the lord of your life, people might want to say Peter denied Christ but look at the context of Peter’s denial, immediately he denied Christ he asked for forgiveness, we should ve very careful of looking at a portion of the bible and not looking at it holistically, if you are not given the opportunity of repentance and after the denying Christ you are killed, what becomes of you? That is the issue.
“So that girl as far as we are concerned, we are praying for her because of her conviction. When you look at the nation holistically, we have the freedom to practice our religion, religion should be by persuasion not imposition, if we allow religion to graduate to imposition, what we are going to reap in the society is total chaos.”
Amir sahib (National Head), Ahmadiyya Muslim Jama’at, Nigeria. Dr. Mashhud Fashola at the occasion called on Nigerians to beware of Boko Harams attempts to set Christians against Muslims.
Fashola said that the sect is exploiting religion for the purpose of conflict.
His words, “This is trying to make us as a nation set ourselves against eachother, we may not know thise causing problems, we may call them a particular name and they may not be the ones causing the problems, so what we need is dialogue
“In religion their is bad leadership, when religious leaders are not preaching discipline, morality and selflessness, they are alao looking for money, they are materialistic it will cause problems. Some of our leaders too are looking for their own pockets rather than fighting for the development of the nation and eradication of poverty. Leave religion apart, poverty knows no religion, if you dont address poverty, you cause problems in the nation, extremists will play on those deprived and preach wrong ideologies.
“As for Boko Haram, the government is not Boko Haram if Boko Haram sizes someone and refuse to return the person, it is not the fault of the government, let us put the blame on Boko Haram, Boko Haram is trying to create conflict, wants to set us against eachother and exploiting religion for that purpose, their take is not on religion, they know that when they create religious crisis, their will be crisis in the country, we should be very careful not to make them cause us to fight eachother. For me, what Boko Haram is doing is to cause disunity and instability in the country.”