{"id":65158,"date":"2025-05-01T07:04:15","date_gmt":"2025-05-01T07:04:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/?p=65158"},"modified":"2025-05-01T07:04:15","modified_gmt":"2025-05-01T07:04:15","slug":"trust-or-trouble-faith-leaders-warn-nigeria-at-crossroads","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/2025\/05\/01\/trust-or-trouble-faith-leaders-warn-nigeria-at-crossroads\/","title":{"rendered":"Trust or Trouble: Faith Leaders Warn Nigeria at Crossroads"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Ade Iyamoye\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

Nigeria\u2019s top faith and thought leaders have issued a powerful joint call for a nationwide revival of trust to avert deeper national crisis and restore unity across religious, ethnic, and political lines.<\/p>\n

At the opening of the Nigeria Inter-Religious Council\u2019s (NIREC) first triannual meeting for 2025 in Owerri, the President of the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN), Archbishop Daniel Okoh, declared that Nigeria\u2019s very survival rests on dismantling suspicion and embracing shared humanity.<\/p>\n

\u201cWithout mutual trust, unity becomes an illusion,\u201d Archbishop Okoh warned, decrying a legacy of prejudice, stereotypes, and social wounds that have torn the nation\u2019s fabric.<\/p>\n

He urged Nigerians to begin seeing one another \u201cnot through the distorted lens of prejudice, but through the dignified lens of shared humanity under one God.\u201d<\/p>\n

Themed Building Mutual Trust for National Unity, the high-level dialogue drew key religious figures, traditional rulers, and policy influencers, including the President of the Catholic Bishops\u2019 Conference of Nigeria, Most Rev. Lucius Ugorji, and notable statesman Nze Ozichukwu Fidelis Chukwu.<\/p>\n

Archbishop Ugorji rallied Christians and Muslims to stand together against hate, division, and violence, stressing that religious leaders must raise their voices against those who exploit faith for terror and political gain.<\/p>\n

\u201cSilence in the face of evil is complicity,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Delivering a stirring keynote, Chukwu lamented the rise of hate speech, ethnic profiling, and declining national pride.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe average Nigerian is confused, disenchanted, and distrustful,\u201d he said. \u201cWe now live in a country where loyalty to tribe trumps patriotism.\u201d<\/p>\n

He described NIREC as a moral compass and tasked it with championing reforms that include restoring peace in flashpoints like Rivers State, resolving farmer-herder clashes, releasing prisoners of conscience, and tackling unemployment.<\/p>\n

Archbishop Okoh also inaugurated interreligious councils in the five South East states, describing them as \u201csacred spaces for sincere dialogue,\u201d not stages for fame or politics.<\/p>\n

He charged families, schools, faith communities, and the media to become \u201claboratories of trust, tolerance, and truth.\u201d<\/p>\n

Backing the spiritual leaders’ sentiments, Dr. Alatare Sulyman Musa, a university scholar, described Nigeria\u2019s unity as \u201cfragile and artificial\u201d without deliberate trust-building.<\/p>\n

He cited persistent injustice, electoral fraud, and institutional failure as culprits, and urged leaders to lead with fairness, sincerity, and equity.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf Nigeria is to survive and thrive as one nation,\u201d Musa concluded, \u201cwe must build a country where all citizens feel heard, included, and protected.\u201d<\/p>\n

As the meeting ended, a strong message echoed: Nigeria cannot move forward divided. Trust is not just a moral ideal\u2014it is now a national emergency.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Ade Iyamoye\u00a0 Nigeria\u2019s top faith and thought leaders have issued a powerful joint call for a nationwide revival of trust to avert deeper national crisis and restore unity across religious, ethnic, and political lines. At the opening of the Nigeria Inter-Religious Council\u2019s (NIREC) first triannual meeting for 2025 in Owerri, the President of the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":32,"featured_media":65159,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[172],"tags":[59],"class_list":["post-65158","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-featured"],"aioseo_notices":[],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65158","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/32"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=65158"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65158\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":65160,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65158\/revisions\/65160"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/65159"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=65158"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=65158"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=65158"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}