When this menace started, the powers in Nigeria were busy choosing proper names for it. They graduated to the level of trading blames and before any meaningful step could be made to tackle it, it gradually turned into a wild fire threatening the fabric of our core existence.

CAN President, Ayo Oritsejafor’s stand on this matter is quite understandable. He is the leader of Christianity just and the Sultan of Sokoto is the leader of Islam in Nigeria. If religion were to be a similitude of political parties, President Goodluck Jonathan would have been automatically the Christian leader while Alhaji Namadi Sambo would be that of the Muslims. But with the struggle between the two religions, that ideology cannot be far from being incontestable.

Oritsejafor cannot be as much worried about this development as Mr. President himself on whose shoulders lies the responsibility to secure our lives and properties, or his vice or the Senate President or Mr. Speaker. The Church leadership as well as all well meaning Nigerians, including the Muslim leadership cannot be more worried too than those who have lost their beloved ones and properties. But all Nigerians, including the innocent children through prayers, have continued to seek workable ways to put a stop to this menace. I was shocked when one of my children asked me this very disturbing question while we watched a wild scene on the television: Dad, why do people kill human beings? Is it not bad?

It is unarguable that the activities of the Boko Haram have hitherto put immense restraint on the restive and aggrieved millions of Nigerian. But for any Nigerian to begin to claim that a group is being specifically targeted and so can no longer guarantee such cooperation if this trend of terror is not halted immediately is really ill-timed because it is capable of causing more harm than remedies.

Whatever nomenclature that it attributed to the Boko Haram or extremist Jamatu Ahlis sunnah lil daawati wal jihad, any reprisals by the restive and aggrieved millions of Nigerians will mean declaration of the deadly religious war, which many socio-political analysts believe to be more consuming than the ethnic or political. True Nigerians should resist the temptation of being lured into any further destruction of our dear lives and hard-earned properties.

Nigeria is sure a secular state with Islam and Christianity dominating the religious sphere of the country. Yet, other minority religious groups including free thinkers are as free as the birds in the country living their lives the way their individual hearts dictate to them. So, no level of killings and bombings by any tiny group that will break up Nigeria or even instil fears in the minds of the patriots. Eradicating religious freedom, democratic liberties or even targeting Christianity directly and Islam in disguise is a futile venture.

The call should be a continous one on the Federal and State governments to change our collective fortunes to the better in a peaceful and development-driven environment.