Calabar
The national publicity secretary of the Pentecostal Fellowship of Nigeria (PFN) has called on Islamic teachers and clerics to further educate their faithful on the doctrine of blasphemy as it relates to the recent killing of a female Christian student in Sokoto.
Bishop Emmah Gospel Isong who was reacting to the killing of Deborah Samuel, a 200 level student of Shehu Shagari College of Education in Sokoto in a chat with Weekend Pioneer in Calabar, condemned it in its entirety.
Describing it as a fanaticism, Bishop Isong argued that the female student neither blasphemed against Mohammed nor said evil against the religion of Islam, explaining that from the video he watched, “Deborah only said that Jesus made me pass my examinations and Jesus Christ is my Lord and Saviour.”
While wondering how that became a blasphemy against Islam or Mohammed, the clergy suspected that politicians may have instigated the killing as it came at a time “both Christians and Moslems were trying to live together to sort out issues about 2023 elections.”
He also suspected both political and religious sabotage because,according to him, “A very big man of God (name withheld) was to stage a crusade in Sokoto two days after that killing.”
Isong added that it was likely because “some mercenaries were hired to kill Deborah and we are told that some of them are not even Nigerians. They are the owners of Boki Haram and ISWAP.”
Bishop Isong, who is the presiding bishop of Christian Central Chapel International based in the City of Testimonies 8 Miles,Calabar, maintained that “the murder of Deborah has exposed that we lack secularity and plurality in our constitutional provision.”
As it were, the clergy continued, “We are depending on the Federal Government to arrest and prosecute the killers and give justice to the soul and family if Deborah,” calling on government to fish out non-Nigerians who are parading in Kano and other states to run down the country and make it ungovernable.
He said that some of them do not even believe in Nigerian constitution but other parrarel laws like the Sharia, stressing, “Deborah’s death shall not be in vain. It will really bring a lot of discussions to the front burner.”
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