BREAKING NEWS: The Religious Liberty Partnership has released a Statement on Nigeria calling on Christians worldwide for prayer and action. Entitled the Abuja Statement on the Crises in Central Nigeria, the document states that though “there has been a long history of disputes between nomadic herders and farming communities across the Sahel,” the current attacks in Nigeria, “can no longer be attributed to desertification or to a struggle for resources.” The attacks “now occur with such frequency, organisation and asymmetry that references to ‘farmer-herder clashes’ no longer suffice.”
The Statement calls on the Nigerian government “to ensure that all of Nigeria’s religious communities enjoy religious freedom, including the right to manifest and propagate their beliefs as enshrined in Article 38.1 of the Nigerian Constitution and to “urgently facilitate the release of Leah Sharibu, Alice Ngaddah and the remaining Chibok Girls.”
“This is a clear statement of the truly dire situation facing Christians in the North and Middle Belt of Nigeria,” said Mervyn Thomas, Chairman of the Religious Liberty Partnership (RLP) and CEO of CSW,UK. “By holding our annual RLP consultation in Abuja this year, Christians from around the world were able to gain a clear understanding of the problems and to stand shoulder to shoulder with our Christian family in Nigeria.”
Full Statement is found here: https://rlpartnership.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/Abuja-Statement-on-Nigeria-Final-Draft-with-Organisations.pdf
For additional information on the Abuja Statement or the Religious Liberty Partnership (RLP), please contact Brian O’Connell, RLP Facilitator: [email protected]