Hold Security Agencies Responsible For Southern Kaduna Killings – CAN

The Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) on Thursday said security agencies should be held responsible for the endless killings in Southern Kaduna, just as the Christian body called on them to “ wake up to their responsibilities.”
In a press statement signed by Pastor Bayo Oladeji, who is Special Assistant (Media and Communications) to the President of CAN, Rev (Dr) Samson Olasupo Ayokunle, the body lamented the continued killings in the area “despite the curfew and the presence of the Police and other security agencies in the volatile zone”
Ayokunle, who was quoted speaking at the just concluded meeting of the National Executive Committee (NEC) of CAN in Abuja, noted, “All of us should organize prayers again and if possible with fasting to seek the intervention of God so that this senseless destruction of human beings might stop. I think what has encouraged this type of carnage in Southern Kaduna is the inability of the law enforcement agents to apprehend the criminals responsible for these killings and if they were apprehended at all, they were not conclusively prosecuted.
“We have heard these days more often than not, the law enforcement agents saying that the criminals are ‘unknown gun men.’ Whose duty is it to know them? Is it not the law enforcement agents?”
The statement said that the national secretariat of CAN was making efforts to provide relief materials to victims of the carnage in both Southern Kaduna and the Agatu community in Benue State.
“We are planning to visit Southern Kaduna to distribute relief materials to the victims of the massacre there. We planned to do this earlier and chose date, but we couldn’t go because we received security report that it was not safe to do so. We would equally visit the Agatu community in Benue State to distribute relief materials,” Ayokunle added.
Calling on Christians not to cease from praying for President Muhammadu Buhari, who is on a medical vacation in London, the CAN President said, “I urge all of us to be praying for the President of our country, President Muhammadu Buhari who is sick and is out of the country for treatment; we had twice released our pleas for prayers for him. It is our spiritual and legitimate duty as people of God. We should also pray for the Acting President, Professor Yemi Osinbajo that God might guide him rightly this time when he acts for his principal.
“We should organize prayers, if possible vigil at every state secretariat of CAN to pray for our country at a chosen date and that the FCT CAN should come to the national secretariat for their own. In each centre, the governor of the state or his representative should be invited to such prayer meeting”.
The Christian body expressed dismay at the destruction of churches in some parts of the states, adding, “Churches were destroyed in states like Jigawa on the excuse that they did not get building permit whereas they had applied for many years without being given the permit. Recently, a Redeemed Christian Church of God was burnt down in Dei- Dei, here in Abuja, very early in the morning. What shall we do to these continuous provocations without any visible action by the law enforcement agents?”