More than 50 Muslim and Christian leaders have signed an interfaith \u200bpeace accord in Abuja, launching a new body to promote religious harmony across Nigeria.<\/p>\n
Nigeria’s more \u200cthan 200 million population is roughly evenly divided between a predominantly Muslim north and a largely Christian south, with other groups practicing traditional religions.<\/p>\n
Focus on the religious divide was heightened last November when U.S. President Donald Trump called Nigeria a “disgraced country” \u200band\u00a0threatened military action\u00a0over what he said was the treatment of Christians by “Islamic Terrorists”.<\/p>\n
Terrorist groups such \u200bas Boko Haram and Islamic State West Africa Province have wrought havoc in the \u2060country for more than 15 years, killing thousands of people, but their attacks have been largely confined \u200bto the majority Muslim northeast.<\/p>\n
While Christians have been killed, the vast majority of the victims have been Muslims, \u200banalysts and rights groups say.<\/p>\n
ACCORD WELCOMED BY FAITH LEADERS<\/strong><\/p>\n No mention was made of Trump’s comments in the official statements about the accord signed on Wednesday at a conference organised by the Muslim World League, an Islamic non-governmental organisation based in Saudi \u200bArabia.<\/p>\n But the government and various other groups have been working to show progress on security since his remarks.<\/p>\n Muslim \u200bWorld League Secretary-General Mohammad Al-Issa said there was enthusiasm among the two faiths to “turn a new page”.<\/p>\n “We do not deny \u200cthat \u2060extremist ideas have harmed everyone; all have been affected by it,” he said.<\/p>\n Christian and Muslim leaders from Nigeria described the pact as a turning point.<\/p>\n John Praise Daniel, chairman of the Northern Christian Religious Leaders’ Assembly, said he hoped it would curb divisive rhetoric by clerics.<\/p>\n “No hate speech, and no disrespect for other religious groups, \u200bno calling of people as \u200binfidels,” he said.<\/p>\n Khalid Abubakar, \u2060secretary-general of Jama’atu Nasri Islam, said: “It is not a call to leave your own religion, but a cooperation of working together in harmony.”<\/p>\n Deputy Senate President Barau Jibrin \u200brepresented President Bola Tinubu at the signing ceremony. Three northern state governors were \u200balso present.<\/p>\n Jibrin \u2060said on the opening day of the two-day event: “The government is determined to make sure that we remain united as a country, despite our differences, whatever the differences may be.”<\/p>\n The accord comes ahead of the January 2027 election, \u2060when religion \u200bwill again be a factor in Nigerian politics.<\/p>\n Tinubu’s ruling All \u200bProgressives Congress is running on the same presidential ticket of two Muslims that it fielded in 2023, breaking Nigeria’s long-standing practice of balancing \u200bpresidential tickets between the country’s two main faiths.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" More than 50 Muslim and Christian leaders have signed an interfaith \u200bpeace accord in Abuja, launching a new body to promote religious harmony across Nigeria.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":21756,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"iawp_total_views":12,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":{"format":"standard","override":[{"template":"1","parallax":"1","fullscreen":"1","layout":"right-sidebar","sidebar":"default-sidebar","second_sidebar":"default-sidebar","sticky_sidebar":"1","share_position":"top","share_float_style":"share-monocrhome","show_featured":"1","show_post_meta":"1","show_post_author_image":"1","show_post_date":"1","post_date_format":"default","post_date_format_custom":"Y\/m\/d","show_post_reading_time":"0","post_reading_time_wpm":"300","post_calculate_word_method":"str_word_count","show_zoom_button":"0","zoom_button_out_step":"2","zoom_button_in_step":"3","show_post_tag":"1","show_comment_section":"1","number_popup_post":"1","show_post_related":"1","show_inline_post_related":"1"}],"image_override":[{"single_post_thumbnail_size":"crop-500","single_post_gallery_size":"crop-500"}],"trending_post_position":"meta","trending_post_label":"Trending","sponsored_post_label":"Sponsored by","disable_ad":"0","source_name":"Reuters","subtitle":""},"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":{"view_counter_number":"0","share_counter_number":"0","like_counter_number":"0","dislike_counter_number":"0"},"footnotes":""},"categories":[2362,34,27],"tags":[1643,5398,175],"class_list":["post-21755","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","category-society","category-west-africa","tag-donald-trump","tag-muslim-world-league","tag-nigeria"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21755","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21755"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21755\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21757,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21755\/revisions\/21757"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21756"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21755"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21755"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21755"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}