AFRICA/NIGERIA - The Bishops of the Province of Ibadan: "We ask for a review of the security forces"

Abuja (Agenzia Fides) - "With current realities it has become more necessary than ever to demand the review of Nigeria’s security architecture", said the Catholic Bishops of Nigeria’s Ibadan Ecclesiastical Province at the end of their January 25-26 meeting. The insecurity affecting ever larger areas of Nigeria is causing despair and resentment towards federal authorities. "Given the campaign promises of the present government and the cauldrons of insecurity erupting all over the country, it is unfortunate that the Federal Government has remained impervious to this call", the Bishops write.
"As a consequence, we parade a Nigerian Army that has not been able to effectively check the atrocities of Boko Haram for over a decade". The risk is the formation of militias and local self-defense groups. "Such manner of governance, that exerts itself to protect the interest of a segment of the population at the expense of the security of life and property of the majority, makes the emergence of militias and self-appointed messiahs inevitable", say the Bishops, according to whom, however, some initiatives such as the South Western Security Network (SWSN), known as Amotekun, could be useful additions to state and federal security forces.
With reference to the youth protests against police abuse (see Fides, 26/10/2020), the Bishops ask "the federal and state governments to keep the promises made in the wake of the protests and not to ignore the reasons why the protests took place, as is normally the case in Nigeria". They also appeal to religious and public organizations and citizens to offer jobs to young people to cope with a potentially explosive situation.
On the level of evangelization, the Bishops of the Ecclesiastical Province of Ibadan express their appreciation for the Kampala Document by the Symposium of Episcopal Conferences of Africa and Madagascar (SECAM) and have urged Church leaders in the country to take advantage of it in their evangelization mission.
"We urge all our Priests, Religious, Lay Faithful, seminaries and other formation houses to access, study and apply the Kampala document to concrete pastoral needs. This is necessary so that evangelization efforts of the last 50 years in Africa may be further nurtured and the fruits therefrom, harnessed for further growth and consolidation". (L.M.) (Agenzia Fides, 2/2/2021)

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