The Senior Special Assistant on Cybercrime to the Kogi State Governor, Promise Emmanuel, has called for religious tolerance following a viral video showing a woman confronting Muslims who were praying on a road on Friday.
Emmanuel, in a Facebook post, said the incident highlighted the need for Christians and Muslims to tolerate practices that may cause some discomfort as they coexist in a religiously diverse society.
He said while blocking roads for Friday prayers was wrong, the practice could be linked to the large number of Muslims who gather for prayers and limited space.
“You criticise Muslims for blocking the road on Fridays ONLY to pray. Yes, it is wrong but they do that because of the number of people who gather to pray on that particular day and for want of space,” he wrote.
The governor’s aide also pointed to some Christian evangelism practices, including preaching to people in their homes without invitation, preaching to passengers in buses and using loudspeakers in public places.
“But you as a Christian, you go to knock on people’s homes to preach to them uninvited. You stand in a bus that some people just want a few minutes of sleep and peace before alighting to preach. Some use very loud speakers in public places to preach. These are also wrong,” he said.
Emmanuel said tolerance was necessary for peaceful coexistence despite differences in religious beliefs.
“That’s where TOLERANCE comes in. A little discomfort for each other to tolerate ourselves in living together because life was created in diversity.”
He further argued that Christians and Muslims in Nigeria shared similarities despite their different religious beliefs.
“If you look at the Nigerian Christian and Muslim, they’re both the same people, believing in the superiority of their belief but guilty of the same crime, hatched from the same foundation. Indigenous folks who forget their humanity because of an imported foreign religion they both subscribed to,” he said.
His comments followed the circulation of a video showing a woman confronting a group of Muslims who were praying on a street on Friday. In the video, prayer mats could be seen laid on the road, while the woman appeared to confront one of the worshippers before another person intervened.
