SGF Reacts To ‘Buhari’s Islamic Agenda’, Says Christians Free To Have Theirs

The Secretary to the Government of the Federation, Mr Boss Mustapha, has reacted in the negative to claims that President Muhammadu Buhari was nursing an agenda to Islamise Nigeria.

Mustapha was reacting to several notions in the past suggesting that Nigeria’s membership of the Organisation of Islamic Countries (OIC) was part of the plans by some persons, including President Buhari, to Islamise the country.

But speaking in Jos, Plateau State, during a peace summit organized by the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN), the SGF noted that the country had been a member of the OIC in 1996, way before 2015 when the current president was elected.

Mustapha said, “Where is our agenda as Christians? Let us have a Christian agenda that will promote love, including loving the Muslims; we should go out and make disciples of all nations and stop operating under the siege mentality.

“I must correct the dummy been sold by some rumor-mongers about the issue of Islamising Nigeria; nobody can (Islamise Nigeria). I want the Church to know that nobody can kill the gospel, let’s continue to be our brother’s keepers at all times and continue to preach peace.”

He added that, “We first had an observer status in 1969; that’s how we first got there (OIC). In 1986, under IBB, was when we graduated from observer status to active full membership.

“By that, we became full members with voting rights and had the right to be voted into office,” said Mustapha, adding that Islamic Banking first came into existence in the country under the watch of former President Olusegun Obasanjo in 2005.“Obasanjo took the decision because of the benefits that would be accrued to the country in his best of judgment as the leader.”