The Federal Government, on Friday, cautioned religious leaders against holding Easter services and Friday Jumat in defiance of the stay-at-home order to contain the spread of deadly Coronavirus (Covid-19) pandemic.
Alhaji Lai Mohammed, the Minister of Information and Culture and a member of the Presidential Task Force for the Control of Coronavirus, gave the warning on Nigeria Television Authority (NTA)’s programme, “Good Morning Nigeria”.
The Minister, who was giving update on the activities of the Task Force, decried the situation where some section of Nigerians are disobeying the lockdown directives by the government to contain the disease.
“What we have today is that some people are not obeying the directive and they are still congregating.
‘I hear some religious leaders are saying that nobody can prevent them from conducting their Jumat and Easter Service.
“You therefore begin to wonder if they are true Christians or true Muslims.
The Minister continued: “If they are true Christians, where do they take their compass from?
“Is it from the Queen who is the head of the Anglican Church or the Pope who is the head of the Catholic Church because we know their positions on the Coronavirus?
“People cannot be more Catholic than the Pope and be more Muslim than Prophet Muhammed.
“If Saudi Arabia can stop Umrah which annually attracts about seven million religious tourists and adherents and say you don’t have to come for prayers, who are they to call for congregation?
“Even the Pope has to give his homily through television and online, then what is our problem?, ” he said.
The Minister said that the government understood that issues of religion are very sensitive and the government will continue to engage religious leaders.
He recalled that as parts of the engagement, Mr. Boss Mustapha, the Chairman of the Task Force and the Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF) met with the Catholic Archbishop of Abuja, His Grace, Archbishop Ignatius Kaigama
Mohammed said they were pleasantly surprised at the level of cooperation they received from clergy.
“He led a team of Bishops and they offered us 60 properties of their own all over Nigeria which if need be should be used as Covid 19 treatment centres.
“He emphasised that it is not about religion or politics but about humanity and survival.
“We thank Archbishop Kaigama for this,” he said.
The Minister said that in contrast, some religious leaders are not leading their faithful aright.
He also berated some set of people who are saying that the disease only existed with the elite and they are immuned because they have not travelled abroad.
“We should realise that after closing our borders, we are transiting into more dangerous stage of the disease which is community transmission.
“All it needs is for one person to infect 10 people and each of the 10 people will infect another10 each and by the end of the day we will be recording tens of thousand of infected people.
‘Where are the facilities to treat them, even the most developed health care system in the world are collapsing.
“In Spain today, they said the cemetery have come under severe pressure because they have to bury many people.
‘You can imagine what will happen to Nigeria if all of a sudden, we have 5000 cases, that will be a disaster,” he said.
The Minister, therefore, admonished the religious leaders to encourage their faithfuls to comply with the stay at home, social distancing and basic hygiene directives.
