Government policy on Religion matters is one-sided, says Dr. Samson Ayokunle.

President of the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN), Dr. Samson Ayokunle had again exposed the hidden agenda of the Buhari administration in his plan to curtail christian activities in the country. 

While speaking on Saturday in reaction to US statement on religion tolerance in Nigeria the clergy man said there are lots of evidences that Christianity and Islam in Nigeria are not treated equally. He said CAN has been shouting almost in vain, that government policies should be religiously neutral enough so that no religious group would be seen as being favoured or discriminated against. But things has not been done that way

Dr. Ayokunle said “For example, for almost a year ago now, some of our churches are finding it difficult with the Ministry of Interior to get new marriage certificate booklet after they had exhausted the ones they were using. Some had applied for new supply as far back as January this year without any response from Ministry of Interior till now. 

"This means that such churches licensed to conduct wedding were denied the right to do so for no cogent reason from the government! It is not only in Nigeria that churches are allowed to conduct wedding once they were licensed to do so. Why are the churches being denied the right to do so now in Nigeria? If there is nothing to hide by the government and it is not a subtle religious discrimination, why didn’t the ministry in a written form or verbally explain to the churches that needed new marriage certificate booklet why the supply is delayed?" This according to him is wrong.

The Reverend therefore used the opportunity again to appeal to the Ministry of Interior to put its acts together and allow the licensed churches to collect the marriage certificate booklets from the local government registries nearest to them without further delay and cost.

Another areas the Nigeria government is baised are the issue of Certificate of Occupancy to churches and Christian Education. Dr. Ayokunle said that "many states in the North are yet to reverse the policy which denies Christians the Certificate of Occupancy to build churches in their own country. 

"Equally, some, if not many states in the North do not allow Christian students to study Christian Religious Studies in the public schools because it is not made available in their curriculum. In a similar vein, Christian students had and are still complaining that they are denied admission to government owned universities in the North to study courses like Law and Medicine, among others. Christian students such as Leah Sharibu and students kidnapped from Bethel Baptist High School were left with the kidnappers without any purposeful rescue mission organised for them."

According to the CAN President this is obviously not making the country to enjoy religion practice.