Professor Ishaq Akintola, Director, Muslim Rights Concern (MURIC), has censured the assault on Catholic seminarian, Lawrence Ezeugwu, by masquerades in Nsukka, Enugu.
The Catholic cleric a week ago was beaten to trance state by a gathering of masquerades prominently called Oriokpa who obstructed the street at Ugwuoyia, Nsukka.
MURIC mourned what it called “wanton presentation of religious fanaticism by traditionalists. It is unrefined, savage and symptomatic of thuggery and hooliganism”
The Muslim gathering, in the announcement, drew the consideration of the Federal Government to the overabundances of traditionalists especially in Southern Nigeria.
“Indeed, even in the South West, the Oro clique admirers act as though they are exempt from the laws that apply to everyone else. Traditionalists force illicit check in time without being tested by the experts.
“A decent illustration is the time limit forced by Oro cultists in Ikorodu, Lagos State, amid the last Ramadan season which almost brought about a rough conflict amongst Muslims and traditionalists.
“It is outstanding that Muslims carry between the mosques and their homes day and night amid Ramadan. The inconvenience of a time limitation amid such a period was illicit as well as provocative.
“In spite of the fact that the 1999 Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria Section 38 (i) and (ii) ensures flexibility of religion in this manner enabling traditionalists to openly rehearse their confidence, it doesn’t permit one gathering to praise it over another.
“The privilege of traditionalists to religious flexibility stops where it starts to infringe on others’ rights and the other way around.
“MURIC along these lines claims to the Inspector General of Police (IG) to guarantee that the masquerades who assaulted the Catholic cleric are appropriately rebuffed. State and neighborhood governments should likewise boycott unlawful announcement of curfews by cultists.
“Anything shy of these will be a welcome to disarray as residents who are aware of their entitlement to opportunity of development as stipulated in Section 41 (i) of the 1999 Constitution might be enticed to challenge any unlawful inconvenience of time limitation and safeguard themselves”.