Christians will soon ee mnobilised to defend themselves, churches — Catholic Bishop Arogundade

The Catholic Bishop of the Diocese of Ondo, Bishop Jude Arogundade, while  speaking on last Sunday’s terror attack on St. Francis Catholic Church, Owaluwa, Owo, Ondo State, and the effect of the tragedy on the church and the people of the state has stated that he is very angry and humiliated because the country has a history of cohesion, unity and collaboration among citizens which made it easy to live together for more than 60 years.

He added that “we built this country together but all of a sudden, we are experiencing an unprecedented division to the point that tribes no longer trust one another. Just within these few years, one tribe has been trying to dominate others, one religion has been trying to dominate the other and the passion with which a group within the entire nation is working to overrun other parts of the country is quite troubling. We all came together and voted APC government into power. So, I feel disappointed that those we elected into power in Nigeria are not carrying out their primary responsibility. Their number one responsibility is to protect the lives and property of the citizens.”

He added that it is difficult to trust the government because they promised to rescue the Chibok girls but “empty promise is what they give everytime. That promise was made seven years ago but nothing has been done. They promised to stop terrorism but some of the terrorists they arrested, they claimed they have rehabilitated and we know the result of their rehabilitation but nothing has been done to resettle those whose villages and lands have been taken over. And if what we are hearing in the press, that these villages have been renamed by this group of people trooping into the country, is true, how can we just sit down and feel that everything is all right? Everything is not all right in Nigeria.

“It is the same story all over Nigeria. Those in charge of security will come out every time we have an incident of this nature to say that the people are not right to make this kind of claim. You know what? It is the same story. I have never seen worse unprofessional acts of security agents. In fact, I am even better than them and I am a priest of the Catholic Church. I was even the one pointing to the straps of bullets that were on the floor. They picked them up and left. That night, there was no security men in that compound. Everybody seems not to understand the basic principles of security and the professionalism that goes with the job.

“In my little experience, when a place is a crime scene, you have to secure the place but you allowed the crowd to mess up the entire crime scene. So, our police cannot secure a crime scene and do proper investigation? Do you know that God saved us that day? I don’t want to say more on this because it will embarrass the whole nation.

“I went with the governor to the church. The police were with us. Officers at the highest level at security outfits in Nigeria were there. We went round the entire compound. Later, the anti-bomb squad came and just where we were standing, they discovered that there were two explosives there and the police could not recognise that we were in a dangerous situation at that point. What if one of them had exploded? This is what I am saying. There is a crisis in our country and that crisis is begging and calling for remedy, for experts to come in and rectify the situation. There is no country where people behave like this except bush country.

Speaking on insinuations that the governor was the target of the attack for being at the forefront of tackling insecurity in the South-West, he said “whatever reason those attackers had, they didn’t have to do it in a church. Even in a war situation, fighters avoid churches and mosques. According to war ethics, if an enemy runs into a church or a mosque, you leave him. You can surround the church and the mosque and wait until he comes out. We even have it in the Yoruba tradition. When a father is trying to punish his son and the son runs to another elderly person, you dare not touch him because he is seeking refuge. We have it in our culture. “Anyone who goes into the church to seek refuge in the presence of God, you do not touch. Yu don’t do it. During war, you don’t even kill priests. Priests go into wars to administer sacraments. Two enemies will lay down their guns and make the priest attend to them. When the priest leaves, they can start fighting again. These are war ethics. In a war, you do not kill children. If you watch all the movies in this world, no matter how dirty the movie is, a child may even carry gun and shoot a General.

“When the child is no longer armed, you take the child. But here, without provocation, without the church having any form of political agenda, somebody comes from nowhere and attacks the church in order to make a point. What point is there to make? What did they hope to achieve with this action? Whatever they hoped to achieve, they achieved nothing,” he maintained.

Speaking on what the church is doing, he explained that “we have started to reach out to them to make sure that everyone has whatever they need. Our hospital here in Owo is packed and we are doing everything to make sure that we meet the needs of everyone. Their treatments are going on. Surgeries have been done and nobody is going to be charged for anything. I don’t speak for the government but we will make sure that every bill is paid.”

He concluded that “Nigerians no longer trust their government and we have no confidence that the government can protect anybody. In this kind of situation, you protect yourself. What happened in Owo is a challenge. I am challenged by the Nigerian constitution. I am challenged by the system. When the system does not work for me, I look for a way to work for myself and that is not against the law. Self-protection is not against the law. We will protect ourselves and we know how to do it.

“Any moment from now, we will start to call community leaders to begin to try to protect themselves, protect our churches. Yes, we do not have sophisticated guns like theirs but we will do everything within our power to secure our environment,” the Bishop emphasised.  (Story adapted from Nigerian Tribune)