Nigeria’s Vice President, Prof. Yemi Osinbajo, on Thursday, charged Christian and Muslim youths to live up to the tenets of their faith and the best values of human kind.
The Vice President gave the advice at the National Muslim and Christian Youth Summit at the International Conference Centre, Abuja.
Such attitude to life, he said, would enable youths to effectively perform their roles as present and future leaders in society.
Osinbajo said: “That leadership role extends to being champions of peace, unity and understanding among different tribes and faith today, and the future belongs to you.
“The greatness of that future will depend on the sacrifices you are prepared to make for the unity and peace of our nation.”
The Vice-President hailed the Community and Youth Development and the Christian Youth for Peace and Development Initiative, the organisers, for their efforts towards building peace across-religious lines.
“Your associations have continued to build bridges, to fight discrimination and encourage love and unity, with the full knowledge that the great conflict of our time is not between Islam and Christianity but between extremism and human solidarity, between the forces of hate and intolerance and those of empathy and peace,” he said.
Osinbajo noted that Nigerians were at a historic juncture as a nation with the religious and ethnic tensions across the country.
He said: “Many are beating the drums of tribal and religious superiority; some are even seeking to divide the nation into ethnic zones.
“Yet, our constitution speaks in the clearest and highest terms of our national commitment to equality of all Nigerians, regardless of ethnicity, religion or status.
“It speaks of the imperative of all individuals and governments to respect the rights and dignity of every Nigerian. Every free nation today has these or similar ideals.
“But constitutional declarations mean nothing unless there are men and women ready to make the personal sacrifices to bridge the gap between rhetoric and constitutional ideals.
“Such men and women are not usually very many. They are few, but the profundity of their actions invariably transforms communities and nations as they bend the arc of history in the direction of unity, peace and progress.”
He recalled the selfless action of 83-year-old Imam Abubakar Abdullahi, who saved 262 Christians in his mosque when they were attacked in a village in Plateau State last year.
He said the Imam, like the story of the Good Samaritan told by Christ in the bible, was motivated by “moral courage rooted in a profound recognition of our common humanity”.
Two keynote addresses were presented by Christian and Muslim clerics during the summit.
Registrar, Joint Admission and Matriculation Board, JAMB, Prof. Ishaq Oloyede, said Christianity and Islam share many things in common, insisting that what could make followers of the two religions live in peace is love for one another.
Oloyede said the ethnic tension and religious bigotry are borne out of the fact that many believers do not understand the tenets of Islam and Christianity.
“If we appreciate Islamic values, including righteousness, generosity, contentment, courage, repentance, among others, we will appreciate the other religions because in them also you have the same characteristics.
“Biblical virtues are also what you will find in the Qur’an, just as you will find Qur’anic virtues in the bible,” he said.
