Faith leaders across the different religious bodies in Nigeria held a one-day seminar to advance interfaith collaboration for peace-building and peaceful coexistence amongst people of divergent creeds.
The one-day seminar and capacity building for the faith leaders was organized by an Abuja-based Non-Governmental Organization, Global Peace Foundation, Nigeria.
The event, which was held at the LEBC Conference Room of the Baptist Academy Compound in Obanikoro, Lagos, attracted stakeholders from divergent religious bodies.
Speaking at the event, Rev. John Joseph Hayab, the Country Director of Global Peace Foundation Nigeria said the socio-economic development of any society hinges on the level of peace it enjoys hence the need for all and sundry to work toward peace irrespective of differences.
He said we ignorantly amplify and magnify the tiniest of our differences when there are weightier things we share in common as humans.
According to Rev. Hayab “Our blood group and the air we breathe as human beings are not measured or rated on the basis of our religion and they are perhaps the two key components of our existence.”
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Also citing the common birth process by women of all faith inclinations and the passage of life, he said we share so many things in common, hence the need to accept, tolerate and embrace one another as human beings.
Putting forward his organization’s vision of One Family under God, the Country Director reminded all participants that all humans on earth today have their ancestral roots in Adam and Eve; the first two human beings to grace the planet Earth. He thus called on religious leaders to continually preach peace rather than division and called on adherents to embrace people of other religions, races, and ethnicity.
He concluded that continuous collaborations like this would go a long way to smoothen the rough surfaces created in our society by the various conflict entrepreneurs thereby mitigating violence.
Also lending their voices to the conversation and the call for peaceful coexistence was Dr Mrs Ajoke Ashiru, Imam Muhammad B. A. Alfa-Nla; and Rev. Dr Kehinde Babarinde from the cultural, Islamic and Christian faiths respectively.
They unequivocally reiterated the need for the faithful of all three religions to tolerate one another and embrace peace without which neither of the religions can be practiced.
They emphasized that when there is a breakdown of peace in any society, no one can go to his/her place of worship, hence the need to collaborate toward building a more peaceful society.
The program according to has reminded everyone that our common humanity supersedes all humanly exaggerated differences which have placed us against one another to our own peril.
The event was part of efforts of the Global Peace Foundation, Nigeria as an organisation to apply a values-based approach to peacebuilding that emphasizes universal principles and shared values as a basis to address conflict, promote equitable and sustainable development, and engage all members of the human family as necessary and valuable contributors to peacebuilding.
Participants at the seminar were drawn from the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN), Jama-atu Islamiyya of Nigeria, Federation of Muslim Women Association of Nigeria, Women’s Wing of the Christian Association of Nigeria, and Interfaith on Public Health Advocacy among others.