![](\"http:\/\/arewa.ng\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/05\/We-are-not-safe-Cardinal-Onaiyekan-speaks-on-insecurity-in-Nigeria.jpg\")
<\/p>\nOnaiyekan said this on Tuesday at the 5th Anniversary of Lumen Christi Television Network and Presentation of Annual Maiden Lecture at Catholic House, Lekki, Lagos.<\/p>\n
According to him, \u201cwe cannot pretend that everything is fine as people go around with fear in their hearts.<\/p>\n
\u201cApart from Boko Haram senseless insurgency which has been around for the past 10 years, initially we did not see the herdsmen as terrorists, now we know,\u2019\u2019 he said.<\/p>\n
He urged the government not to allow those involved in criminal activities in the country to have free reign, saying that those caught should be prosecuted.<\/p>\n
\u201cNigerians are practically at the mercy of these criminals; in time past, we have our traditional culture where every able-body man went around with his cutlass, bows and arrows to defend themselves.<\/p>\n
\u201cNow we have disarmed ourselves so that the security agencies can protect us but they cannot protect us, the only people that carry weapons around are criminals.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is only the rich people and those in government that surround themselves with security men, leaving the poor helpless,\u2019\u2019 he said.<\/p>\n
The cleric said that he believed that the insurgents are out to Islamize the country at gunpoint.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy own understanding and experience is that Muslims do not agree with what the insurgents are doing.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut they should do more and make their disagreement loud and clear that this group is giving them bad name.<\/p>\n
\u201cEverything boils down to good governance, if we have good governance, criminals will not have a free route, religious fanatics will not promote their religion by force.<\/p>\n
\u201cThose using other means like political influence and power to promote their religion at the expense of others in a way that is unjust will also have a rethink,\u201d Onaiyekan said.<\/p>\n
The Catholic Archbishop of Lagos, Most Rev. Adewale Martins, said that all hands must be on deck to address the nation\u2019s security challenges, NAN reports.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf the present situation is not addressed, the sense of unity and togetherness of the Nigerian people from a psychological standpoint could be under threat,\u201d he said.\n<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
John Cardinal Onaiyekan, the Archbishop, Catholic Archdiocese of Abuja, has urged government at all levels to do more in addressing worsening insecurity in the country. Onaiyekan said this on Tuesday at the 5th Anniversary of Lumen Christi Television Network and Presentation of Annual Maiden Lecture at Catholic House, Lekki, Lagos. According to him, \u201cwe cannot […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":119454,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[3,2677],"tags":[3761,6229,243],"class_list":["post-119453","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-religious","tag-insecurity","tag-john-cardinal-onaiyekan","tag-nigeria"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/arewa.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/119453","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/arewa.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/arewa.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arewa.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arewa.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=119453"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/arewa.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/119453\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arewa.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/119454"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/arewa.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=119453"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arewa.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=119453"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arewa.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=119453"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}