The Catholic Diocese of Maiduguri has expressed concern about the increasing spade of insurgents' attacks on innocent people in Borno State.
Speaking with newsmen in Maiduguri, the head of the diocese, Bishop Oliver Dashe, called for an immediate end to the attacks.
He urged the federal government to adequately equip the military to contain the advances of the insurgents if the show of might remained the best option to quell the uprising.
Bishop Dashe, however, advised the federal government to also explore the option of dialogue in resolving the impasse.
He also appealed to the insurgents to respond to the fervent calls on them to iron out their grievances through dialogue, as killing innocent people was a violation of the holy scriptures.
Dashe observed that insurgency, kidnapping, oil-theft, armed robbery, prostitution, human trafficking, child-labour, drug-abuse, and all the other vices being practiced in the country were the product of corruption.
He frowned at how some government officials had illegally diverted public funds entrusted to their care and betrayed the confidence reposed in them and impoverished the masses to their own advantage.
The Catholic Bishop urged the federal government to fight corruption head-on in the country.
Bishop Dashe noted that if the youths of the country had been given functional education and reasonable means of livelihood, crime rate would have been on manageable level.
He also called on politicians to desist from using religion and ethnicity in politicking, warning that such practices could have a negative backlash against the much-needed unity of the citizenry.
He advised the citizenry to ignore the discord between the Christian Association of Nigeria, CAN, and the Jama'atu Nasril Islaam and maintain harmonious co-existence among them.
Commenting on the losses suffered by the Catholic community as a result of the attacks, the Bishop said about twenty churches and priests' residential houses had so far been torched.
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