"Tackle Religious Intolerance" - David Dogo

The former Director of the National Orientation Agency, Mr David Dogo, has called on the incoming administration of Bola Tinubu to tackle the issue of religious intolerance and implement programmes that promote peaceful co-existence in the country.

Dogo made the call at an interactive session on ‘Culture, peace and national rebirth: An agenda setting’, organised by the National Council for Arts and Culture in Abuja. He presented a paper titled: ‘Engendering religious tolerance for national unity.’

According to him, Nigeria, like other nations, is confronted with the challenge of religious intolerance and persistent religious conflicts with attendant consequences on peace, unity and development of the country. “Given experiences of the 2023 general election, Nigerians expect that tackling the issue of religious intolerance will be a top priority for the incoming administration comes May 29”.

In his words, “Without curbing religious intolerance and enthroning the culture of religious, ethnic and political tolerance, our quest for true democracy, good governance and national development will continue to be a mirage. This will continually threaten the peaceful co-existence in Nigeria”.

He recalled that the last two decades had seen an increase in the level of religious intolerance with obvious effect on peaceful co-existence. According to him, the incursion of religious intolerance into the political space has become a matter of great concern, which should be treated as such by the incoming administration.