The Southern Kaduna Christian Leaders Association (SKCLA) on Wednesday lamented what it described as “continued persecution of priests in the country”, while charging Federal and Kaduna state governments to investigate and put an end to the issue.
Nigerians have suffered incessant attacks by bandits and terrorists across the country, particularly in the Northwest and Northeast geopolitical zones, where criminals have repeatedly kidnapped Nigerians for ransom and attacked small communities to rustle their livestock.
But Chairman of the Southern Kaduna Christian Leaders Association, Apostle Emmanuel Nuhu Kure, in a statement he issued on Wednesday in reaction to the news of the gruesome murder of Rev. Fr. John Mark Chitenum, one of the two kidnapped Catholic priests in Kafanchan diocese, wondered why such sufferings are being meted out to priests.
Apostle Kure who lamented “the rising cases of priests being kidnapped and in some cases killed by their abductors, even after receiving ransoms,” he tasked security operatives to always be proactive in their response to crime and criminalities, instead of reacting to such dastardly acts.
He described the murdered priest as “one of the active members of the Association who has contributed in no small way in giving direction to the Christian communities in the area”.
The SKCLA however, expressed their “condolence to the Catholic community, especially the immediate family of the deceased priest, Bishop and Laity of Kafanchan Diocese over the loss of one of their finest priests and prayed God to expose his killers and rescue all those in the den of kidnappers”.
