An Innocuous Word of Prayerful Appreciation and Admonition for a Group of Our Brethren on the Tripods of the Abrahamic Religion.

By Ogiri John Ogiri 

To some of our step brothers and sisters of the Abrahamic religious tradition, whose innocent minds have been programmed by some self-seeking sheiks and Imams with the toxic indoctrination that it is a religious sacrilege to wish Christians Merry Christmas, may you find a flowing water of peace sufficient to extinguish the flame of hateful wars raging in your hearts. We sympathise with your predicament and so we keep praying that you one day realise yourselves and break free from such a destructive religious mindset and rise to embrace opportunities of inclusiveness offered by the various Ecumenical interventions and inter-faith dialogues championed by genuine leaders of the Church and the Mosque.

To our friends in the same religion who, in the face of obvious dangers of unsolicited assassinations, have found the magnanimous courage through a constructive and beneficial exposure to good education and shared social understanding and interactions, which has, over the years, enabled you to transcend beyond the boundary of closed religious dogma, that see non-adherents as less human, moving into a religious understanding that sees and recognises the aesthetic identity as well as the sanctity of the humanity of man before religion, may the peace of Christ, like a gentle dove, continue to rest in your lives, families and in your hearts.

The virtues of love, progressive understanding and accommodation as well as the spirit of genuine compassion you exemplify daily offers us, once again, many justifications and encouragements for our continuous faith in the Nigerian project in the most convincing ways. Yours represents the beacons of hope and conviction that Nigeria will be great again and that Nigerians, irrespective of shared differences in creed, tribe, ethnicity, geography and history can rise again in genuine unity for the progress of our country. We never take this for granted. 

Thank you.

-Ogiri John Ogiri.