Nsukka, 23 November, 2020 / 10:36 pm (ACI Africa).
A Bishop in Nigeria has expressed his reservations about the way the country’s leadership treated those who part in the during the demonstrations against police brutality.
In his homily on the Solemnity of Christ the King, Sunday, November 22, Bishop Godfrey Onah of Nigeria’s Nsukka Diocese said that Nigeria’s government leaders ought not to have approached the protestors against the now defunct Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS) as criminals.
“Talk to them as a father, as a shepherd, bring them back, this country is better united,” Bishop Onah said during Holy Mass, which he presided over at the recently-dedicated St. Theresa’s Cathedral of Nigeria’s Nsukka Diocese.
He cautioned that branding the #EndSARS protesters as criminals “will radicalize them more” and addressing himself to the country’s leadership, the Bishop said, “Sacrifice your pride, sacrifice your convenience, and sacrifice your comfort. They may be wrong, they may have been foolish; that’s alright, they are the sheep you are the shepherd.”
“Don’t mind what anybody tells you, bring them back,” he emphasized.