el-Rufai Hails KADPOLY Students For Preventing Religious Crisis, Visits Catholic Church Set Ablaze By Arsonists

By; FUNMI OROYE ADERINTO, Kaduna

The Governor of Kaduna State, Malam Nasir Ahmad el-Rufai of Kaduna State on Monday commended Kaduna Polytechnic Students for playing the roles of fire fighters in preventing chaos in the state.

Governor Nasir Ahmad el-Rufai, expressed this, when  addressing the press after his damage assessment of the arson incident at the St Augustine’s Catholic Church, Tudun wada, Kaduna State.

According to him, he said from his understanding, the incident at the church appears to be  an insider job because the  church was not broken into, someone has the keys to the church, opened,  went in,  collected some combustibles materials like chairs and set them on fire and locked up the church.

He said  the person’s bad intention is to clear the church, as he set in the fire,  the church will be burnt down and this will cause a religious crisis.

el-Rufai said, luckily the students of Kaduna Polytechnic whose hostels are  near  the church, saw the flames of the fire and raised  alarm

“They all came down and broke in  through the window of the church and quenched the fire.”

The  Governor, commended the students of Kaduna Polytechnic,  saying that without their intervention, the church would have been burnt down by fire.

“The police have started investigations, they have reviewed that,  it must be someone that has the keys or  has access to where the keys are kept that is responsible for this rather than anyone with ethnic or religious intentions,” he said.

He emphasised that it is clearly  an insider job but they are grateful to God that the church has been saved, otherwise the story would have been different.

He further said, “those that are doing this are doing it to create another religious crisis in the state, saying it is very bad.

He reminded the residents of the state that,  “the fire does not require  any religious incidents,” appealing to the  communities to report any incident that may cause disturbances in the state.

“I want to appeal to our communities to be vigilant to report things like this, we should all  know that people are trying to disunite us,  to divide us, and to ensure that we don’t live in peace,” he added.

He admonished that,  “everyone  has the right to practice his or her religion without interference.

“We are grateful to God that the situation has been saved, otherwise it would have been another stories,” he stresses, while assuring that they would continue to remain vigilant.

“We just inspected some damages done to Pastor residents in October 2018 of which we have no report, I have requested the parish  pastor to estimate the damage and he shall be reimbursed for the damages. We will continue to work with everyone to ensure that Kaduna State is peaceful,” he assured.

He frowned at  people who don’t want peace.

“Because they profit from this madness. We have 40 years of this madness, and everyone is tired,  there is no point interfering into anyone’s religion.

“Everyone is tired, all well meaning citizens want peace. Let everyone practice his religion,  there is need to live in peace because we are all going to the grave alone,” he frowned.

He thanked the Chairman of the church, the parish Chairman as well as the Kaduna Polytechnic students for their cooperation with the police, while wishing them well.

The Chairman of the Pastoral Council of St. Augustine’s Catholic Church, Dr. Daniel Attah,  described the incident as an act of God.

He expressed his appreciation to Kaduna State Governor for devoting his time to come and see for himself what had happened.

According to him, he said the fire started on Friday night at aboyt 11.33pm, when the students of Kaduna Polytechnic came to rescue the ugly situation.

He thanked the State Governor for taking a bold step of action to tackle the situation that would have caused chaos in the state.