Deborah: Declare religious fanaticism a pandemic – Security Expert tells Buhari

A security expert, Mr Dennis Amachree, on Saturday urged President Muhammadu Buhari to declare religious intolerance and fanaticism as pandemics required to be expeditiously eradicated from the country.

Amachree, a former Assistant Director of DSS, told the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Lagos, that he regarded the alleged lynching of Miss Deborah Samuel in Sokoto as a by-product of religious intolerance and act of fanaticism.

He said: “The students that committed this cruel act are clearly fanatics and don’t have tolerance for other religions.

“It is heart rendering to see Nigerians kill another for religious reasons.

“More painful is that this evil act was committed by students of a tertiary institution, who are supposed to be open-minded and knowledgeable to advance religious tolerance in our nation.

“To have to stone and burn alive a fellow student in the name of religion and over an alleged case of blasphemy is a worrisome thing.”

Recall that Samuel, a 200 level student of Shehu Shahari College of Education, Sokoto, was on Thursday murdered on campus over alleged blasphemy.

Samuel was accused of posting a social media message that insulted the Muslim faith which resulted in a mob beating, stoning and setting her body ablaze.

Amachree also urged Muslim clerics and leaders to strengthen advocacy and preaching against fanatical beliefs.

“Our religious leaders across all the faiths need to disabuse the minds of their members, followers and adherents of the faith against killing in the name of their belief,” he said.

Amachree, a retired Assistant Director of the Department of State Security Service (DSS), said governments at all levels needed to increase advocacy against religious intolerance and fanatical tendencies.

He said greater collaboration between governments and relevant non-state actors and agencies would fast track the extermination of religious intolerance and fanatics from Nigeria.

He said drastic measures needed to be adopted to stop religiously inclined mob action and other destructive actions in the name of religion.