Laity Week 2026: Onumonu charges christians on principle of ‘Common Good’ - ITREALMS

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The immediate-past General Secretary of the Catholic Women Organisation (CWO) at St. Jude's Parish, Mafoluku-Oshodi, Lagos, Barrister (Mrs.) Uzoamaka Onumonu, has charged Nigerians to adopt the "Common Good" as a fundamental pillar for both national advancement and spiritual maturity, reports ITREALMS.

Speaking during the Day 2 presentation themed "Common Good," at the ongoing 2026 Laity Week celebration in the parish on Tuesday, Mrs. Onumonu argued that a society where individuals think only of themselves is destined for a cycle where the strong dominate and the weak suffer.

Nigerian Christians as 'Useful Idiots' - ITREALMS

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"My bowels, my bowels! I am pained at my very heart; my heart maketh a noise in me; I cannot hold my peace, because thou hast heard, O my soul, the sound of the trumpet, the alarm of war." ( Jeremiah 4:19)

"As nothing is more easy than to think, so nothing is more difficult than to think well."
- Thomas Traherne (Centuries of Meditation)

Redeemers Men’s Fellowship Business Summit: RCCG leader explains why Christians are poor - ITREALMS

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As millions of Nigerians are groaning under harsh economic climate, a Professor and Pastor at the Redeemed Christian Church of God (RCCG), Prof. Solomon Adekunle Bello has explained the reasons behind poverty within the Christians community and the steps to take to escape poverty.

Prof. Bello, Pastor in Charge of Lagos province 71 (LP71) who delivered the lead paper at the Business Summit of the Redemeers Men's Fellowship of the LP71, Divine Connection Zone with the theme: 'For Christians Not Be Poor, To Avoid Conflicts And Financial Crises' said, “poverty is not for any true child of God. As long as men continue to sin against God, they will continue to struggle.”

Nigerian Christians may occupy Sterling Bank outlets, APCON to sanction bank - ITREALMS

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Nigerian Christians have continued to react over the insensitive Sunday Easter message by Sterling Bank plc, with some planning to occupy any Sterling Bank near them by Tuesday, April 19, 2022, reports ITREALMS.

This is coming as ITREALMS gathered that the Advertising Practitioners Council of Nigeria (APCON) has vowed to sanction the bank over the insensitive public Easter message tagged “Like Agage Bread, He Rose.”

Easter 2022: Oyeyemi felicitates with Christians - ITREALMS

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The Corps Marshal, Federal Road Safety Corps Dr Boboye Oyeyemi felicitates with the Christian faithfuls, and called on all motorists to ensure full compliance to all road traffic laws. He made the call to motorists across the country as they gear up towards a hitch free year 2020 Easter celebration.

According to Bisi Kazeem, the Corps Public Education Officer, all personnel have been adequately briefed on the imperatives of ensuring that motorists are made to drive in accordance with the stipulation of the Nigerian Highway Code and other regulations on best road practices.

Christian Democratic Movement urges Christians to care about politics

ITREALMS:

The Christian Democratic Movement (CDM) has urged Nigerian Christians to join politics, obtain their Permanent Voter Cards (PVCs) and become card carrying members of any of the 68 registered political parties in the country, reports ITRealms.

Mr. Wole Adedoyin hinted this while launching two latest of CDM initiatives, the “Christian Leaders Alliance for Politics (CLAP)” and the “Center for Christian Democracy (CCD)” in Lagos recently.

According to him, the Christian world view provides a comprehensive understanding of reality. It speaks to all reads of life, including political engagement, infact, the Bible speaks about civil government and provides examples of faithful engagement.

“Politics have real-world implications for Christian evangelism, missions and preaching the gospel, Christians ought to engage the political process by leveraging their rightful authority, advocating for laws and policies that contribute to human flourishing.”

“Politics is one of the most important areas in which Christians demonstrate love to neighbor. Infact, how can Christians claim to care about others and not engage the arena that most profoundly shapes basic rights and freedoms? Caring for the hungry, thirsty, naked, sick and lonely is important.”

“Government plays a role in the work of God’s kingdom on earth. Good government encourages an environment conducive for people living peaceably, whereas bad government festers unrest and instability. Because of sin, the legitimate institution of government has, at times, been used illegitimately. However, numerous examples persist of Christians reasserting their influence and redeeming environment to promote good and restrain evil. “

“Christian witness in the public square contributes transcendent values about moral and ethical issues. Christian withdrawal opens a moral vacuum susceptible to influences that pressure government to move outside the purview designated by God. Politics affects government, shapes society and influences culture. Because of what Bible teaches and the inevitability of its effects on our culture, Christians must care about politics.”

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Incessant attacks on unarmed Christians is ‘jihadist’ – Rev Afolabi

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The incessant attacks on unarmed Christin across the country have described as ‘Jihadist terror” according to Rev. Oladele Afolabi, the General Overseer of Christ Base Assembly based in Oworonshoki, Lagos, reports ITRealms.

Speaking to ITRealms on Sunday after complying with the protest march called by the Christians Association of Nigeria nd Pentecostal Fellowship of Nigeria (PFN), Rev. Afolabi lamented the killings of many Christians in Benue, Taraba, Nasarawa, Plateau and other parts of the country.

For him, Nigeria, is under siege and requires absolute God’s intervention, stressing that he led the congregation to the peaceful protest to join other members of CANN, PFN in venting their displeasures over the unjust killings of innocent Christians.

The jihadist herdsmen, Rev. Afolabi said, are attacking people on their farms, homes and churches.

“We want the government to wake up to their basic responsibility of providing security for her citizenry.  This present government seems to be unmoved and careless about lives that are being wasted daily,” he said.

Also, the clergy bemoaned that with security situation, some of them are ashamed and shocked about the announcement on daily basis about gruesome killings in the country.

“But the government seems unconcerned,” he decried and listed some demands including an end to these killings, “release of Leah Sharibu, kidnapped by Boko Haram must be released and other girls that were not Christians have been released. She must be released.”

Rev. Afolabi equally reminded the government that Christians' lives matter, insisting that they may do more than this protest if government does not do as demanded.

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Pix of members of the Christ Base Assembly church protesting on Sunday at Oworo-Lagos

NCEF tasks Islamic leaders to disable doctrine of hatred, attacks on Christians

ITRealms:

The National Christian Elders Forum (NCEF) has urged Islamic leaders to disable doctrine of hatred within its fold, so as to stop frequent attacks on Christians, reports ITRealms.

Reacting to the yet another murder last weekend of a 42-year old Christian woman, Mrs. Eunice Olawale Elisha by suspected Islamic assailants, NCEF in a press statement by Solomon Asemota (SAN), made available to ITRealms said the news got to them as a shock.

ITRealms gathered that Mrs. Elisha was murdered on Saturday, 9th July, 2016, while on Christian Evangelism in the early hours. Her neck was reportedly slashed and was also stabbed in the stomach at Kubwa area of Abuja, the Federal Capital Territory (FCT).

Noting that barely nine days earlier, on 30th June, 2016, Pastor Joseph Zakariya Kura of the Evangelical Church Winning All (ECWA) was murdered while on his farm by Fulani herdsmen in Obi LGA of Nasarawa State. Until his death, Pastor Kura was the Chairman of Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN), Obi LGA.

  

The NCEF also expressed condolence to families that have been affected in recent gruesome mindless and unwarranted murder of Nigerian citizens, lamenting how a modern state could descend to such level of barbarity and bestial extermination of human lives.

NCEF, therefore, attributed these killings to three immediate factors namely anchored on doctrine of hatred, sacred space and a polity in dual political systems.

Asemota’s NCEF explained that the doctrine of hatred used to indoctrinate Almajiris in various Islamic Madrassas in the North where Muslims were deliberately taught to hate Christians and people of other faiths, contributed to the current mess.

In addition, NCEF said the concept of ‘sacred space’ is that which Islamists believe, for example, that the road leading to their mosque belongs exclusively to them. Stressing that the ‘sacred space’ concept is applied to every area in which Islamism has travelled. “The belief is that all land on earth has been given by Allah to Muslims and it is theirs by right, to stage a Jihad to retake them,” Asemota underscored.

NCEF emphasised that the result of one nation operating two political systems of democracy and sharia, has not been helpful, urging Muslim leaders in the country to take steps to reverse this anomaly in the best interest of everyone.

“No country can make progress and live in peace when a section of the population is consumed with hatred for other citizens,” NCEF insists.

Uboshe Uboshe/GEE

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Pix: Ag. INSPECTOR-GENERAL OF POLICE, IBRAHIM KPOTUN IDRIS

Fayose pledges religious neutrality, gives out rams to Muslims

ITRealms:

The Ekiti State Governor, Ayo Fayose, has said he is not going to be dragged into playing politics with religion, ITRealms reports. 


“I won’t allow anybody to drag me into playing politics with religion. What I am doing today is a demonstration of love and support for the Muslims. I am not that kind of a leader who does things with religious interest. I will do same to Christians at Christmas exactly what I am doing to Muslims today.”


The governor, ITRealms gathered, urged Muslims to prevent themselves from being used as instruments of politics by desperate politicians, who are bent on maligning his government at every slight opportunity.


According to Vanguard report, Fayose made this statement while distributing rams to Imams and other top dignitaries as Muslims in Ekiti, Tuesday, defied the directive of some of their leaders that they should not collect Sallah gifts from Governor Ayo Fayose. They trooped to the government house in Ado Ekiti to collect the rams distributed by the governor for Eid-el-Kabir celebration.


ITRealms reports that this contravened the order earlier issued by Muslim leaders, under the auspices of League of Imams and Alfas Ekiti State, which urged members to reject the gifts on the strength that their members were not adequately represented in Fayose’s appointments.


Though, another group had countered the League of Imams and Alfas for that action, describing those behind the attack as impostors, who were not known in Islam circle.

The governor urged Muslims to prevent themselves from being used as instruments of politics by desperate politicians, who are bent on maligning his government at every slight opportunity, ITRealms learnt.

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Easter message: Pope Francis prayed for end on persecution of African Christians

ITRealms:

Pope Francis prayed for an end to the persecution of Christians in his Easter Sunday address, commemorating the students massacred by Islamist militants at Garissa University in Kenya, reports Reuters.

Francis, after saying Mass for thousands of people in a rainy St. Peter's Square, delivered a mostly somber and grim "Urbi et Orbi" (to the city and the world) message.

Attacks on Christians in Africa and the Middle East have been the grim backdrop of all Holy Week ceremonies leading up to Easter.

"We ask Jesus, the victor over death, to lighten the sufferings of our many brothers and sisters who are persecuted for his name, and of all those who suffer injustice as a result of ongoing conflicts and violence - and there are many," he said.

The pope spoke as churches in Kenya, where al Shabaab gunmen massacred nearly 150 people, singling out Christians for point-blank executions, turned to armed guards to protect their congregations on the most important day of the Christian liturgical year.

"May constant prayer rise up from all people of goodwill for those who lost their lives – I think in particular of the young people who were killed last Thursday at Garissa University College in Kenya - for all who have been kidnapped, and for those forced to abandon their homes and their dear ones."

The 78-year-old Argentine pope, celebrating the third Easter of his pontificate, spoke from the central balcony of St. Peter's Basilica after saying a Mass below for tens of thousands of people wearing plastic ponchos and holding umbrellas against the driving rain.

Calling for peace in Libya, where last February Islamic State militants beheaded 21 Egyptian Coptic Christians, the pope called for an end to "the present absurd bloodshed and all barbarous acts of violence".

He prayed for peace in Syria, Iraq and Yemen, Sudan, South Sudan, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Nigeria, where Boko Haram Islamist militants have also targeted Christian churches.

"We ask for peace and freedom for the many men and women subject to old and new forms of enslavement on the part of criminal individuals and groups," he said.

"Peace and liberty for the victims of drug dealers, who are often allied with the powers who ought to defend peace and harmony in the human family. And we ask peace for this world subjected to arms dealers, who make their money from the blood of men and women" he said.

Just about the only positive part in the pope's address was a reference to the deal reached in Switzerland last week between Iran and the international community on a framework for a nuclear accord.

"In hope we entrust to the merciful Lord the framework recently agreed to in Lausanne, that it may be a definitive step toward a more secure and fraternal world," he said.

+Reuters @ITRealms @ITRealms

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Pix: Pope Francis