{"id":2381,"date":"2014-10-04T22:52:13","date_gmt":"2014-10-04T22:52:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/?p=2381"},"modified":"2014-10-04T22:52:13","modified_gmt":"2014-10-04T22:52:13","slug":"boko-haram-terrorists-are-not-muslims-they-are-criminals-president-jonathan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/?p=2381","title":{"rendered":"“Boko Haram terrorists are not Muslims, they are criminals” – President Jonathan"},"content":{"rendered":"

President Goodluck Jonathan has said that the killing of innocent children and women in markets, mosques, and schools has nothing to do with religion.<\/p>\n

The president was speaking when some members of the Muslim community visited him in commemoration of the Eid-Kabir Sallah.<\/p>\n

The delegation was led by the Vice President, Namadi Sambo, alongside the Minister of State for the Federal Capital Territory, Olajumoke Akindele.<\/p>\n

Mr. Jonathan said Nigerians should see their neighbours as themselves.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat is happening globally now has no religious basis. Only yesterday, a British aid worker was slaughtered by ISIS and that is not Islamic,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

He called on Nigerians to continue to pray for the forgiveness of those who were doing things that were not religious.<\/p>\n

\u201cI believe in this country, I believe that Nigeria has a lot to offer not only to Nigerians but to the world and that surely we will get to where we want to go.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhatever obstacles we see are very ephemeral and part of history of nation building, if you read the history of all nations, there is no nation that does not pass through some challenges but they got over it and moved ahead. I think we are getting over our problems,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Mr. Jonathan the 2014 Eidel Fitri celebration is quite significant.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs the day of Arafat coincided on a\u00a0Friday\u00a0and from what I was told it takes a long time to have that coincidence and remembering the fact that 2014 is our centenary year, that shows that something good is happening to this country,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

The day of Arafat is the day before the Sallah, when an important observance which falls during the Islamic month of Hajj, the Islamic pilgrim to Makkah is performed.<\/p>\n

He said it was evident that in the midst of all the challenges facing Nigeria, it was experiencing something good and overcoming its problems.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe may have our challenges as other nations but when things begin to happen in a particular way, I begin to see light at the end of the tunnel,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

The Vice President in his remarks prayed for peace in the country. He also prayed that Allah will give the President the strength and good health to continue to surmount the challenges facing the country.<\/p>\n

Others who were part of the delegation were the National Security Adviser, Sambo Dasuki, the Inspector General of Police, Suleiman Abba, Former PDP Chairman, Bello Haliru, the Primate of Anglican Communion, Nicholas Okoh, former speaker of the House of Representatives\u00a0Ghali Umar Na\u2019Abba, the Deputy Chief Imam of the FCT, Sheik Ahmed Onilewuran, the Chairman of the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) Abuja Chapter, Isreal Akanji.\"boko<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

President Goodluck Jonathan has said that the killing of innocent children and women in markets, mosques, and schools has nothing to do with religion. The president was speaking when some members of the Muslim community visited him in commemoration of the Eid-Kabir Sallah. The delegation was led by the Vice President, Namadi Sambo, alongside the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2382,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"spay_email":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false},"categories":[4],"tags":[34,31],"class_list":["post-2381","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-national","tag-boko-haram","tag-president-goodluck-jonathan"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/10\/boko-haram.jpg","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4oswh-Cp","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2381","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2381"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2381\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2383,"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2381\/revisions\/2383"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/2382"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2381"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2381"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2381"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}