Give traditional religion pride of place, adherents urge Fed Govt

Supreme Leader of the Traditional Practitioners Association of Nigeria (TPAN), Dibia Chukwuma Ezeoruonye, has called on the Federal Government to declare a national day for traditional religious worshippers to celebrate and worship their gods like other major religious groups.

Ezeoruonye said this is important for traditional religious adherents to have a sense of belonging and also to keep traditional religious worship in the mainstream and people’s consciousness.

He queried why the government ‘keeps relegating traditional religious worship to the background and giving other religious groups preferential treatment’.

According to him, the country is facing numerous challenges because the gods are angry with Nigeria. This, he said, is why the current challenges have defied solutions despite efforts at resolving them.

Ezeoruonye insisted that the gods must be appeased because the many crises in the country are spiritual, and would thus require spiritual solutions. He added that there is a need to make sacrifices to the gods to appease them to halt their anger against the country.

The chief priest also maintained that President Bola Tinubu and his party, the All Progressives Congress (APC), are not the problem. According to him, the president does not want things to degenerate or would intentionally inflict pains on the people.

“The issues are beyond President Tinubu, and so no matter the efforts put forward by the president and his team, the challenges will continue to defy solutions.

“This is a pointer to the fact that the gods are angry with Nigeria. We keep comparing past governments to current ones, and praising past ones as better. This is to tell you that no matter what is done by human effort, it will not work.

“So we appeal to the Federal Government to allow traditional religious worshippers do their thing. We need to appease the gods so we can find solutions to these challenges. The government should declare a day as a national holiday for all traditional religious worshippers so we can be at par with other adherents. These other religions came to meet us in our land, they should and cannot chase us out,” he added.