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********** CHRISTIANS IN NIGERIA DEFY BAN ON EASTER CELEBRATIONS Police Impose Curfew during Presidential Elections by Obed Minchakpu

Summary: ABUJA, Nigeria, April 22 (Compass) — Christians in Nigeria defied a three-day ban on Easter celebrations across the country and trekked to their many churches to participate in Holy Week services. Police officials ordered a dusk-to-dawn curfew from Friday to Sunday and designated Saturday a no-travel day in order to stem electoral fraud and political violence as the country held its presidential and gubernatorial elections. Church leaders, however, denounced the ban as a deliberate attempt to curtail the religious liberty of Christians. “The restriction was an attempt to prevent Christians from celebrating Easter,” said Dr. Olusola Ajolore, Kwara State Secretary of the Christian Association of Nigeria. Two Christians were killed and several others injured on Saturday evening in political violence while returning from worship services in the city of Ilorin. International observers certified the elections as “free and fair,” though chaotic, and expressed relief that fewer than expected incidents of political violence occurred.

Full Story: ABUJA, Nigeria, April 22 (Compass) — Christians in Nigeria defied a three-day ban on Easter celebrations across the country and trekked to their many churches to participate in Holy Week services. Police officials ordered a dusk-to-dawn curfew from Friday to Sunday and designated Saturday a no-travel day in order to stem electoral fraud and political violence as the country held its presidential and gubernatorial elections.

Church leaders, however, denounced the ban as a deliberate attempt to curtail the religious liberty of Christians. “The restriction was an attempt to prevent Christians from celebrating Easter,” Dr. Olusola Ajolore, Kwara State Secretary of the Christian Association of Nigeria, told Compass in the city of Ilorin.

“We had no other option than to ask Christians to disregard the restriction order in order to go to their various churches to celebrate,” he said.

Rev. Fr. Patrick Arowole of the Catholic Church in Abuja said, “It was not possible for Christians to have obeyed the police directive, since most churches across the country have the tradition of organizing midnight services to commemorate the death and resurrection of Christ.”

He added, “This is the best time to do so because we are celebrating the death and resurrection of Jesus, our Passover Lamb. How terrible it would have been if we had accepted not to mark this event because of politics. We could not imagine how the government came up with the idea that Christians should not go out on these three significant days.”

Ilorin did suffer political violence on Saturday evening while worshippers were returning on foot from church services. Reports on the outcome of elections in the state caused one crowd of Christians to break into spontaneous celebration, which drew gunfire from armed political opponents. Two people were reported killed and several suffered injuries.

In their Easter messages, many preachers urged Nigerians to make concerted efforts toward moving the country forward.

“If the nation must survive, our leaders must remember that Nigeria belongs to all of us and not to the very few who found themselves in the corridors of power,” Catholic Archbishop Dr. Anthony Olubunmi Okogie declared from his pulpit in Lagos. “Now is the opportunity for our country to be transformed. There is a need for our leaders to give us a new hope for the future.”

Okogie lamented that the past four years of democracy in the country have not brought radical socio-economic transformation.

On Saturday, Alhaji Muhammadu Maccido, Sultan of Sokoto and leader of the Muslim community in Nigeria, called on politicians not to do anything that could jeopardize the democratic process in the country.

Earlier this week, international observers certified the elections as “free and fair” and expressed relief that fewer than expected incidents of political violence occurred. Analysts say that incumbent president Olusegun Obasanjo’s Peoples Democratic Party is on course to win a clear majority of seats in both legislative houses. Today the National Electoral Commission announced that Obasanjo has been elected for a second term as president, BBC reported. Obasanjo secured more than 60 percent of the vote in the country’s first civilian-run presidential election in 20 years.

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