Muslim clerics in Kaduna have attributed the unprecedented flood currently ravaging the North as a sign that God was angry with the region. But a renowned Christian cleric in the state, Evangelist Mathew Owojaiye said if the disaster was targeted at the high and mighty in the society, he would have concluded it was God’s wrath that is being visited on the region.
Speaking in separate interviews with Sunday Sun, the Chief Imam of the Federal Radio Corporation of Nigeria, (FRCN), Kaduna and Secretary General of the Kaduna State chapter of Council of Imams and Ulamas, Engineer Abdulrahman Hassan linked the flood disaster to acts of immorality among humanity. According to him, “looking at these flood disasters from moral point of view, it is a serious sign of the wrath of Allah against humanity. It is a serious warning that we must come back to our senses and desist from all forms of immoral acts, like adultery, fornication, indecent dressing and others. ”The bottom line is that, our sins are responsible for the kind of natural disasters that we see, and we must take it seriously.
There is nothing Allah dislikes like shedding of innocent blood which has become the common practice in our land lately. So, we cannot expect that Allah will be happy with us despite our sins,” he stressed. Hassan noted that though experts in the area of weather would attribute it to scientific reasons but the fact is that there has not been this kind of flood disaster in the North in the last four decades.
While praying that Allah forgives those that lost their lives in the disasters and give their families the fortitude to bear the loss, the FRCN Imam reiterated the need for Nigerians, across religious divide to shun acts of immorality for God to forgive them. In the same vein, the Chief Imam of the popular Umar Bin Kahtab Islamic centre, in Kaduna, Sheik Muhammad T. Suleiman said the development was not different from what had happened in the past, as reported in the Holy Qur’an.
He pointed out that, “Allah has always shown His anger toward races through affliction of disaster to tell them that they have sinned against Him. So, this is not different from those signs. We should even thank God that the disaster has not consumed all of us. “Therefore, we should see it as a serious warning and go back to the path of Allah. We should never forget that Allah is the most forgiving. And He has promised that, when we seek for forgiveness from Him,
He forgives us and blesses us in the end”. On his part, Evangelist Mathew Owojaiye said: “If the flood had visited and affected homes of big men, corrupt and greedy leaders in the country, I would have said it is the wrath of God that is coming down on them, but a situation whereby it is only the houses of the struggling poor people in the society that are being affected, one cannot say it is the wrath of God. However, I am blaming government at various levels for failing to provide tents in safer places for the people, after raising the alarm that flood was coming. I want to also advise people from building houses along river banks and they should as well take precaution against future occurrence.”
Also speaking in the same vein, former Kaduna State Secretary of the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN), Reverend Joseph John Hayab, who is currently serving as the Special Adviser to the Kaduna State governor on Religion (Christian matters), said: “No, I don’t believe that it is as a result of God’s wrath that flood visited and caused havoc in the North. I want to believe that it is the challenge of weather; it has to do with change in the climate. The meteorologists saw the flood coming and the people were warned ahead of time.
So it baffled me when people begin to equate natural thing as a punishment from God. I think some people are just being lazy and idle, not knowing what to say or do to better their environments. The bottom line is that since people were warned of the flood ahead of time, it cannot be said to be punishment from God because God’s curse or blessing has no date and time, neither could it be announced ahead of time. The flood in the North is natural and experts sent warning ahead of time, so it is all about climate change. It has nothing to do with God’s wrath.”
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