Can in nigeria

Those Church Leaders who met at Dodan Barracks and later at the Catholic Secretariat on the historic August day, were right in their conviction that the Omnipotent God Himself through the Holy Spirit gave them a special ecumenical assignment. It was this conviction which prompted them to select out of the several names suggested for their coming together the name Christian Association of Nigeria CAN.

They strongly felt that with the help of the Holy Spirit, the Church in Nigeria can and will achieve unprecedented feats, to Christ. That mustard seed planted on that eventful day has now grown to cover all the nooks and crannies of Nigeria with the Head Office at the National Christian Centre Abuja. Anthony Okogie, Pastor J. Sakpo, Charles Williams, Rev. John Ogbonna and Clifford Mobolaji Smith as the trustees. The Association makes Christ the centre of all its works and shall promote the glory of God, by encouraging the growth and unity of the Churches and helping them to lead the nation and her people to partake of Christ Salvation and all its fruits.

Albert Catholic Seminary, Kafanchan, and abducted three seminarians. CAN veritable force for peace, unity, social justice — Osinbajo.

Ortom, CAN eulogise Mailafia, seek immortalisation. CAN suspends Gombe caretaker boss for congratulating Pantami. Worry over mass abductions as schools resume today. The Christian Association of Nigeria CAN in Kaduna State has urged the government to provide the enabling environment that would guarantee credible local council elections.

The impact of that Council was beginning to be felt when Nigeria found itself embroiled in civil war. As far as Nigerian Catholics were concerned, the demands and the atmosphere of the war largely affected the chances for an openness to an ecumenical relationship or even for the larger question of implementing the directives of the Council. Thus, the s saw Nigeria largely untouched by the historic changes emanating from the Vatican Council.

Apart from the activities of these two national ecumenical projects, the interaction among the Christian churches remained largely on a cautious note until the mids when the Christian Association of Nigeria CAN was formed. Overall, however, one fact emerges from all the accounts: by the time CAN was formed, the Churches were psychologically ready for ecumenism. According to him:. To a large extent, what is known today as CAN was started in the North by Christians who saw what the Sardauna was doing.

He wanted to Islamize the North and the entire country. Therefore, Christians and even non-Christians in the North came together as a group to resist the Sardauna's mission. Peter Jatau, the Catholic Archbishop of Kaduna — the metropolitan headquarters of the Catholic dioceses of the North — and Chairman of CAN for the northern states, added further details. In or thereabouts, the Sardauna of Sokoto, who was the premier of the northern region, went about trying to Islamize people, especially in the northern region.

So he became both a political as well as a religious leader. His effort at that particular time up to the time he was killed was geared towards converting people — be they Christian or pagan — to Islam. So he paid more attention to the conversion of people to Islam than actually running the state, if one may like to put it that way. Many people were afraid to oppose him, else they lost their position or even their job. So because of the prevailing circumstances, some Christian leaders in the north at that time thought it wise to come together and find ways and means by which they can fight against this kind of move to forcefully make people Muslims.

It was limited mainly to the north at that time. Now CAN continued until the time the Sardauna was killed. The Association was successful in the sense that it helped many people to stand firm by their religious conviction and not give it up simply because of the fear of losing their job or their position.

Hence, Christians in the North decided to continue to meet from time to time. Around , during the Obasanjo… regime, things were happening in the country in such a way that Christians in Nigeria thought it would be a good thing for them as a body to have an organization that would bring them together to discuss and see in what way they can ensure that their rights are respected, and so on. So, during such meetings, people began to ask what kind of name to give this kind of association.

Those who went from the north to represent the northern states… had an association. It was formerly the Christian Association of the North. So we all agreed to suggest the name. So names were brought forward and the name was suggested by the northern delegates… [It] was accepted and that gave birth to the Christian Association of Nigeria, or CAN. The Christian Association of Nigeria, as the name connotes, is an ecumenical association which embraces three big blocs — that is, at the initial stage.

The Association came up was formed for a purpose, that is, following these ecumenical movements and then the injunction from the Pope or from Rome that we should try and talk to our Christian brethren. That was [in light of] the Second Vatican Council. So, the Catholic Bishops felt that something just had to be done along that line. So we had a meeting [with the CCN] where there was an accordance and an agreement So if we really wanted to form a virile Christian Association — a united one — we had to think about them.

Williams, currently the national Secretary-General of CAN, gives us a more detailed account of the birth of the Association. I pledge to Nigeria my country, To be faithful, loyal, and honest, To serve Nigeria with all my strength, To defend her unity, And uphold her honour and glory, So help me God. Williams stated:. So, we decided there and then to retire to a convenient spot — all the Church leaders. And the most convenient spot at that time was the Catholic Secretariat. So we all went there, 20 and that was how we decided to form CAN.

We did not plan it before, it just came about like that. Of course with the antagonism mounting against Christianity in the country, the formation came just at the right time.

Williams added that there were three meetings that followed the initial one with the government. The first was specifically for the church leaders to make arrangements for the writing of a fitting response to the government's address, which was presented to the Federal Military Government through Brigadier Yar'Adua on September 22, The delegation included: Rt. Okogie Roman Catholic , Rev. Adegbite Baptist , Rev. Adegbola Methodist , Venerable Archdeacon E.

Alayande Anglican , and Mr. Habila Aleyideino from the North, recalls a minor but very significant incident which apparently escaped Mr. Williams' attention and yet offers us a better account of the mind-set of the church leaders as they retired to the Catholic Secretariat.

At the end of the meeting with the government, Aleyideino reported:. One of our members asked that the participants at least round up the meeting with a prayer, despite the fact that the meeting had not opened with a prayer.

Brigadier [Shehu] Yar'Adua, the host, and the Chief of Army Staff, said that, since there were various denominations, he did not know who could be called upon to lead the prayers. We were so worried that the government should make this observation about our not being united, so we decided that we must do something.

As Mr. Williams aptly put it:. The Holy Spirit had another plan… The Church leaders were destined to be founders of a very important Association, which by the grace of God will ultimately bring together into one fold all those who claim the fatherhood of God through Jesus Christ….

And so, what for many years appeared an impossibility — the coming together of the Roman Catholics and different shades of Protestants — became, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, a simple, spontaneous, and effortless achievement.

The subsequent meetings after that date — to be precise, the meetings of September 7 and 8, , were mainly directed towards working out the organizational modalities for the newly formed association.

It was during these meetings, 28 for instance, that issues like the name and the constitution for the association were sorted out and its pioneer officials were elected. This is clearly discernible from a close examination of part of the approved minutes of the church leaders' meeting, held in the Catholic Secretariat, on September , , which dealt with choice of name.

The sub-committee consisted of: Rt. Pomoron, Archdeacon E. Alayande, Rev. Adegbite, Chief CM. Smith, Msgr. Obine, Col. Andrew Sawa, Rev. Adegbola, and Mr. For instance, as Archbishop Jatau recalls:. I remember that those of us who come from the north had already thought about a common name for Nigeria.

So we said, instead of saying Northern Christian Association of Nigeria, why not say Christian Association of Nigeria, to embrace all of the country.

Several other names were suggested by delegates from other states and even those from the north. The list of proposed names had been scaled down to two by the sub-committee, including the one suggested by the northern group. For, according to the same approved minutes of the two meetings:. The meeting then turned its attention to a suggestion, made the previous day, for the formation of an association comprising as many Christian denominations as possible.

There was strong feeling, especially among the Catholics, that the association should not bear a name that would suggest that one group joined the other or that one group was superior to the other.

It must be recalled that the CCN had a history of wanting to form a church union of all the Christian churches in Nigeria. Therefore, the Catholics wanted to leave no doubt as to where they stood on the matter.

It could also be that the Catholics made this insistence over the name in order to register their apprehension over, and to prevent, the possibility of being dwarfed by a formidable group of Protestant churches that made up the two blocs — the CCN and the Northern Christian Association — with which they were about to form the association. Be that as it may, by the time the participants were ready to vote, it was clear that CAN was the more popular name.

Thus, it was adopted as the name for the association. The intention was to define, among other things, the nature and function of the association, as well as to clarify its membership.

Okogie, Msgr. Ogbonna, Pastor I. Sapko, Mr. Williams, and Chief CM. Ogbonna with Reverend Fr. Anasiudu, following the former's death in early , this pioneer group of officials piloted the association until a new set of officials was elected at the second plenary assembly of CAN, which was held in Kaduna on November , Exactly at 5 p. Thus Lagos won credit for being the first state in the federation to have a formal and publicly-declared association called CAN 45 — thanks to the enthusiasm and leadership of Christian leaders like Mr.

One explanation could be that the various church leaders were preoccupied with the formation of branches in their respective states and therefore were unable to attend the national inauguration — a purely ceremonial though symbolic event.

Another reason could have been that the leaders of CAN probably wanted to make sure they had the support of the majority of Christian churches in each state of the federation — support which would be clearly demonstrated by the inauguration of CAN in the state — before the association could formally announce itself to the nation. The various accounts of the birth of CAN should be subjected to closer scrutiny so as to bring into clearer focus their underlying interests and biases.

The northern variant — best represented by Archbishop Jatau's account above — is more or less shared by Rt. But more importantly, each one of them traced the origin of CAN from its beginnings during the Sardauna days to when it was actually formed in Lagos in Thus, the northern variant is linked to, or seen as a continuation of, the Christian Association of the North the genealogy of which goes back to when Christians in the North confronted the Sardauna's Islamization campaigns.

That is: to provide a forum where Christian leaders can come together to discuss their common problems and to see how they can get governments at Federal and State levels to respect the rights of Christians and to ensure especially in a secular state that no particular religious body is favoured as against the other.

So… that is [CANs] aim in a nutshell. Salifu, CAN's fiery Secretary for the eleven northern states, went on to observe:. Christian operation in the North was different from that in the South because the South was just mainly for Church Unionism [meaning CCN's attempt to form a Union Church] but the North saw the threat of the Sardauna's politics of Islam coming.

So [the northern Christians] felt that, for anything that had to do with Government, the Christians of all denominations must come together and speak with a similar voice. So, usually [the Christian operation] was relatively strong in the North and a little weak in the South because the problems were different. Christian operations in both the North and the South did not actually link up properly until Babangida came. Their accounts favour a more proximate origin. The southern variant says little about the historical background that eventually metamorphosed into the present CAN — something the northern accounts never forget to highlight.

The accounts by Okogie and Williams differ in terms of emphasis; while the prelate focused more on the organizational roots and a claim for a Catholic initiation, the more experienced ecumenical worker, Mr. Williams, attributed the origin of CAN to the promptings of the Holy Spirit, more than to any human initiative. In any case, whatever human element was involved in the birth of CAN — and obviously there was some — was traced by Williams to the government, and not to any particular church as Okogie claimed, although the churches, especially the Catholic Church, nursed the new association into maturity.