Secretary-General of the Nigeria Supreme Council for Islamic Affairs, Dr. Abdul-Lateef Adegbite has called on government to make the teaching of islam and christianity compulsory for all children up to the junior secondary school level.
This policy, he said would help in eradicating ignorance in the religious sphere and reduce friction that often lead to religious intolerance and crises in the country.
Dr. Adegbite was speaking in Jos at the 5th International Conference on Christian-Muslim Relations.
According to the Secretary-General of the NSCIA, the importance of legislating compulsory religious knowledge in Nigerian schools cannot be over-emphasised considering the current trends of religious intolerance and crises.
He noted that adherents of respective religions are knowledgeable about their faith but ridiculously deficient on the fundamentals of other faiths.
"This could create problems as people tend to be sceptical, suspicious, sensitive, fearful and over-reactive to the doctrines or practices of a faith other than their own because they know little or nothing about the latter."
But with the teaching up to secondary level, he argued that "such basic knowledge attained would certainly promote mutual understanding among the people of different faith so essential for the attainment of religious harmony."
While noting that promoters of a particular religion tend to capitalise on the ignorance of their followers by practising "aggressive evangelisation; Adegbite stated that religious groups should be aware of the fact that "it is their enlightened interest that their followers should know a little about the other religion."
In a welcome address, Most Rev. Dr. David L. Windibiziri of the Lutheran Church of Christ in Nigeria (LCCIN) noted that dialogue was very important in the prevention and management of conflict.
"We should not just take our dialogue encounters as a nice and enjoyable time together. We all accept we live in a multi-religious society and this means that we accept that there are differences."