•The law must punish the killers of Mrs. Eunice Elisha, the Christian preacher
On July 7, Eunice Elisha, Christian neighbourhood evangelist and spouse of The Redeemed Christian Church of God pastor, Olawale Elisha, was hacked to death in her Old NEPA Road, Phase 4, Kubwa neighbourhood, ln Abuja. She was on her dawn round of her “morning cry” (evangelism), armed with her Bible and microphone.
The police found and evacuated her hacked body. Pastor Elisha said his children, two of whom always go to play morning football in a neighbouring pitch, got wind that a female preacher had been killed somewhere in the neighbourhood. The pastor’s initial reaction was that it couldn’t have been their mother. But the worst was confirmed when poor Pastor Elisha, and two children, saw the mutilated remains of the wife and mother, in a police van, en route to the mortuary!
This is a murder too gruesome and grisly; and the murderers must be quickly apprehended and brought to justice. It is good the police say they have made some preliminary arrests, first of eight persons. But as at the last check, six had been released and only two detained.
That is a good start. But that start would count for nothing if the police didn’t, with thoroughness and despatch, bring the criminals to prosecution and conviction. That would not bring back Mrs. Elisha. But it should serve as justice to her bereaved family, and the jurisdiction the felons so cruelly violated.
That is as far as crime and punishment go.
Still, why would anyone want to kill a defenceless woman, whose only crime was evangelising and winning souls for her faith? That a mosque was around the neighbourhood introduces some even more sinister angle to the tragedy. Did the death have anything to do with misguided adherents of rival faiths in the neighbourhood?
First, whatever the motivation, crime is crime; and must be promptly punished to serve as deterrent to future putative felons. So, ordinarily, any religious connotation to the murder should be immaterial. To start with, every faith worth its tenet should not sanction the reckless spilling of blood. Outside the religious plane too, the law frowns at, and severely punishes, murder. So, both on the secular and spiritual front, murder has no reward.
Still, in view of recurrent cases of faith- triggered killings, it is not out of place to warn that such execrable conducts should not be tolerated. Nigeria is by law a secular country, which nevertheless recognises the multi-religious reality of its citizens. So, the practice of every faith is guaranteed under the law. If that were so, why should a set of adherents kill simply because of the message of the other? That even makes it more compelling for the criminals involved in Mrs. Elisha’s murder to be unmasked fast and prosecuted accordingly.
But even at that, preachers on every side should imbibe a thing or two on sensitivity and mutual respect. Pope Francis, the Catholic pontiff, just made a deep if sensational declaration: that every faith is real to the extent that its adherents believe in it, concluding that all of us are children of God, even if our faiths differ.
We urge everyone to imbibe that credo. We urge preachers to factor in mutual respect and sensitivity to other faiths, while projecting the tenets of their own faith, and trying to win over fresh adherents. If every preacher, Christian, Muslim and other faiths, factor in tolerance and respect, then their proselytising would be shared love.
Nigeria collectively diminishes each time a national is reported killed for his or her faith. The only explanation for this madness is intolerance, which breeds bigotry. No one has gained by Mrs. Elisha’s gruesome mother. We have all lost — and that is a loss too many.
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