By Gabriel Olawale

lagos—Archbishop Alfred Adewale Martins of the Catholic Archdiocese of Lagos has condemned  the plans by Federal Ministry of Education to replace separate teaching of Islamic and Christian Religious Education with the teaching of Religious and National Values in schools.

According to him; “Combining the teaching of Islamic and Christian Religious Education together is barbaric because it will create conflict in the mind of children.

‘’In a single subject, you will be telling the children that Jesus died for their sins and on another hand, according to Islam, you will be saying that Jesus was a prophet who just simply died.

“Aside that, religious study deserve to be subjects of their own because it is not only a matter of teaching fact, it also involves teaching moral and value among others. They should not be mixed with another subject and should not be taken together,” he said.

He also raised alarm over the aftermath of evil of Boko Haram sect in the country if  special attention is not paid to rehabilitation of victims of the insurgency.

Speaking in Lagos yesterday at the 2nd National Meetings of Families organised by the Catholic Secretariat of Nigeria, the cleric regretted that the pain  inflicted on the people by Boko Haram have made it impossible for families to be truly families.

On his part, the Catholic Bishop of Nsukka, Bishop Godfrey Onah in his key note address urged parents to pay special attention to the impact of modernisation, urbanisation, economy and mass media on their children.