Misuse of religion is a threat to young democracies in Africa

Bahir Dar, Ethiopia: The misuse of religion is a threat to young democracies in Africa, President Uhuru Kenyatta said Saturday.

He said the intensity of conflicts witnessed globally is being prosecuted against the backdrop of growing politicisation of religion.

The President pointed out that Africa, a continent that accommodates different religions, has reached an age that threatens the choice of faith.

President Kenyatta was speaking Saturday in Bahir Dar, Ethiopia, during the opening of this year’s Tana High Level Security Forum in Africa whose theme is “Secularism and politicised Faith.”

Tana Forum is an independent initiative of eminent African personalities with an advisory Board whose function is to provide strategic insight and oversight on various issues and challenges facing the continent.

The current chairman of the forum is former President of Nigeria Olusegun Obasanjo. Other leaders present were host Ethiopian Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn, Presidents Yoweri Museveni (Uganda), Paul Kagame (Rwanda) and President Ibrahim Keita (Mali)

President Kenyatta said the aspiration of the Global Jihadist Movement to create an Islamic Caliphate is feeding into an ‘unprecedented and ideology driven by extremist violence’.

“From ISIL in Iraq and Syria, Al-Qaeda and its global franchises, the extremist groups in the Sahel, Boko Haram in West Africa to Al-Shabaab in the Horn of Africa, we have seen a brazen attempt to deny diversity of faiths,” the President said.

By pursuing the creation of Islamic Caliphates in their regions, President Kenyatta said, these groups threaten the stability of most secular countries within the hotspots.“Most of the extremist groups, with their radical brand of political Islam, are also trying to take advantage of the void left by the Arab Spring that wasn’t definitive in most countries in the Middle East,” he added.

He cited the Horn of Africa region, saying the prolonged crisis and conflict in Somalia has progressively led to many threats.

He said the extreme violence had first been meted on the Somali population and thereafter neighbouring states, the region and the world.

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