Christians, Muslims hold prayers for Emab plaza blast victim

Muslim and Christian clerics converged with mourners and sympathizers at the Emab plaza blast site in Wuse 2 Abuja for an interfaith prayer session.The congregation gathered around the epicenter of the bombing on Wednesday 25th June, which killed over 20 people and injured several others still being treated at hospitals in Abuja.Many of the victims […]

Muslim and Christian clerics converged with mourners and sympathizers at the Emab plaza blast site in Wuse 2 Abuja for an interfaith prayer session.
The congregation gathered around the epicenter of the bombing on Wednesday 25th June, which killed over 20 people and injured several others still being treated at hospitals in Abuja.
Many of the victims of the blast were petty traders, including fruit sellers, hawkers, taxi drivers and customers who come to the plaza to transact business.
The plaza has since been closed as security agencies carry out investigation in the aftermath of the blast.
The trader’s union of most shop owners at the plaza with the proprietor of the plaza organized the prayers session as a healing process for the immediate community that suffered the bombing.
The Imam of the Usman Bin Alfan mosque, which is opposite the plaza led in Muslim prayers and the Reverend of the Saint Mathews Anglican Church Maitama, also close to the plaza led in Christian prayers.
In a sermon during the prayers session, Imam Zakaria Hussien said, “we have gathered here to pray to Allah to bless and have mercy on the innocent lives that were perished without knowing the reason why they were killed.”
He added that, “We are also gathered here to pray to Allah to increase the pace of wellness for those who have sustained injuries and also to enrich those who lost their properties due to this barbaric and animalistic incidence that happened in Abuja.”
Imam Hussein noted that, the market belongs to everybody, it is everybody’s place, it is for the Muslims and for the Christian and the Jews, it is for the rich and the poor, it is for the civil servant and the politician, it is a place that gathers everybody.
He appealed that, “We want to call on those who have perpetrated these incidence, to please consider themselves as human beings who have parents, who have children who have sisters and relations all over that if this happens to any of them anywhere in the world, not only in Nigeria they will feel bad.”
“We also asked Allah to guide them aright, to bring them back to human beings so that they can leave this animalistic and barbaric life so that they can come back and be good people of good character and behavior,” he said.
Imam Hussein also prayed that, “If they are not going to repent of what they have done, and they want to continue, Allah is stronger and we ask in his power and name to destroy them with their own works.”
On his part, Canon Reverend Blessing Duru said, “Today we have come to pray because we are touched …it is something that has been a problem to us, especially happening at a place like, imagine how many people come here to work which has been sealed off.”
Commenting on terrorism, Rev. Duru said, “It is not good for our economy, thinks of the fear among the people, we are concerned as a nation, that this thing that is happening here and there, from abduction, to killing to destruction it is not something that will move us forward as a nation.”
He said, “If this people have face let them come lets discourse, if the government cant discourse let the religious leaders discourse, because we need peace, because when people leave in fear, you have a shop here but you can feel free to open your shop, that means something is wrong.”
Also speaking to journalist on the side lines of the prayer session, the owner of Emab plaza, Chief Emmanuel Umeohia said he was  devastated by the bombing and killing of traders at the plaza.
Chief Umeohia noted that “I cannot feel bad that they closed the plaza, what is my concern is that people who lost their lives, and people who were wounded in the bomb blast.”
He explained that, “This is a blow, since 1992 I opened here I haven’t seen anything like this, and even me I don’t discriminate Muslims I gave them shop, many Christians I gave them shop too.”
Chief Umeohia said they are working with security agencies to commence putting in place state of the art security gadgets and apparatus recommended to secure the plaza.