The Catholic Archbishop of Abuja, Ignatius Kaigama, on Sunday said Nigeria cannot tackle insecurity and other social menaces without the full participation of women.
According to him, as a religious leader, he knew that women could contribute towards building a safe society, given the right environment.
He, therefore, called on the federal and state governments to create the enabling environment for women and support an end to violence against them.
Kaigama stated these during his Homily delivered at the Divine Mercy Pastoral Area in Karu, Abuja.
He said, “As pillars of the home, mothers can positively influence their husbands and children to build a culture of peace, honest dialogue and harmony.
“It is impossible for government to fully address and combat social menaces such as insecurity, kidnapping, terrorism, banditry etc, without involving women in its policy-making strategies and implementation.
“Today, as we celebrate Mother’s Day, we ask God to bless all mothers and make them channels of God’s grace to transform our society wounded and corrupted in many ways.”
Kaigama also said that while the current hardships in Nigeria were a result of the incompetence, insensitivity, and mismanagement of the nation’s resources by political leaders, the people must not fail to equally be self critical.
The cleric said “Preachers at any given opportunity condemn the lacklustre performance and the mismanagement of resources by government officials. Nonetheless, they must not forget to urge individual Nigerians to an examination of conscience.
“The degree of violence visited on Nigerians recently in many parts of the country shows clearly the lack of compassion and forgiveness by the perpetrators of such violence. Conscience seems to be dead.
“We must individually as Christians, Muslims and traditional worshippers reject evil and repent to receive the mercy of God, even as we tackle the government on corruption, insecurity and negligence in providing for the people.”
