Ibadan — Nigerian Baptist Convention (NBC) on Wednesday carpeted Federal Government's handling of the menace of Boko Haram and posited that it was losing control as well as credibility.

Addressing journalists in Ibadan on what it termed "The Nigerian Baptist Convention's position on some burning national issues", the Secretary-General of the convention, Olasupo Ayokunle, said the reaction of the Federal Government so far showed it was not on the top of the situation.

The NBC scribe noted that the activities of the Islamic fundamentalists under the name Boko Haram portrayed them as people without fear of God and people that attached no value to peaceful co-existence, human life and dignity.

Rather than engaging in unwarranted bombing of public utilities, police stations, churches and innocent citizens because of the alleged condemnation of Western education by the religious sect, the NBC said the members of Boko Haram had choice of not sending their wards to school for Western education.

"If it is religion that has drawn them to that extreme, such a religious belief must be seen as undesirable in this country, because in Nigeria, we value peace and human life. No one has the power to create human soul yet and none has power to terminate", Ayokunle stated.

Insisting that Nigeria as a country has no religion, the NBC scribe also stressed that there is no area specifically marked for a particular religion in the country and as such, the citizens of the country must be allowed to live peacefully in any part of the country without fear or favour.

He asked the Federal Government to display the necessary boldness in tackling the problem headlong by adwquate funding of the nation's security agencies with a directive to them to stamp their authority on the matter.

He described Islamic banking being proposed by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) Governor, Sanusi Lamido Sanusi, as a time bomb and urged President Goodluck Jonathan to halt the plan in view of the secularity of the country.

He said, "though, we are religious, our constitution does not permit the government to promote the policy of any religious group, using our resources to train Muslims alone, such a bank is a violation of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria", he said.