KAIROS NIGERIA

Friday, 18 November 2016

PROGRAMME FOCUS 2017-2020

KAIROS FOUNDATION OF NIGERIA A moment of hope and courage INTRODUCTION Holistic Peace, Justice and Human Rights is our key focus- work projection for the next 4 years, Having cut our teeth in activism from informal formation in 2011 and since 2012 advocating and engaging on different issues, it has becomes necessary to focus from these lenses: INERFAITH Interfaith building has recently become an important aspect of Nigeria society, therefore for the projected period; Kairos Foundation of Nigeria shall improve on our programme: Interfaith Forum for Peace and Social Transformation. This University and College driven initiative has sought to create a platform of engagement and collaboration on Peace between Muslim and Christian students in Nigeria. We had already run two sessions with the University of Ibadan, (South West Geo-Political Zone) Muslim Students association and the University Joint Christian Movement. The implementation of issues from the communiqué and expansion of the initiative across Nigeria is a principal intention to be addressed. We are considering expansion to 5 other Federal Universities across the remaining 5 geo- Political Zones of Nigeria. The antecedent of Nigeria Young People as bridge builder and agents of Peace and Transformation as evident in continued result from the National Youth Service Corps is an encouragement. PEACE & DEVELOPMENT • Supporting the anti- corruption war in Nigeria: Building Corruption free Churches and Schools advocacy initiative is designed to empower voices of the poor and the downtrodden, using the platforms of churches, mosques and mission schools. The aim is to act decisively against political corruption in Nigeria, advocating against policies such as that which promotes double salary as being drawn by political officers must be stopped. Also we shall initiate a Basic Income campaign that will help the poor adjust to the current economic recession in Nigeria, as well as pressing our government to adopt a basic income strategy that support economic right of Nigerians, through mobilizing religious communities to demand from political parties to make basic income a campaign issue at the 2019 national elections. • Annual leadership development lecture and Seminar on Palestine and Pilgrimage: Since the year 2012, we have been working diversely on just peace in Israel Palestine, during this period we have used the Kairos Palestine document to introduce Nigerian Christians to the occupation in Palestine, the quest for Justice in Israel Palestine and Through “Come and See” document, worked on Alternative Justice Pilgrimage from Nigeria to the “Holy Land”. During these period we have encountered challenges from the Pentecostal minded congregations and government policy that is near pro- Israel, the template of one sided Pilgrimage to Jerusalem which has been on ground for decades cannot be easily changed. Therefore through persistence, we were able to make inroads to churches and the Pilgrims commissions and boards across 12 states out of 36 states of Nigeria. Our contentious advocacy to stopping occupation of Palestine and building local economy, borne out the dimension to embark on Theological institutions Training ( Palestine and Pilgrimage curriculum development and Usage) to engaging seminary where Pastors are trained in educating them and thus utilize them on creating awareness in their congregation after graduation. We have recorded a success in this venture as we are now partnering with Immanuel College of Theology, Ibadan. (Anglican and Methodist owned). As a way of harmonizing these efforts and utilizing scarce resources, we have decided to start an annual leadership development lecture and seminar on Palestine and Pilgrimage in Nigeria. We hope to hold the maiden edition in 2017 to campaign raise awareness on 50 years of occupation of Palestine. • Disarmament – continuous work on the arms trade treaty- checking proliferation of arms into Nigeria and West Africa, taking forward the campaign on Abolition of Nuclear Weapons, especially work will intensify on the campaign to support negotiation of a treaty banning Nuclear Weapons in 2017. It is hoped that Nigeria will translate to implementing the Arms Trade Treaty in the area of Transparency in procurement and continue to play a crucial role in seeing that other ECOWAS states ratify the Arms Trade Treaty and proceed to implementation. We shall work with our MFA to sustain Nigeria leadership in the campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons ECUMENISM Kairos Foundation of Nigeria shall continue to build on existing relationship with ecumenical bodies such as the Christian Council of Nigeria, the Christian Association of Nigeria, and the Catholic Secretariat of Nigeria as well reaching out to other new platforms. This will enable us achieve our strategic campaigns and working together for maximum output. Theological development will also feature prominently in our ecumenical relations; we shall emphasize the need for an acceptable position from Nigeria Church on Israel Palestine, and create a platform for engaging the Muslims community in Nigeria. CONCLUSION As we evolve, we are grateful to the following partners and organization that has supported us since 2012. We promise to continue utilizing your financial and material support more effectively and judiciously. Thanks to The Karibu Foundation Norway; The International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons; The Kairos Palestine; The Kairos Southern Africa, The Friends of Wadi Fouquin, Kairos USA, YMCA/YWCA of East Jerusalem, Alternative Tourism Group Palestine, The World Council of Churches; The Control Arms Coalition; The United Methodist Volunteer Service; The Christian Council of Nigeria; Members of Kairos Foundation of Nigeria.

PROGRAMME FOCUS 2017-2020

Thursday, 27 August 2015

Campaign to Save Wadi Foquin

Wadi Foquin is a Palestinian village located in the Bethlehem District of the West Bank, Occupied
Palestinian Territories. The village and its population of 1,200 live under Israeli military control.
The village and villagers have been victims of human rights violations which impact daily life, and
jeopardize their future survival.

A Summary of Human Rights Violations in Wadi Foquin
Land Confiscation and Displacement
• Land has been illegally confiscated for the building of the settlement of Betar Illit;
land confiscation orders have been issued for the proposed building of the
separation wall; orders have been issued for farmers to vacate land due to takeover
by the Israeli government. The settlement is illegal according to the 4th Geneva
Convention. The separation wall has been ruled illegal by the International Court of
Justice.

Damaged Water Supply
• Potable water supply is controlled by the Israeli government –the village receives a
small percentage of water available to them; natural springs have been part of
natural irrigation system for centuries but are now drying up due to limestone runoff
from settlements which harden the soil.
Food Supply and Farm Production
• Agricultural produce which is the source of natural food supply and means of income
has been damaged due to the runoff of raw sewage and construction debris from the
settlement.

Transportation Inequality & Freedom of Movement
• Israel only bypass roads have been constructed for access to settlements but are
prohibited for use by Palestinians. Road improvements within municipal boundaries
of Wadi Foquin have been interrupted and/or prohibited by the Israeli military.
• Flying checkpoints restrict access to jobs, educational institutions, and healthcare
facilities.

Thursday, 20 August 2015

Kairos 30th Anniversary Statement: Dangerous Memory and Hope for the Futur

Kairos 30^th Anniversary Statement:
Dangerous Memory and Hope for the Future

We gathered in Johannesburg (near Cottesloe) from 17 to 20 August 2015, to celebrate how the 1985 South African Kairos document, “Challenge to the Church,” responded to a moment of truth in the most painful days of Apartheid. That Kairos document inspired three decades of Kairos movements in many different contexts. This celebration has now re-inspired us toward a common humanity and a concern for human dignity and our environment.

The pain of Marikana and the reasons behind it (multinational profit before people and corporate greed) hovered over our conference.

The 2009 Kairos Palestine document, “A Moment of Truth,” a cry from the Palestinian Christian community, carries a disturbing echo of the dangerous memory of the South African story of Apartheid. Kairos Palestine has evoked a powerful global response from Kairos contexts around the world. The catalyzing power of Kairos Palestine was deeply felt in our gathering. We were inspired by this renewed energy. Palestine is the space where our sacred texts are contested.

There was much to celebrate in this gathering. Our Kairos conversations were intentionally multi-generational and broadly international. We were grateful to engage deeply with Muslim and Jewish perspectives. We found much joy in our solidarity and shared struggles. We were particularly encouraged by the inter-generational nature of this gathering and how that can be nurtured and encouraged. We are particularly inspired by the birth Zinzi Kairos Mbenenge during the conference. “… for unto us a child is given”!

A NEW KAIROS

We have reached a new moment of truth, a new Kairos. We recognize how the coming of Jesus and his teaching about a new kingdom and a new reign against the Roman empire of his day has completely passed us by. We lament that, by and large, the church of today has become distracted from this mission of preparing the way for God’s reign.

In our time, we find that various sites of pain and struggle are joined in a Global Kairos, a shared quest for justice. In our discussions, we named our shared struggle against the scourge of this global empire of our times. Empire is an all-encompassing global reality seeking to consolidate all forms of power while exploiting both Creation and Humanity. The empire we face is not restricted by geography, tribe, language or economy. Empire is an ideology of domination and subjugation, fueled by violence, fed by fear and deception. It manifests itself especially in racial, economic, cultural, patriarchal, sexual, and ecological oppression. Empire deceptively informs dominant, white supremacist, capitalist paradigms controlling global systems and structures. Global empire is sustained by weapons and military bases (hardware) along with ideologies and theologies (software).

We rejoice that resistance against empire is manifested in a plurality of struggles throughout the world. Struggles against ecological injustice, gender injustice and patriarchy, landlessness, abuse of people on the move, refugee vulnerability, political and religious persecution, social exclusion, denial of indigenous rights, neglecting children’s rights, harm to LGBTI persons, access for the differently abled, and racial supremacism represent only a portion of the struggles against empire. Since 1985, Kairos documents have expressed resistance to these and other realities in Central America, Europe, Malawi, India, Kenya, Zimbabwe, and Palestine. In this conference, we were pleased to receive new Kairos documents from siblings in Swaziland, Nigeria, and the United States. The memory of unjust suffering in all contexts is dangerous to the purposes of empire.

In our listening to one another, we found that the context of suffering and pain created by Israel’s oppression of Palestine contains all aspects of empire. Palestine is therefore a microcosm of global empire, a critical site of reflection that can bring experiences in other locales into sharper focus. Palestine does not eclipse other situations around the globe but instead intensifies the need for greater interconnection and mutual engagement.

All Kairos movements emerge from sites of grave injustice and deep pain. Every Kairos document is a cry to God and to the world. We confess, however, that we have served two masters and preached a gospel that requires nothing of the rich young ruler, even as we build empire on the widow’s mite. We recognize that we and our church institutions have often closed our ears to our siblings’ cries and drowned them out. In many cases, very little action has followed. The church has often been ambiguous and cautious in its response to human suffering. Sometimes, the church has engaged in active opposition to the liberating work of God present in communities of resistance, increasing church complicity in structures of injustice. The church has often provided theologies of domination in the service of Empire. In our discussions, we found that the South African Kairos indictment of Church Theology is as relevant in our time as it was in 1985.

RESISTING IMPERIAL THEOLOGY

The dangerous memory of the South African Kairos document provided a prophetic critique of State Theology, theologies that validate and confirm forms of state terror. It identified as heresy theologies that justify Apartheid. In our time, we are called to expand this critique and rejection of state theology to address Imperial Theology, the ‘software’ that justifies imperial exploitation and oppression. We were encouraged to find that, although Empire seeks to divide communities from one another, peoples’ resistance can unite us across religious, ethnic and culture divides.

Imperial theology is at work in the continued oppression of Palestinians and the crisis now engulfing what is known as the Middle East. Analysis and rejection of the State Theology supporting Apartheid in South Africa was an essential element in exposing and resisting that sinful system. In its dominant forms, Zionism has been used to justify the dispossession, transfer, massacring, ghettoization and exploitation of the Palestinian people. Zionism has become an element within the dominant structures of empire. Politically, we call for an intensification of all economic and political pressures on the State of Israel, including the Palestinian civil society call for Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS). In our biblical interpretation, we strongly distinguish between biblical Israel and the modern State of Israel. Theologically, we declare to be heresy any Christian theologies that support the Zionism informing Israeli oppression.

We now therefore resolve

to act and pray, inspired by the dangerous memory of Jesus Christ, God’s siding with suffering and poor communities, aiming to do all we can to return the global and local church to the mission of Jesus to enact the reign of God, opening toward a new way of relating to humanity and the earth;
to encourage all Christians to respond to the Palestinian Christian call to “come and see” the living stones of the Holy Land, providing hope to all who suffer under the cross of illegal Israeli Occupation;
to advocate that international law must apply equally to all. We reject the imperial dictate that imposes sanctions on some regimes while vetoing and criminalizing popular calls for sanctions on egregious violations of international law;
to impress upon our churches, seminaries and theological institutes the need to deepen theological engagement with the pressing challenges of the world, including the global systems and structures of empire and to promote Kairos spirituality;
to reflect intentionally on the South African experience of the effectiveness of the BDS efforts and express our full support for an intensification of BDS as an effective, nonviolent strategy against global empire;
to create appropriate systems to ensure that young people will be nurtured and mentored in the Kairos understanding of faith, hope, and love and supported in their growth into leadership;
to express public support for those working against corruption in South Africa; while we rejoice that political apartheid has ceased in South Africa, we lament that economic apartheid continues; we commit to working toward Kairos Africa to ensure that the hopes of the next generation of the African continent are not dashed by Empire; and
to foster and nurture the Global Kairos for Justice movement; we are because you are.

We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed but not in despair,
persecuted but not abandoned; struck down but not destroyed. (2 Corinthians 4)

20 August 2015

Monday, 1 June 2015

Religious Leaders Interfaith Roundtable on Nuclear Weapons - prospect for BAN

Kairos Nigeria will be organizing a religious leaders interfaith roundtable on Nuclear Weapons abolition on 16th June 2015. We are looking at Ethical and Moral justification to call on Nigeria Government to continue supporting negotiation for a ban an also to continue identifying with the Humanitarian Pledge. This programme is supported with small grants from the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons.

Friday, 29 May 2015

Leadership in Africa - a real business

2nd day running at the Africa Methodist Youth Movement Leadership Academy, Port Novo, Republic of Benin.

Friday, 30 January 2015

COMMUNIQUE ISSUED AT THE END OF THE INTERFAITH FORUM FOR PEACE AND SOCIAL TRANSFORMATION ORGANIZED BY KAIROS NIGERIA HELD AT THE INSTITUTE OF CHURCH AND SOCIETY,SAMONDA, IBADAN ON THE 28TH -30TH OF DECEMBER 2014 FOCUSED ON THE NEED TO BUILD YOUNG INTERFAITH VOICE TO ADDRESS THE RISING RELIGIOUS TENSION AMONG CHRISTIAN AND MUSLIM FAITHFUL IN NIGERIA.

Nigeria with its diversity of culture, over 250 ethnic groups and tribes is better described a ‘Nation of many nations’. While some of us view this diversity as an advantage from which the country can greatly benefit if our resources (human and material) are carefully harnessed, selfish politicians have over the years exploited the prevalent poverty, illiteracy and ignorance of many, to use our diversity as a people, to foment strife, distrust among the various tribes, ginger religious intolerance and perpetrate corrupt acts.

The core of our national challenges as a nation is the growing religious extremism been introduce by politicians and some religious leaders, the creation of gap and disunity between the two major faiths ( Muslim/Christians) which for example manifest at every time of selection of candidates for the highest political office in Nigeria, as seen by the tension raised on speculation of Muslim-Muslim ticket as it affected the main opposition party All Progressive Congress (APC) was so disturbing that one can clearly see the danger and fragile religious sentiments in Nigeria.

Now, as we project into the near future as a people, we must accept the fact that the only geographical space we can easily lay claim to is Nigeria, therefore, we as young people, Students and future (religious or political) leaders have decided to chart the course of religious harmony and tolerance, to rescue what remains of our inclusiveness as a Nation. We draw strength from the location of our worship places at the University of Ibadan where the central mosque and the Chapel stood side-by-side and ever since we have not recorded any clashes. This points out to us that we can worship and relate as a people in the larger society.

The interfaith forum for peace and social forum that held between 28-30 December, 2014, among Muslim and Christian students of the University of Ibadan as organized by Kairos Nigeria, therefore identified the followings as remote cause of religious intolerance and violence in Nigeria

· Hate Speech

· Unguarded Sermon

· Un regulated Practice of religious functions

· High rate of Un employment

· Loss of morality in preaching

· Ethnic and tribal segregations

· Influence of foreign religious sects that breeds groups such as the “Boko Haram”

As a way forward and response to the above listed, the forum considers the followings:

· That the government should create a religious regulatory body to monitor speech and help to combating intolerance

· That government must register all religious training institutions in Nigeria; this will reduce the proliferation of institutions that teach heresy and hard-beliefs.

· The law of Nigeria must be explicit enough on Insurgency and related vices

· That utilization of the new curriculum on Religion and National value must be re- visited, the core theme of : Security Education, Civic Education, Social Studies and Religious Education must be made compulsory at all levels of education in the country

We therefore call on all to help in the task of explaining the difference between Education and Westernization. Magnification of our collective value will push Nigeria in a way of Peace; therefore religious leaders should champion Media orientation to achieve stability.

The Interfaith forum concluded with a decision to continuing action without any further delay and achieves the followings as a matter of urgency:

· Publish the communiqué in a national newspaper

· Spread it on Social Media platforms

· Embark on Advocacy visit by the combine team under the leadership of Kairos Nigeria to prominent Islamic and Christian religious leaders, with the aim of bringing them together to address a joint sitting of Christian and Muslim youths at a forum

· Immediately produce a joint IEC materials with Christian and Islamic quotes on peace and tolerance

· Intensify shift to lectures on Transformation at addressing collective challenges such as corruption and un employment.

ATTENDANCE

S/N	NAME	FAITH
1	SANUSI Saheed Bello	Islam
2	OREKOYA Adefolurin O.	Christianity
3	SALAM Taofeek O.	Islam
4	AKINLEYE Hassan K.	Islam
5	SODOLA Nurudeen G.	Islam
6	ADELAKUN Adeyemi	Christianity
7	ADEBAYO Kehinde Anthony	Christianity
8	ADELAKUN Oluseyi Esther	Christianity
9	SANNI Alliu Ademola	Islam
10	RAJI Nasirudeen Kolawole	Islam
11	OWOLABI Stephen	Christianity
12	ADESANYA Adenike	Christianity
13	ANI Matthew Chibuzor	Christianity
14	ALADE Elijah	Christianity
15	SHAKIRUDEEN Zakariyah Akintade	Islam
16	AROWOLO Yetunde	Christianity
17	ABUBAKAR Tijani	Islam
18	QUADRI Aminat	Islam
19	FADAHUNSI Kolade	Christianity

Prepared by Rev. Kolade Fadahunsi.

This project is sponsored by the Karibu Foundation Norway.