The Gospel Reggae Team Initiative (GRTI), a registered non-governmental organisation, has urged stakeholders to exercise restraint in analysing the recently released admission list for the 78 Regular Course of the Nigerian Defence Academy (NDA).
The organisation made the appeal in response to concerns attributed to the Abuja Chapter of the Muslim Rights Concern (MURIC) over alleged religious imbalance in the NDA admission process.
In a statement signed by its Founder and Coordinator, Lucy Peters Awe, GRTI said the attempt to assess admission into Nigeria’s premier military training institution primarily through Christian-Muslim considerations could heighten religious tension.
The organisation said legitimate concerns about the NDA admission process should not be suppressed, but maintained that such concerns must be based on verifiable facts, established criteria, relevant laws and applicable recruitment regulations.
A trustee of GRTI, Mr Odoh Diego Okenyodo, said the NDA was neither a Christian nor a Muslim institution but a national establishment created to train Nigerians for service to the Federal Republic of Nigeria.
According to him, the central considerations in military recruitment should include whether applicants meet the prescribed requirements and possess the competence, character, discipline and commitment required for military service.
GRTI questioned the basis for reducing the NDA admission process to what it described as “Christian-Muslim arithmetic”, arguing that religious identity should not become a determining factor in recruitment or admission into national security institutions.
The organisation acknowledged the importance of federal character and equitable representation, but stressed that such constitutional principles should not be interpreted as requiring public institutions to maintain specific religious ratios.
It said there was a clear distinction between promoting equitable representation among Nigeria’s diverse communities and allocating opportunities based on religious affiliation.
GRTI warned that making religion a central consideration in recruitment could create an unhealthy precedent where competence and qualification become secondary to religious identity.
The organisation also expressed concern over the increasing tendency to introduce religious considerations into discussions surrounding government appointments, recruitment, admissions and other public processes.
It said such a trend could place unnecessary pressure on government institutions, particularly security agencies, to consider religious identity where competence, integrity, discipline and national loyalty should remain paramount.
GRTI urged Nigerians with concerns about the NDA admission exercise to focus on objective questions, including the published admission requirements, applicable cut-off marks, consistency in the application of criteria and whether candidates were treated fairly.
It also challenged stakeholders making religious claims to provide evidence to support such allegations, asking how the religious identities of successful NDA candidates were established and whether every candidate could legitimately be categorised as either Christian or Muslim.
The organisation called on the Department of State Services (DSS), religious organisations, civil society groups, political actors and opinion leaders to promote responsible public discourse on sensitive national security matters, insisting that Nigeria’s military institutions must remain national institutions serving citizens irrespective of religion, ethnicity, region or social background.
GRTI said, as a Christian organisation, it did not believe Christianity required Christians to demand religious quotas in every Nigerian institution, just as it rejected preferential treatment for Muslims on the basis of religion. It reaffirmed its commitment to peace, national unity and responsible citizenship, urging Nigerians to place competence, character and loyalty to the nation above religious calculations.