LAGOS:NEAR FISTICUFFS OVER SALES OF RAM AT ABBATOIR

LAGOS:NEAR FISTICUFFS OVER SALES OF RAM AT ABBATOIR
BY ABDULMUMINI ADEKUSO WHO OWNS THE RAM ANYWAY?

A Nigerian Christian and a staff of one of the major foreign airlines operating in Nigeria [names with held]recently got the shock of his life at the Lagos abattoir at Oko-oba Area of Lagos in Nigeria.

A salesman and a rancher at the multi-purpose Livestock market in Lagos ,Nigeria  told a likely customer  that the Ram he demanded  for and was willing to pay for will not be sold to him as he was looking and smelling like a Christain.

He lamented this incident even as he told this reporter that he had actually meant no form of harm in the process of transaction .

The source noted that if he had worn a native attire and had a blackspot at the centre of his forehead  suggesting a physical and cultural branding for a spiritually inclined Muslim  he would most likely have completed the transaction .

The source revealed h e was from Delta state and speaks his native:Urhobo language fluently .

Analysts see the incident as part of the  age long prejudice of the Muslim North against moderate Muslims and non-Muslims from elsewhere as it is this kind of acts of socio-cultural intolerance that has created a ground for the fertile base that Boko Haram has discovered was good for them in the North Eastern part of the country.

Rams being a Livestock is an animal and every human being irrespective of color,race and religion have the rights to buy it for spiritual and non-spiritual reasons.

Several sources have reported low sales of Rams in recent times no thanks to the economic hardship in Nigeria.

According to online resource centre,Wikipaedia,Sheep play an important role in all the Abrahamic faiths; Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, King David and the Islamic prophet Muhammad were all shepherds. According to the Biblical story of the Binding of Isaac, a ram is sacrificed as a substitute for Isaac after an angel stays Abraham's hand (in the Islamic tradition, Abraham was about to sacrifice Ishmael). Eid al-Adha is a major annual festival in Islam in which sheep (or other animals) are sacrificed in remembrance of this act.^[153][154] Sheep are occasionally sacrificed to commemorate important secular events in Islamic cultures.^[155] Greeks and Romans sacrificed sheep regularly in religious practice, and Judaism once sacrificed sheep as a Korban (sacrifice), such as the Passover lamb .^[152] Ovine symbols—such as the ceremonial blowing of a shofar—still find a presence in modern Judaic traditions. Followers of Christianity are collectively often referred to as a flock, with Christ as the Good Shepherd, and sheep are an element in the Christian iconography of the birth of Jesus. Some Christian saints are considered patrons of shepherds, and even of sheep themselves. Christ is also portrayed as the Sacrificial lamb of God (Agnus Dei) and Easter celebrations in Greece and Romania traditionally feature a meal of Paschal lamb. In many Christian traditions, a church leader is called the pastor, which is derived from the Latin word for shepherd.