Christians and Muslims in the country have been urged to use the lessons of the birth of Jesus Christ and this yuletide to reflect on the security challenges and other anti-stability factors bedevilling the nation with a view to finding a way out of the menace.

Speaker of the Kwara State House of Assembly, Hon. Rasaq Atunwa, who made this plea in Ilorin yesterday, noted in particular that the security challenges bedevilling the nation called for the concerted efforts of Nigerians, irrespective of their religious, political and ethnic affiliations, to overcome it.

The speaker extolled the virtues of Jesus Christ and enjoined Christians and Muslims, who should know the virtues of Jesus Christ as one of holy prophets, to continue to demonstrate high sense of tolerance, perseverance, sacrifice, love for one another and benevolence to the less privileged.

He commended Christians in the state for ensuring harmonious co-existence with other adherents of other faiths in the state and charged them to sustain the tempo.

According to him, no meaningful development could be achieved in an atmosphere of rancour and acrimony and enjoined Nigerians to continue to live together in peace and harmony.

Similarly, the former acting National Chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Alhaji Kawu Baraje, urged Christians in particular and Nigerians in general to continue to promote all that would enhance the unity of the country by guiding against combustive utterances or actions that could ignite violence and a breakdown of law and order in the nation.

Baraje also urged clerics of both religions to continue to pray for the nation's leaders, saying that even with all the happenings, Nigeria can be seen to be gradually overcoming her challenges.

The former PDP boss, who wished all Nigerians a blissful and peaceful celebration, pleaded with the citizens "to embark on progressive programmes that would make the march towards good nationhood realisable within a short period."