Given crises arising from Africa multi-religiosity and their impediment to national growth, CBAAC organized her annual lecture titled “Reconciling the Faiths: Strategies for Enhancing Religious Harmony for National Development” delivered by Professor Jacob Kehinde Olupona, an outstanding religious scholar from Harvard University in the US .
Prof. Olupona seminal lecture identified and explained the reason why religious occupied the domain of public discourse in recent times. According to him, religion has remained a subject of discussion and the bane of Nigeria 's development because people have refused to view religion beyond the narrow confines of transcendent phenomenon. The multi-religiosity of Nigeria have constantly been used to create atmosphere for peace or generate crises depending on motives of the elites.
Therefore, the panacea to religious orchestrated violence, Prof. Olupona observed is in building inter-faith dialogue that promotes harmonious pluralism. Such dialogue, he advised, should begin with the understanding that religious violence is the product of limited human responses to complex religious teachings and that national development could best be attained through the growth of minds and bodies, the reduction of poverty, and the nurturing of peaceful relations in the body politic, in the economic, social and religious spheres.
The 2008 edition of CBAAC Annual Public Lecture prominently had Dr. Lateef Adegbite, the Secretary General of Supreme Council for Islamic Affairs in Nigeria and other big wigs in religious affairs. Prof. Bolaji Akinyemi, former Nigerian Minister of External Affairs chaired the occasion.
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