CAN and Muslim leaders tighten worship-centre security in Osun after DSS alert
Following an alert by the Department of State Services (DSS) about an alleged plan to attack worship centres in Osun State, the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) and the Muslim community have adopted measures they say are meant to reduce the risk.
The DSS met religious leaders in Osogbo last week and advised precaution. The warning came with intelligence that armed groups might try to push insecurity into the South-West and raise tension before the presidential election. Osun CAN Chairman Pastor John Adeleke said churches should strengthen their own security units, look carefully at unfamiliar faces, check vehicles entering compounds and, where needed, inspect bags.
He asked congregations to raise an alarm if they sense danger, to discourage night vigils, clubbing and unnecessary travel, and, where possible, to keep car parks about 100 metres from the church building. Leaders, he added, should stop celebrating wealthy members whose sources of money they do not know.
Hameed Oyegbade, spokesman for the Osun Muslim community, said chief imams had been told to watch strangers at prayers, to keep security visible at Jumat, and not to park vehicles or motorcycles against mosque walls. Imams should use the pulpit to spread caution, report suspicious movement to the agencies and avoid giving unknown people cover.
Governor Ademola Adeleke, in a statement by spokesman Olawale Rasheed, thanked the DSS, asked other agencies to review their plans and said he would convene the State Security Council. He urged residents and royal fathers to share information and to be careful whom they host. The administration, he said, wants post-election peace and will try to stop any attempt to disrupt it.
An intelligence alert is not an attack. It is a request that churches and mosques change how they receive people. The steps CAN and the Muslim community listed—distance from parked cars, fewer night gatherings, less celebration of unexplained wealth—treat the compound itself as a weak point.
Whether those habits hold after the first quiet Friday and Sunday will decide if the warning produced discipline or only a week of circulars. The governor’s council meeting is the state’s next test: a plan that residents can see, or another statement that the agencies are already “on it.”
