By James Shim
Chairman, Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN), Benue State Chapter, Rev Dr Akpen Leva has given clarification on why the church is opposing the same religion ticket for the 2023 general elections in the country.
The CAN chairman, in an interview with The Voice Politics at his residence in Makurdi, Wednesday said the All Progressives Congress (APC) led government has divided the country on religious and ethnic lines.
Rev Leva also said the church position was aimed at restoring and fostering unity, fairness and the sense of inclusion in political leadership among all religions and ethnic groups in the country.
He said, the APC government has actually divided Nigerians along ethnic and religious lines, by making lopsided appointments and other preferences to one particular religion and tribe which has called for concern.
According to him, the issue that has broken the camel’s back is that “the APC led government has now introduced the Muslim- Muslim ticket which is actually a slap on Christians in Nigeria.”
He said it is to be imagined if with the Christian population in the North there is no competent Christian to be the running mate of a presidential candidate.
“Now people are trying to figure out what will be the future of this nation if eventually APC win the election. You can see that the president will be a Muslim, Vice President will be a Muslim, Senate President and Speaker would all be Muslims. Nigeria will no more be a secular state with heterogeneous religious practices with Christianity and Islam as two dominant religious practices.
“As a church we are also against a Christian-Christian ticket because we feel that there should be equality and fairness in sharing political appointments and positions. That is why the church has woken up.
“And Because of these comments some people are thinking the church is supporting APC and if the party changes it’s presidential ticket to be Muslim-Christian or Christian-Muslim the church will vote it, no, that is not what the church is saying. All we are saying is that in selecting leaders the parties should be conscious that ours is a secular state and whatever you are doing must at least reflect these two major religions.
“Our concern is about the unity of this nation, give appointments to reflect the unity of Nigeria. We are not siding any political party. Nigeria is tilting towards one religion which will never augur well with this nation,” he stated.
He said the agenda of the Christian community is to have Nigeria as one where there will be equal rights and equal representation.
“As far as the church is concerned, we don’t want that division to exist. The church knows that it is government that is dividing the nation. A situation where all the security chiefs are Muslims, all the executives in a particular place are all Muslims is not good. People will no longer have confidence and feel safe in this nation because they will feel that the nation belongs to one particular tribe or religion.
“We are sensitizing our members that we are not going to vote along party lines. We want to vote individuals that will come and fix this nation. We will look at the person’s credentials, what he has done before and if found capable we shall vote the person to help solve these problems that are bedeviling the country. Boko Haram, terrorism, herdsmen attacks and killings, etc.
“Benue experience is a very good example. Here we don’t vote political parties we vote candidates. For example Governor Ortom was in APC but once we identified his leadership qualities the church supported him, when he switched to PDP, the church went with him. We are not after the funny letters APC or PDP.
“That is what we want Nigerians to do. Find credible leaders that will come and solve the problems in 2023,” he maintained.