The Arewa Coalition for Good Governance (ACGG) has said the hardline positions of Former Secretary to the Federal Government, Mr Lawal Babachir, former speaker of House of Representatives, Yakubu Dogara and Adamawa Lawmaker, Senator Ishaku Abbo over the issue of Muslim -Muslim ticket of the All Progressives Congress (APC) are based on selfish interest.
According to the coalition, their anger was based on the premise that none of them was picked as the running mate and not on the issue of the Muslim-Muslim ticket as it is projected.
“At a time when all critical stakeholders of APC are supposed to be working for unity and progress of the party during the forthcoming 2023 general elections, they have decided to deploy religious sentiments as a weapon of war to discourage Christians from Tinubu/Shettima.”
In a press statement signed by one of the leaders of the Coalition, Elder Peter Sati Auta, and made available to newsmen in Kaduna on Sunday noted that “Nigerians, especially the electorate are wise enough to know that whipping religious sentiments against any candidate is not the solution to the challenges of insecurity; dwindling economy, insurgency, high unemployment rate, bad governance and other problems militating against progress and development of Nigeria.”
While stating that Holy Bible gave Christians the mandate to pray for leaders, it noted “anything out of this is not only unhealthy, but retrogressive.”
This is among several reasons why as Christian leaders in various churches, we decided to come out and speak against the divisive move by our brothers to create a religious crack in the polity ahead of the 2023 elections.
“Instead of holding nocturnal meetings to fight the issue of Muslim -Muslim Ticket, we expected them to spend energy on talking about how to contribute their quota to finding solutions to a plethora of above-mentioned problems that over the past twenty years have served as cog in the wheel of progress.”
While noting in that statement that Babachir Lawal and Yakubu Dogara could be the ones working to overheat the polity and destroy the same party that gave them a platform of political relevance, it stressed, “we hold the view that this is nothing but mere selfish interest of the spent forces, which should be rejected outrightly.”
The statement further reads: “Everyone knows that both former Lagos State Governor, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu and former Borno Governor, Alh. Kashim Shettima are not religious bigots, so earlier they know that the idea of whipping religious sentiments against them won’t work.
“It is in the public domain that Tinubu and Shettima helped good numbers of Christians during their days as Governors of Lagos and Borno.
“Where were they when the heavy campaign of calumny of been a “Religious Bigot” was muted against Buhari? Of course, some of them supported him to win and were later compensated with appointments. Even with all the unprintable names, Buhari was called, yet they worked for him.”
The group also asked, “When Babachir and Dogara held public offices, at what point did they speak or work for Christians?
Reacting to what it described as “Senator Abbo’s outburst on the Muslim-Muslim ticket, it simply asked, “Was the sex toy scandal and slapping of the lady at the sex toy shop part of religious evangelism?
“We are urging Christians to shun Babachir, Dogara and Senator Abbo’s divisive strategies and vote for candidates of their choice regardless of religion and tribal backgrounds.
Credit: Nigerian Tribune