Northern Nigerian Breaking News

APC Northern Christians reject Muslim-Muslim ticket

Northern Christian members of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) on Friday held a summit where they formally rejected the party’s Muslim-Muslim presidential ticket for the 2023 election.

According to them, the ticket goes against all the principles of equity, fairness and justice.

A former Secretary to the Government of the Federation, Babachir Lawal restated his objection to the decision of the All Progressives Congress (APC) to run with a Muslim-Muslim presidential ticket in the 2023 general election.

He said Christians, including members of the APC, will use their Permanent Voters Card (PVCs) and prayers to resist the party’s plan ahead of the polls.

Similarly, his stance was echoed by a former Speaker of the House of Representatives, Yakubu Dogara.

elsamad new

The duo, who are Christian political leaders from the Northern part of the country, spoke at an APC Northern Christian Leaders Summit in Abuja on Friday.

It could be recalls that Bola Tinubu, the APC presidential candidate, picked Kashim Shettima, the former governor of Borno who’s also a Muslim, as his running mate for the 2023 presidential election.

Read Also: EFCC raids Bureaux de Change as naira dips against the dollar

The development elicited outrage from key stakeholders, particularly the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN).

In his speech, Mr Lawal said the APC’s Muslim-Muslim ticket is proof of its anti-Christian agenda and that the party has completely eliminated northern Christians from its National Working Committee (NWC) and National Executive Committee (NEC).

The Muslim-Muslim ticket, he said, has been a long-term political strategy and not a one-off decision.

“Thus, all this talk of competence as the reason for the choice of the Muslim VP is balderdash and diversionary. This is a calculated anti-Christian exclusion agenda that is being implemented.”

He wondered why the APC is quiet on the opposition of some members and why the party “hired fake Bishops to further embarrass the church.”

“Christians all over the country see this ticket as a deliberate and premeditated attempt to introduce and firmly entrench religion into the politics of the country, which could lead to further disharmony,” he said.

“This is truly a wake-up call for all Nigerian Christians. We didn’t start this religious politics; APC and its candidates did; so, all of us should take note and act as appropriate.

“So, our dear APC colleagues, spare us these sanctimonious lectures on competence and the cliche ‘religion of the candidates does not matter’. The truth is that the 2023 presidential election will be all about religion, and sadly, you started it; religion does matter in this context so be ready for the consequences,” he said.

Mr Dogara, who was the guest speaker at the event, said Mr Tinubu has made a fatal error in choosing a running mate.

The move, he said, is a rude awakening that happened sooner than later.

He lamented “unhelpful framings” of a debate by pundits that posit that Christians in the North are so small in number that their votes don’t count.

This strange argument, he said, seeks to reinforce the satanic agenda of dividing the church in Nigeria into North and South.

The lawmaker further said the Muslim/Muslim ticket is a bad decision because it fuels inequality and breeds division which is counter-productive to the collective aspirations for a united and prosperous nation.

He knocked the APC leaders for their inability to distinguish the Nigeria of 1993 from 2022.

Comments are closed.