Tinubu, Shettima frustrating reconciliation, says Lawal

A former Secretary to the Government of the Federation, Babachir Lawal, has again spoken against the Muslim-Muslim ticket of the All Progressives Congress, stating that Christian politicians in Northern Nigeria would remain steadfast in their stand for justice, equity and fair play.

According to him, any nation or political dispensation built on injustice would crumble because justice and equity settle all other disputes.

Lawal, in a statement on Sunday titled, “Why we are doing what we are doing,” pleaded with Nigerians to understand the position of the Northern Christian politicians on the Muslim-Muslim ticket of the All Progressives Congress for the 2023 presidential election.

He said neither the APC presidential candidate, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, nor his running mate, Kashim Shettima and the political party has seen anything wrong in their choice of a same-faith ticket for the presidency in the coming election, to make peace with or assuage the feelings of northern Christian politicians.

The statement read, “We have so far not taken the road to reconciliation because, in the first instance, neither the APC as a party nor its presidential candidate has bothered to seek us out for reconciliation even though early on, our doors were left open for such.

“There are of course some ‘Christian’ turncoats and ‘Judases’ who, driven either by moral turpitude, poverty or greed, have hired themselves out as agents and spoilers of this noble Christian cause.

“To this group, I wish to recommend the study of the biographies of Judas Iscariot and Ahithophel in the Bible. Be careful to note how their lives ended.

“It seems that Tinubu/Shettima’s preferred approach is to attempt to counter our position through insults and sponsored fake Christian organisations to create the impression that there is a division within the Christendom on this matter.”

He noted that the strategy has failed with them becoming the butt of jokes in church gatherings across the country.

“This approach has also portrayed the duo as arrogant and pitiable people whilst also exposing them to the public as people with unimaginable deficiencies of noble character,” he added.

“And, broken they will be indeed. We noticed this trend in APC right from its registration in 2014 up to the 2022 convention, where the overriding goal seemed to have been to exclude northern Christians from all the organs of the party.

PFN backs CAN

The Pentecostal Fellowship of Nigeria has said that the Pentecostal Bishop’s Forum of Northern Nigeria, under which some bishops met with Tinubu, in Abuja on Friday does not exist within the PFN.

The Deputy National Secretary of the PFN, Bishop David Bakare, while disowning the group, told newsmen in Kaduna on Sunday that there was nothing like “Southern or Northern Pentecostal Bishops” in the PFN.

“The meeting between Tinubu and the Pentecostal Bishops Forum of Northern Nigeria has nothing to do with the PFN.

“I am speaking to you officially and authoritatively to say that the rank of the Christian community and, of course, the PFN, which I represent, is not broken at all.

“The Pentecostal Bishops Forum of Northern Nigeria is not known to the PFN,” he noted.

The forum does not have any affiliation or relationship with the PFN that is registered with the government of this nation.

“The position of the PFN on a same-faith ticket still stands as it did in the beginning, and we have not, for any reason, shifted our position on that matter.”

Bakare also noted that PFN was just one body under which all bishops, pastors, and members are lined up behind Bishop Francis Wale, the President.

(Punch)