Former Secretary to the government of the federation Babachir Lawal and ex-Speaker of the House of Representatives, Yakubu Dogara, have urged Nigerians not to support the All Progressives Congress Presidential in the 2023 election over the party’s Muslim Muslim ticket.
The APC presidential candidate, Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s decision to choose Kashim Shettima, the former governor of Borno who’s also a Muslim, as his running mate have been met with backlash from the Christian community in Nigeria.
Commenting on this at the APC Northern Christian Leaders Summit in Abuja, Lawal claimed there is an agenda to suppress and oppress the Northern Christians.
“We will protect ourselves. The PVC and our prayers will be our weapons of choice and we will massively deploy them in 2023.”
“The main purpose of this historical narrative is to let you know that for The APC, a Muslim-Muslim ticket 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.
“One might ask: why is the APC itself mute about our rejection of this Muslim Muslim ticket? And why has none of the other perpetrators of this crisis reached out to Christians for a dialogue? Why are they instead hiring fake Bishops and taking church groups to further embarrass the Church? Why are they embarking on a vicious media war against CAN and the Church instead of seeking reconciliation? Truly, things are not adding up.
“We see this ticket as an assent to the current and continuing educational, economic and political marginalization of the Northern Nigerian Christians.
“This scenario is what we find in all agencies of governments in the north. Therefore, we view this Muslim Muslim ticket as an extension of this practice of exclusion to the uppermost level of government.”
ogara, on his part, said with the Muslim-Muslim ticket of the APC, Nigeria was going the way of the Nazi Germany.
The former Speaker of the House of Representatives, who said the APC wanted to disintegrate Nigeria like USSR and Yugoslavia, added that the party looked like a “janjaweed” party.
According to him, Nigeria of 2022 is not the Nigeria of 1993 adding that the presidential candidate of the APC, Bola Ahmed Tinubu, has made a fatal error of judgment.
Dogara also supported the position of other Christian leaders on the Muslim-Muslim ticket, with a call on Christians to seek for an alternative platform in the 2023 elections.
“Righteousness exalts a nation, but sin is a reproach to any people. Truth must be told that anyone who is not bringing us together is consciously tearing us apart”, Dogara added.
