Stop Impersonating Us CAN Tells Politicians
The Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) has called on politicians in the country to desist from impersonating them by hiring unknown alleged clerics to pose as members of its leadership.
Recall that reports on fake clerics posing as members of CAN at the official unveiling of vice presidential candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Kashim Shettima, has been awash in the media, even as some of the impostors had alleged a breach of agreement on payment to pose as clerics at the event which held on Wednesday in Abuja.
Presidential candidate of the APC, Bola Ahmed Tinubu, had, however, denied such ever happened, stating that the alleged hired clerics were not known faces in the Christian body.
But an official statement released by leadership of CAN yesterday, in Abuja, expressed shock and disappointment at the extent politicians could go in an effort to paint a picture of Christian leaders supporting a Muslim-Muslim presidential ticket in the forthcoming 2023 general elections.
The statement which was signed by CAN’s General Secretary, Mr Joseph Daramola, totally dissociated the religious body from the unveiling of Kashim Shettima as the vice presidential candidate of the APC, insisting that those who were presented as church leaders were “unknown clerics.” He said: “We are shocked, disappointed and worried about the desperation of some politicians who once claimed Christians do not matter in governance and politics, who went to hire some unknown ‘bishops, pastors and priests’ to impersonate the leadership of CAN in their political meeting.
This is totally unacceptable, reprehensible, unprecedented and ungodly. If they are saying Christians have no electoral values, why impersonating them in their meetings? We are throwing their principals and sponsors into the court of conscience. (However) These actions of theirs have shown who they are to the public and what they are capable of doing to us all. “We are asking political parties not to ignore religious sensibilities and sensibilities of the people, especially in today’s Nigeria when Christians are becoming endangered species daily. Our quest is within the constitutional requirements, and ignoring it is akin to trampling on the Constitution, especially the Federal Character Act.”
