The Muslim-Muslim ticket of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) drew the ire of the fiery Catholic Bishop of Sokoto Diocese, Matthew Hassan Kukah, on Thursday.
Bishop Kukah, who described the same faith APC presidential ticket as reprehensible and a setback for national integration, said it was unacceptable to him as a Christian.
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Former Lagos State governor, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, a Muslim, and the APC presidential candidate, picked Kashim Shettima, the former governor of Borno State, who is also a Muslim, as his running mate for the 2023 presidential election.
The development has elicited criticism from key stakeholders, particularly the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN).
An APC chieftain and ally to Tinubu, Babachir Lawan, former Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF), has described the Muslim-Muslim ticket as a satanic move, warning that Christians will vote against APC in the 2023 election.
Speaking on Thursday in an interview on Channels Television, Bishop Kukah said the same faith ticket was a setback to the country’s progress on national integration.
He wondered whether Muslims from the North who are saying it does not matter would have said so if it was a Christian-Christian ticket.
The Catholic bishop said the Muslim-Muslim presidential ticket of 1993 election has been “over-exaggerated” to assume that Nigerians don’t care about religion.
“As a Christian, I feel proud of the role we played in managing diversity and politics in Nigeria,” Bishop Kukah said.
“In 1983, when General Buhari came in as head of state, he took Idiagbon. Sadly, Nigerians were very excited. Maybe that is where we should have returned to as a scene of crime.
“It broke tradition, completely. The whole issue was that two Muslims from the north of the same religion would govern Nigeria, but Nigerians gave them that concession.
“I think we over-exaggerated our interpretation of what happened in 1993 because we always have this dubious assumption that it is evident that Nigerians don’t care about religion.
“But moving forward, the question I have asked my friends who are Muslims, especially those who are from northern Nigeria, is a simple question: ‘Would Muslims in Nigeria or northern Nigeria be ready to make the same concession that Christians made in 1984 and 1993?’
“And they have now been asked to make the same concession.
“You have to then understand this against the backdrop of what has happened in the last seven years.”
Bishop Kukah added, “When you look at the squandered opportunity; when you look at the way power has been distributed; when you look at the way this government has allocated opportunities to broad spectrum of Nigeria against the wide backdrop of the crisis that we are in now, ordinarily the least we should be talking about is whether our next president should be a Christian or Muslim.
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“But as a Christian, I can tell you very frankly that the decision of the APC, naturally, I felt astonished.
“I think that as a Christian, this is totally reprehensible. It is not acceptable to me, but that is the decision of the APC as a party. Perhaps, when the campaign starts, we will hear what people have to say.
“But it has just laid the foundation that has taken us back after the kind of progress we thought we have made in terms of national integration,” Bishop Kukah concluded.
