Group appeals to CAN, others to see Buhari as a leader for all

The National Inter-Faith Religious Organizations for Peace (NIFROP) has urged the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) and other religious bodies in the country to embrace President Muhammadu Buhari as a leader for all. 

According to the foremost interfaith-faith group, the president has never demonstrated bias against Christians, Muslims or any other religious sect in the country. 

The group said its faith in the unity of Nigeria was visible at the last polls in 2019, in which Nigerians across religious and ethnic lines massively voted for the president. 

NIFROP’s remarks trails CAN’s insinuation that Buhari’s prolonged silence on Sheikh Ahmad Gumi’s alleged profiling of military operatives is tantamount to an endorsement of the Islamic cleric. 

However, speaking at a press conference in Abuja, through its grand patron, Bishop Julius Idiwe, NIFROP warned the Christian body not to drag the president into bigotry or partisanship. 

Idiwe noted that CAN’s unwarranted outburst and vituperation on the presidency, with intent to incite the public, negates the core norms and values of all religions. 

The inter-faith group insisted that Buhari has always taken an impartial stand on national issues and doesn’t jump into every statement in the public domain. 

Idiwe recalled how Rev Fr. Ejike Mbaka and other Christian preachers in the past launched scathing attacks on the president without any reprimand whatsoever.

While Gumi has insistently canvassed for compensation and amnesty for the bandits, the respected Christian cleric said President Buhari has rejected his proposal. 

He, therefore, advised CAN to promote peaceful co-existence, unity, togetherness and the indivisibility of Nigeria. 

“We find the contents of CAN’s statement untrue and a misrepresentation of reality concerning the Buhari Presidency,” Idiwe said.

“NIFROP has found the public utterances and outbursts of CAN, a major Christian body in Nigeria against the Government, office and person of President Buhari extremely misdirected and misleading. And we believe, it is because of a lack of basic knowledge of the operations or mindset of this  Presidency. 

“NIFROP is unexcited the more by the consistent focus by CAN, as exemplified even in the current public statement to align the personality or the Buhari  Presidency to the country’s regressive national faultlines of ethnicity, religion and regionalism, even when there is enough evidence against such sermonized inclinations on the President.

“We again wish to bring to the notice of CAN’s leadership that President Buhari has consistently over the years, clearly resisted a romance with such biases.”