TEKAN leader, Ayokunle lock horns over CAN presidency

The race for the leadership of Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) for the next four years thickened on Saturday with the president of Tarayar Ekklisiyoyin Kristi A Nigeria (TEKAN), Dr. Caleb Ahima, declaring his intention to run.

He will lock horns with the incumbent and president of Nigerian Baptist Convention, Dr. Samson Ayokunle, whose regime and recent pilgrimages to Aso Rock had become controversial.

TEKAN, meaning Fellowship of the Churches of Christ in Nigeria, is a conglomeration of 15 churches in northern Nigeria in the same bloc with Evangelical Church Winning All (ECWA).

Rev. Ahima, who had reportedly scaled the screening, will partake in the election next month.

His ambition was ratified during the recent TEKAN general assembly at the headquarters of the Church of the Brethren in Nigeria in Kwarhi-Mubi, Adamawa State.

Already, a five-member committee has been set up to facilitate the achievement of his aspiration, with different mandates, including reaching out to ECWA, since TEKAN and ECWA form one of the five blocs of CAN.

The committee was also expected to make strategic contacts towards realising the dream.

“May I state that ECWA has keyed into this aspiration successfully. Efforts by detractors to break the unity of the bloc have been futile. It is God who gives leadership. My prayer is that the will of God be done.

“The journey to leadership cannot be permitted in any way to divide God’s people or cast aspersion on the image of the church.

The threshold we have reached as a Nigerian church is too dangerous to embrace the costly luxury of suicidal pursuit of selfish and personal interests.

“My nomination by TEKAN for the contest and ECWA’s acceptance of the nomination is the voice of God, since, quite often, the voice of the people is the voice of God,” Ahima said.