Lalong is right, Pope is no religious bigot

Sir: I wish to express my utmost disagreements on the resolution reached by the people that classified themselves as a member of Catholic Church criticising Governor Lalong for accepting to be the director general of Tinubu/Shettima campaign organisation. 

I think people should by now stop fuelling hatred among themselves and also stop overheating the polity because opposing Lalong for accepting the responsibility of campaign director general is like saying Lalong should be dealing with only those who are in the same faith with him. This is unacceptable thinking by the group of people concerned. 

People opposing Muslim-Muslim tickets as demonstrated by Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu and Shettima Kashim are the real trouble makers in this country because Nigeria was not established based on religious sentiments.  Nigeria is a secular nation having three major religions: Muslim, Christian and Traditional religions and all of us have been co-habiting together for several years ago. The idea of creating separation among citizens of this country on religious basis should not be acceptable. 

making reference to the head of Catholic worldwide is not an insult or disrespectful to the office of Pope but an ordinary reference to stop those behaving as if they are more Catholic than the Pope. With a great honour to the head of Catholic Church worldwide, I have read in several publications where the Pope embarked on felicitating his Muslim counterparts in the spirit of brotherhood. We should stop mixing religion with politics.  Practise religions based on your faith with the belief that Almighty God has created all of us to cohabit. Also practise politics freely based on your membership of your political party with ideological understanding amongst your members.

To me, Muslim-Muslim or Christian-Christian tickets shouldn’t be the determining factors to be considered, but rather competence, capacity and capability are the appropriate major factors to be taken into consideration.  I have seen these qualities in Tinubu and his Vice Presidential candidate, Shettima. 

Ogunyemi Ojo Joseph wrote from Calabar.