…Buhari may have fallen into wrong hands — Northern CAN
The National Christian Elders Forum (NCEF) on Sunday dissociated itself from the purported endorsement of the presidential candidate of All Progressives Congress (APC), General Muhammadu Buhari in the forthcoming elections.
NCEF said the group that endorsed Buhari is “unaccredited and unrecognised.”
In a statement issued on behalf of NCEF chairman, Mr. Solomon Asemota (SAN), by secretary of the group and delegate to 2014 national conference, Pastor ‘Bosun Emmanuel, Christians were charged to resist the temptation of putting personal interests above the interests of the Lord Jesus Christ, because such compromise has terrible eternal consequences.
“Christians should put the interest of the nation first in all forms of electioneering campaign and desist from acts that could be interpreted to imply desperate manipulation of the electorate for political power,” Emmanuel said in the statement.
News went round last week that Buhari had been endorsed for the 28 March general election by Northern Christian Leaders Eagle-Eye Forum led by one Pastor Aminchi Habu and was also offered a copy of the Holy Bible.
As the endorsement was going on, information came from the venue, International Conference Centre (ICC) that some people have staged a walk-out because they were not told of their mission.
Reacting afterwards Emmanuel said: “The National Christian Elders Forum wishes to state clearly that the only Northern Elders Forum accredited and recognised by the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) is the Northern States Christian Elders Forum (NOSCEF).
“The Elders Forum hereby declares that neither CAN, NOSCEF nor the NCEF at any time supported or approved of the action of this unaccredited group.”
Also reacting to the endorsement, the Public Relations Officer of CAN, Mr. Sunny Oibe, said Buhari may have fallen into wrong hands because that group was not known.
“There is no group like that which exists in Northern Nigeria because I am a Northerner and a Christian. I want Buhari to note that those people are impostors. The church in the North is led by ArchBishop Peter Jatto. We have not and cannot endorse Buhari because he has not told us that he is sorry for his alleged involvement in the post-election violence of 2011,” Obie said.
“When you are desperate, you can fall into the hands of wrong people. Buhari may have fallen into wrong hands. They are not Pastors and they are not known in the North. Ask him (Aminchi Habu) the church he attends in which he claims to be a Pastor.”
Accused of being unknown and sponsored after the endorsement ceremony, Habu replied that: “Anybody that said we are sponsored Pastors have also been sponsored to come. We are about 218 and all those who came behind we know their mission and agenda and they cannot change our situation. We had a meeting in Zaria, Kaduna State and we all agreed that enough is enough and we need a change. Habu said the Eagle-Eye forum is a forum of like minds, though CAN is still the umbrella body under which it operates.
“CAN is an entity of its own but we as leaders in our forum have endorsed Buhari,” Habu said.
Habu also said there is no need for informing CAN of his organisation’s plan to endorse Buhari because are many Christian organisations in CAN.
“As far as this our forum is concerned and as children of God, we have endorsed Buhari and so CAN is on their own,” he said.
“We don’t have denominations; once you are a Christian, you are a member. We have many inter-denominations, as far as you are a child of God.”
