From Murphy Ganagana, Jos
The battle to succeed Pastor Ayo Oristejafor as president of the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN), seem to have created bad blood within religious body with some northern Christians threatening to pullout.
A group under the auspices of Concern Christians of Nigeria (CCN) yesterday, accused outgoing leader of attempting to validate an illegal national election to install his successor at the National Council meeting slated for today.
But speaking with Daily Sun last night, national scribe of CAN, Rev. Musa Asake, called on Nigerians to ignore the Northern CAN, maintaining that the body does not have any representation in the national body of the apex Christian body. They’re on their own. They’re not in the CAN constitution.
He said their election which was conducted recently was not monitored by any national officials of CAN, contrary to the practice, hence their position could not be taken seriously.
Addressing a press conference in Jos, Plateau State, spokesman of the group, Rev. Luka Shehu, warned that the Northern CAN consisting of Christians from the 19 states and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) would pull out of the national body if the leadership insisted on dictating its successor against the wishes and aspiration of Christians in the country.
“We are aware of the plan and insistence of the leadership of CAN under Pastor Ayo Oritsejafor to impose the purportedly elected president on Christians in Nigeria at the 19th – 20th July National Assembly for ratification of the election. Also, we are aware of their plans to change the Constitution to suit their purposes to endorse the illegal election as well as change the rotational leadership clause. It would be recalled that the same Constitution was used by CAN legal adviser to reverse the Imo State CAN election held on November 13, 2012. We are against a Christian leadership that abuses both the exegetical and the contextual principles of the message of ‘grace’ in the scripture in order to perpetuate or cover up evil under any guise. It is evident that if the national leadership throw caution to the winds, Northern CAN will obviously revert to pre-Independence Northern Nigeria Christian Association (NNCA) which was the umbrella body unifying Christians in Northern Nigeria during the colonial administration. We plead with all well meaning Christian leaders, both laity and other relevant organizations concerned to prevail on the current CAN leadership and the five bloc leaders in CAN to have restraint and desist from the plan to impose a leadership on CAN as this may lead to disunity and breach of peace,” the said.
However, when contacted, chairman of CAN in the 19 northern states and the FCT, Rev Yakubu Pam, he said the northern CAN do not speak through people but issued press statements. He however, did not dissociate his group from the position taken by Rev. Shehu’s group.
“It is true that people are aggrieved and what they have brought to you (press conference), you should concentrate on it and deal with it. But we do not have any problem within CAN in the 19 Northern states, and I do not want to be dragged further on this issue because I have answered the question you asked me”, Rev. Pam said in a telephone chat with our correspondent.