By Adeleye Kunle
Ohanaeze Ndigbo Worldwide, the youth wing of the apex Igbo socio-cultural organization, has condemned the All Progressives Congress (APC) for fielding a Muslim-Muslim ticket in the 2023 presidential election, Track News reports
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It will be recalled that after meeting with President Muhammadu Buhari on Sunday in Daura, Katsina State, APC presidential candidate Bola Tinubu announced the choice of former Borno State Governor, Senator Kashim Shettima, as his running mate.
Despite widespread opposition, the announcement effectively confirmed the ruling party’s decision to field a Muslim-Muslim ticket in the 2023 presidential election.
It has also elicited a flood of reactions from Nigerians, both on and off social media.
In a statement issued on Monday, the National President of the OYC, Mazi Okwu Nnabuike, said the choice of Shettima was a grand plan to sink Nigeria, and that it violated the law of natural justice.
Nnabuike also expressed concern that the Christian community would become extinct under a Muslim-Muslim presidency, calling Tinubu’s decision an insult to the country’s millions of Christians.
“Today, we have deemed it appropriate to warn Nigerians about a potential threat ahead of the 2023 general elections.” This follows Bola Tinubu’s decision to run on a Muslim-Muslim ticket, despite obvious reasons why he should not.
“This is completely unacceptable and should be rejected by anyone who cares about the country,” Okwu said.
“In 2014, Tinubu attempted to force a Muslim-Muslim ticket on Buhari, but the President resisted by listening to the wise counsel of people like former Senate President, Senator Bukola Saraki,” Okwu recalled. He weighed the ticket.
“Fast forward seven years, and Tinubu is now desperate to realize a Muslim-Muslim presidency.” There’s more here than meets the eye. Tinubu and the APC leadership are insensitive, and this is their undoing.
“We see this as a massive plot to sink Nigeria.” In a multi-ethnic and multi-religious society like Nigeria, how can anyone contemplate such an arrangement?
“The APC should forget 2023; they’ve shot themselves in the foot, and we can’t let them destroy Nigeria.” They blew an excellent opportunity to compete in the upcoming election. Nigerians, Christians, and Muslim brothers who care about their country should rise up and fight it to the death; it will never fly.
“The country has never been so polarized, and every sensitive person should have been concerned with processes that would foster national cohesion and unity, but what we have seen from Tinubu’s APC is a further division of the country.”
“Tinubu claimed the choice was based on competence; our question to him is simple: does this mean that there is no competent Christian among the 19 Northern States?” Tinubu’s claims are obviously false, as we can see.
“No religion is superior to another, but Tinubu is leading people to believe otherwise, putting the country in an avoidable crisis.”
