Former Enugu State Governor Chimaroke Nnamani has criticised the presidential candidate of the Labour Party (LP), Peter Obi, for allegedly introducing religious and ethnic politics in Nigeria.
Reviewing the activities of the just-concluded elections, Nnamani, in a statement in Abuja, said: “Peter Obi deflowered the virgin innocence of political patriotism and nationalism in Nigeria.
“He fed our people with the sacred apple and Nigeria may never be the same again.”
The senator representing Enugu East decried the development, saying: “What was in whispers and hush tones, Peter proclaimed loud in decibels in Cathedrals and Holy Sepulchres.”
Nnamani noted that “the Roman Catholic-dominant politics Peter mastered and foisted on Anambra people when he was governor was a prelude to his nationwide campaigns”.
He alleged that “the Roman Catholic’s Family Trinity of Mary, Joseph and Jesus was what Peter spread ecumenically across the faith landscape as the Labour Party’s symbol of Father, Mother and Child”.
The Enugu East senator also said Peter Obi‘s religious war in the garb of Labour Party politics were nationalised and universalised for all Christian dominations among Nigerians at home and abroad.
According to him, Obi proselytised “do not vote for me because I am a Christian” but “the code was clear and its subliminal assimilation final”.
He added: “For his ethnic war, he spread across Igbo domiciled areas across Nigeria, specifically markets and shopping malls.
“He picked out Christian minority areas for his campaigns in Northern and Central Nigeria. His dual opium of tribalism and religious bigotry have made national landing to depart no more.”
An Enugu Catholic Priest, Rev. Father Ejike Mbaka of Adoration Ministry, had publicly apologised for the partisan role the church played during this year’s general election.
He said: “The world should hear me. I’m using my name as a reverend father, a prophet and a messenger of God to apologise on behalf of the whole men of God: pastors, priests and bishops. I’m not worthy to apologise for bishops, but I’m apologising.
“Let the mercy of God descend because what we did within this political moment, a lot of indescribable political brouhaha and political jingoism and a lot of atrocities we manifested by burying the power of the sacrament beneath political forces, political huffs and vultures, and they want to ‘vulturise’ the church.
“We turned the church into campaign centres. We turned the church into a place of politicking. We messed up the altar. We defiled the altar of the Most High God.
“We offended God and we started teaching the people in the church where to vote and how they would do it.
“Where they drew humans, the church said it’s the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit (The Trinity). Lots of blunders were made by taking the glory of God and giving it to mortals.
“I’m pleading for the mercy of God. I pray that God will forgive us for we have got it wrong this time.”
