Babachir Lawal, former Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF), has called on Nigerians not to vote for any ticket that is not mixed between Christians and Muslims during the 2023 elections.
Lawal said the Muslim-Muslim ticket of the All Progressives Congress (APC) for the 2023 poll will be resisted with prayers and Permanent Voters Card (PVC).
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The APC presidential candidate, Bola Ahmed Tinubu picked Kashim Shettima, the former governor of Borno who’s also a Muslim, as his running mate, a development that elicited outrage from key stakeholders, particularly the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN).
Commenting on this at the APC Northern Christian Leaders Summit in Abuja, Lawal claimed there is an agenda to suppress and oppress the Northern Christians.
“We will protect ourselves. The PVC and our prayers will be our weapons of choice and we will massively deploy them in 2023.”
“The main purpose of this historical narrative is to let you know that for The APC, a Muslim-Muslim ticket has been a long-term political strategy and not a one-off decision. Thus, all this talk of competence as the reason for the choice of the Muslim VP is balderdash and diversionary. This is a calculated anti-Christian exclusion agenda that is being implemented.
“One might ask: why is the APC itself mute about our rejection of this Muslim Muslim ticket? And why has none of the other perpetrators of this crisis reached out to Christians for a dialogue? Why are they instead hiring fake Bishops and taking church groups to further embarrass the Church? Why are they embarking on a vicious media war against CAN and the Church instead of seeking reconciliation? Truly, things are not adding up.
“We see this ticket as an assent to the current and continuing educational, economic and political marginalization of the Northern Nigerian Christians.
“This scenario is what we find in all agencies of governments in the north. Therefore, we view this Muslim Muslim ticket as an extension of this practice of exclusion to the uppermost level of government.”
