The Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) has condemned the failure of President Muhammadu Buhari to be fair to all sections of the country in his three recent appointments.
The CAN President, Dr. Samson Olasupo Ayokunle, who said this in a statement on Monday, wondered why the President made three key appointments in the last few days, but none of them comes from the South and none is a Christian.
“He (Buhari) appointed Yusuf Magaji Bichi, a Muslim, from Kano State to replace Matthew Seiyefa, a Christian from Bayelsa who had been operating in an acting capacity since Lawal Daura was sacked in Buhari’s absence.
“Mr Abbas Umar Masanawa was also named the Managing Director of the Nigerian Security Printing and Minting Company (NSPMC), just as Hajiya Zainab Ahmed was appointed the acting Finance Minister to replace Mrs Kemi Adeosun who resigned as a result of her failure to participate in the NYSC programme and for parading a forged NYSC Certificate of Exemption.
“We wish to place on record, once again, the dangerous and religious discrimination and partiality that have characterized the President Buhari-led administration. We believe the marginalization of the Christians is deliberate to heighten the tension in the land for whatever reasons,” Ayokunle said in the statement signed by his spokesman, Pastor Adebayo Oladeji.
According to him, CAN was surprises and disappointed that despite appeals to President Buhari to break the domination of the country’ security council by people of the same religion and language in a multi-religious and multi-ethnic groups that make up Nigeria, he still turned a deaf ear to the ‘Voice of Wisdom and Reason’ as manifested in the three appointments.
He said that the President who at his inauguration three years ago promised to be fair to all has been consistently and persistently discriminating against Christians and southerners in all his appointments and policies.
He also rejected the justification of the illegalities being perpetrated by President Buhari in the lopsided appointments by the Presidency including a handful of Christians in his government who he said are doing so primarily to keep their jobs, at the expense of the majority.
He said, “For anyone to be asking all well-meaning Nigerians, including some media houses, to stop complaining of the lopsided appointments in the security apparatus of the country is reprehensible, insensitive, and wicked.”
