The immediate past Director-General of the Progressive Governors Forum and sitting national Vice Chairman, North-West of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Salihu Lukman, has expressed concern over what he called ethno-religious consideration colouring the debate on the choice of running mate in the party.
The national secretariat of Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) at the weekend cautioned the presidential candidates of the two dominant political parties, APC and the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) not to be blind to religious consideration in the choice of running mate for their standard-bearers, Senator Bola Tinubu and Alhaji Atiku Abubakar.
The Pentecostal Fellowship of Nigeria (PFN) had also kicked against a ticket of a presidential candidate and running mate of the same faith.
Speculation is rife that the APC presidential candidate is under pressure to pick a northern Muslim amongst serving governors from the North as his running mate.
Lukman, in a statement at the weekend entitled, “Issues for APC 2023 Presidential Campaign,” however, said making choices based on ethno-religious considerations could be inimical to finding solutions confronting the country.
In an allusion to the CAN demand, Lukman argued that “If Nigeria is to move forward, 2023 presidential campaigns must not reduce important debates of moving Nigeria forward to sentimental considerations of ethnicity and religion.”
The member of the APC NWC submitted further that the “religious and ethnic backgrounds of leaders must be subordinated to experiential attributes of persons being considered for leadership.”
His statement read in part: “Tinubu won the contest indisputably. With his victory, the debate has now shifted to the choice of running mate. As usual, conservative and reactionary ethno-religious consideration are colouring the debate. Question of Muslim–Muslim ticket, implying that another Muslim from the North will most likely be Tinubu’s running mate.
“Leading party members are already becoming strong advocates for or against a so-called Muslim–Muslim ticket. This debate is reproducing the old pre-convention reactionary and conservative campaign.
“If choices of leaders are dictated by ethno-religious factors, Nigerian politics will continue to be disadvantageous to many sections of the country. For instance, only Christian southerners and Muslim northerners will continue to have advantages.
“Most of those trying to use religious arguments to influence the choice of running mate for Tinubu are impliedly arguing that a Christian northerner can only win presidential election if his/her running mate is a Muslim from southern Nigeria.
“In the same way, this will be politically disadvantageous, if not impossible for any Christian from the North or Muslim from the South to win presidential election. Such a backward national mindset must be changed.
“The challenge facing Nigerian politics is about opening the democratic space. It is not going to be easy, but Nigerians must be challenged to make hard choices.
“If the truth is to be told, both Islam and Christianity, as well as all our ethnic factors have been used in equal measure to hold Nigeria at a standstill. Many so-called religious and ethnic leaders have used and are still using religion and ethnicity to pollute the minds of Nigerians against one another.
“Perhaps, it is important to stress the point that whatever is the final choice of Tinubu and APC leaders with respect to who emerges as the running mate, the 2023 presidential election will be keenly contested, irrespective of religious and ethnic identity of both Tinubu and whoever the running mate may be.
“APC leaders must acknowledge the fact that the 2023 elections present another golden opportunity for the APC to re-invent itself.
“APC must, as a party, use the 2023 presidential campaign to effectively counter all these false narratives. Part of what must be done to achieve that is about developing effective communication strategy, which has been one of the strong weaknesses of both the APC as a party and as a govern- ing party at federal level,” he said.