2023: Akeredolu defends APC’s same faith ticket

BY BENJAMIN OMOIKE with agency report

Governor Rotimi Akeredolu of Ondo State has defended the same faith presidential ticket of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), insisting that competence matters the most.

The governor spoke on the heels of criticisms that greeted the APC presidential ticket of Bola Tinubu and Kashim Shettima, both of the Muslim faith.

In an interview on Channels Television’s Politics Today, monitored by our correspondent, the governor maintained that other issues, not religion, should be on the front burner in the lead-up to the presidential election next year.

“If you had listened to my lecture today, I was very clear. I said that religion is not the issue now. We have other issues that should be on the front burner today -restructuring; rotational presidency,” Akeredolu said on Wednesday.

“When you talk about religion, I am saying religion should have no part to play. Competence, knowledge, and your track record should come to play in this instance,” he added.

According to him, his stance is not influenced by the fact that Tinubu will be on the ballot next year. Rather, he pinned it on power rotation to southern Nigeria.

“If you listen to my lecture, I said if Obi is elected, that would be alright; if Bola Tinubu is elected, that would be alright. For me, it must come to the south,” the Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN), explained.

He maintained that the country’s power-sharing deal better known as zoning should be respected.

As far as he is concerned, “since 1999, there is an understanding that we move from north to south, rotate the presidency, and that if today, we have people who want to deploy what I will call manipulation of our people on religious basis to think you can change it, then we should not accept it”.

Meanwhile, Director-General of the All Progressives Congress (APC) Presidential Campaign Organisation, Simon Lalong, says he will not resign as the party DG campaign organisation.

Lalong said that even Pope is not opposed to his appointment

Lalong, who is also the Governor of Plateau, an ardent Catholic, said the Pope had not told him that accepting to lead the Muslim-Muslim APC presidential ticket was against the tenets of Christianity.

The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that some groups had staged rallies in Abuja, calling on Lalong to reject the offer to serve as the DG of APC presidential campaign organization.

However, the governor said he would not reject his new appointment just to satisfy the wishes of certain individuals or groups.

”The Pope is not angry with my decision to be the DG of the Muslim-Muslim presidential campaign.

“I came back home and Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) welcomed me at the airport.

”The next day I addressed stakeholders of Plateau and I told them why I’m accepting and then there was jubilation, all of them accepted.

“So, if you see people talking about me rejecting, I have accepted already – is not an issue. Some of them have already keyed into it – I’m a Christian. If you watch my TVC interview I saw, I was born a Catholic, baptized a catholic, confirmed a catholic.

“Today, I went through missionary schools. I was taught by missions I respect my being a Christian.

“I have been given the highest award by the Pope, I still hold that award – the highest Papal Award, I want people to know, Knight of Saint Gregory the Great, I have it and one day if you want I will wear my uniform and come here. So those who are talking it I don’t even know where they are.

READ ALSO: Nigerian military kills notorious bandit leader

“I hold a Papal night and as a catholic everything we do, we do it and send the advice to the Pope.

“The Pope has not told me that what I’m doing (to accept Director General) is bad – As a catholic, we take that direction.

“But, generally as a governor of a State, I’m not responsible to only my faith. I’m responsible to other people who belong to other faiths, who are not even Muslims or Christians’’.

He urged Nigerians to grow up from ethnic or religious sentiments.

Lalong said that he had already accepted the job and there was nothing anybody could do to dissuade him from performing his responsibilities.