CAN, Legacy partner to enthrone credible governance in Nigeria

The Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) and a pro-democracy group, Legacy Initiative International has assured Nigerians that they will continue to work with all likeminded groups and individuals across the country to ensure the enthronement of good governance

and making sure that only suitable persons with proven leadership qualities are voted into public offices as the nation heads into another election.

The CAN and Legacy who made this position clear in a communiqué after a meeting between the two bodies in Lagos to discuss the way forward on the issue of good leadership in Nigeria in all positions of authority in the country also assured that it was also speaking with other groups to follow in the same line.

In the communiqué which was signed by the President of CAN, Rev. (Dr) Supo Ayokunle and the Grand Patron of Legacy, Dr. Kenny Martins on behalf of the two organisations, they also promised to pay closer attention to the manner of persons that put themselves forward for election into public offices and make their opinion known to the Christian faithful in a non-partisan manner.

The groups also said that it will go further by reaching out to the leadership of Muslim faithful to draw a template together of the minimum expectations of the inter-faith community from those vying for elections into public offices in Nigeria from the Federal, state and local government positions and agree on the best suitable candidates for each of the offices.

They added, “where a candidate has gotten elected into public office based on the intervention of the inter-faith community, but failed to live up to expectations, CAN and Legacy will support the recall of such official by the constituents and will not support such candidate in any future election.

“CAN and Legacy will not align themselves with any political party and will only support credible candidates at elections irrespective of their religion, gender, ethnic backgrounds or political affiliations.

“CAN and Legacy along with the Muslim leaders form an election monitoring body that will monitor elections both here in Nigeria and other countries, with ECOWAS and AU accreditation as required.

“CAN and Legacy will along with the Muslim leaders organize and national peace convention for all the registered political parties and INEC with a view to getting them to sign a peace pact to keep the peace during elections and to compete with each other in accordance with the rules and regulations guilding the elections.

“CAN and Legacy are abhorred by the current rate of violent crimes in the country whereby innocent Nigerian citizens are daily kidnapped, killed or displaced from their places of abode by hostile elements from within or outside of their communities for no justifiable reasons whatsoever,

and call on the Federal Government to make more resources available to the law enforcement agents to enable them to do more proactive in combating and forestalling such incidents going forward.”

The two bodies also agreed to propose a national peace meeting with the Muslim leaders to take a critical look at the myriads of problems that have militated against the attainment of cohesive nationhood by the country since independence in 1960 and proffer solutions to the Federal Government on how to address them.