The All Progressives Congress (APC) has expressed concern over what it called use of religion by the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) as a trump card in the run-up to 2015, warning that “even in its desperation to cling to power at all cost, the ruling party must desist from fanning the embers of religion.”
APC said the accusation by the PDP that the opposition party is dividing Nigeria along religious line is an “indication that the desperadoes in the PDP will throw everything, including the kitchen sink, into their campaign to stop the wave of change blowing across Nigeria.’’
In a statement issued in Abuja yesterday by its Interim National Publicity Secretary, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, APC said the reason it has refrained from joining issues with the PDP, despite its sponsored campaign to portray the APC as an ‘’Islamic’’ party, is because it (APC) knows the dangers that religious politics portends for any nation that brings religion into politics, and that no nation which has descended into religious warfare has survived intact.
“No party wishing to lead Nigeria aright can do so on the basis of religion or ethnicity. Therefore, we are compelled to warn the PDP not to play what it believes to be its trump card, the religious card, against the APC, because whatever politicians do, they must refrain from ethnic or religious politics and put their country above selfish considerations. Only an irresponsible party will play the religious card for any reason,’’ APC said.
The opposition party said even when the PDP’s top leader, President Goodluck Jonathan, decided to wear religion on his sleeve, kneeling down before respectable religious leaders and pushing the pictures into the media in an apparent ploy to score political gains, the APC refrained from making any comments on it.
It said when President Jonathan also decided to lead a bloated delegation of his cabinet to an extended pilgrimage in Israel and ferret to the media back home the pictures of the delegation members at the Wailing Wall and other religious landmarks, the APC did not make an issue of it.
“’The basis of our circumspection is that in the first instance, we believe that all Nigerians are constitutionally guaranteed their right to any faith of their own choosing, and that playing their religious card should be avoided at all cost in the larger national interest,’’ APC said.
The party said “it is neither logical nor rational to accuse a party whose 35 interim officials are almost equally split between the adherents of the two major religions (18 Muslims and 17 Christians) and cuts across all ethnic lines; a party whose elected officials -governors, senators, House of Representatives members, among others- profess various faith and a party that has never expressed any preference for one religion over another as an ‘Islamic’ party.”
Similarly, the Conference of Nigerian Political Parties (CNPP) has urged the PDP to produce evidence to back its claims that APC is splitting the nation along religious lines.
The coalition in a statement issued in Abuja yesterday by its National Publicity Secretary, Osita Okechukwu, said it would reject any attempt by any political party to introduce religion into Nigeria’s body politics.
The party urged the PDP to avoid stoking fear and hate in an already traumatized country.
CNPP further queried the authenticity of the remarks by the Religious Equity Promotion Council which it said the PDP has valued and given precedence over the assurances by Nigeria Inter-Religious Council headed by the Sultan of Sokoto and leaders of the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN).
Continuing, “The day CNPP witnessed mass exodus of PDP members to APC, we sensed danger coming from the PDP and called on the APC to stop further admission of PDP members.
“We never expected PDP to take the dangerous route of annihilation and therefore wish to remind the PDP that the best way to cushion the mass exodus of their members to APC is not by stocking the fire of religion to burn down the country; but by introspection and deep reflection on why its members were aggrieved.
“In fairness, we appreciate the desperation of the PDP to win 2015 general elections, however, the core ingredient of every election in liberal democracy is a referendum on the incumbent, not on branding or demonizing the opponent.
“Accordingly, we challenge the PDP to, as a matter of urgent national importance, publicly state the steps the APC has taken so far to balkanize the country, the masterminds, failure of which we take it that the PDP is preparing grounds for arrest and detention of APC stalwarts and possibly the execution of the Abacha-scheme Chief, Olusegun Obasanjo mentioned in his letter to President Jonathan,” it noted.
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