Northern pastors under the auspices of Arewa Pastors Forum for Peace (APFFP) have chastised governors championing zoning of the Presidency to the region.
The forum says such a quest is a parochial and splittist tendency which does not permit the general public to elect those they want to lead them in all elective position in the country.
National President of the Forum, Bishop Japhet Mbayor, who articulated the Forum’s position on Tuesday in a speech at a session of the National Ministers Conference Forum, with a theme ‘ Unity in the time of Insurgency’ holding at the Ahmadu Ribadu Square, Yola, said “every sector of Nigeria must have opportunity to produce Leaders at all level.”
According to Bishop Japhet Mbayor “the Arewa Pastors Forum for Peace takes a very dim view of the aphorisms and formulations of the governors which attempted albeit belatedly to exclude other sections of the Nigerian state from aspiring to the ultimate office of the President of the Republic,”.
He asserted that every sector must be given the sense and reality of participation in governance in tandem with the prescriptions of true federalism.
He advised Nigerian leaders to take a cue from the Swiss Confedral Republic which lets loose a participation dynamic that has yielded space to merit above parochial considerations.
He added that “there is no other credible alternative option in respect to the sustenance of the Nigerian democratic project than for the Governors to jettison such parochial splitting tendencies and allow the electorate to elect who they want “.
While urging christians to take their pride of place in the polity of the country,
he said “on the forthcoming elections in the country, the President maintained that “the church have embarked on an aggressive enlightenment campaign with all the geo consequential organizations to ensure that the defining 2023 elections and beyond are not only free and fair but devoid any form of malpractice “.
He opined that every sector of the Nigerian state must be given the sense and reality of participation in governance in tandem with the prescriptions of true federalism.
The Arewa Pastor’s Forum for Peace (APFFP), has appealed to the Ministry of Humanitarian Assistance and Disaster Relief Management and the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), to carry churches along in the distribution of relief materials.
According to the APFFP, “the Ministry and the CBN needs to remedy the serious breach in the distribution of relief aid and materials to church organizations, particularly those who have been uprooted from their ancestral homesteads and households destroyed by insecurity”.
Bishop Ndarchang lamented that “we are in agony of conscience and pained that while most churches are yet to receive aids, other people have received double”.
He averred that the COVID-19 aids has not positively impacted in churches as expected, saying coordinating agencies are not doing enough for churches and faith based organizations to participate in the relief process.
The National Ministers Conference consists of all the 19 Northern States in Nigeria is expected to end on Thursday.