Catholic Church Talks Tough Over El-Rufai’s ‘Statement’, Writes Tinubu, Kaduna Gov
Against the backdrop of a controversial statement on Muslims dominance in the governance of Kaduna State credited to the immediate past Governor of the state, Nasir El-Rufai, the Catholic community in the state has called on the President Bola Tinubu and Governor Uba Sani to call the former governor to order before he sets the entire country into a religious crisis.
In the trending video, El-Rufai, at a meeting with some Muslim clerics, said in Hausa language that most Christians in Kaduna did not vote his party (the All Progressives Congress), hence the reason he orchestrated their exclusion from being even Deputy Governor.
He also said that the APC can win elections without the Christians and that for the same reason, he deliberately excluded Christians in all the top cadre.
However, in an open letter copied to the Presidency and the Governor of Kaduna State, the Nigerian Catholic Diocesan Priests Association (NCDPA), Kaduna State chapter asked Governor Sani to make his official position on El-rufai’s inciting utterances known because he (Sani) was at the event where El-rufai made the controversial statement.
The letter jointly signed by chairmen of Kaduna Archdiocese, Rev. Fr Joseph Gandu, Kafanchan Diocese, Very Rev. Fr Douglas Rock, and Zaria Diocese, Very Rev. Fr Samuel Ameh, the Priests said they expected Uba Sani to use his good office to correct the fallacies that the former governor’s actions and comments have created and propagated in Kaduna State in the past eight years.
The open letter was copied to the Presidency, the three Catholic Bishops of Kaduna, Kafanchan and Zaria; Archbishop Matthew Man’oso Ndagoso, Bishop Julius Yakubu Kundi and Very Rev. Fr Michael Kagarko respectively.
of the governance of the state.
“We cannot fold our hands and watch unpatriotic persons who neither live in the state nor care about it, come and set it ablaze at will. More so, we and our congregations have prominently been at the receiving end of the terrors of ineffective governance, especially in the last eight (8) years,” the letter partly read.
“We are writing you because we want you to succeed. Religion occupy the place given it under the Constitution, and should never be used as a cover up for incompetence and failure. The peace and progress of our state should never be traded for some atrocious political expediency. We assure you of our unrelenting support and prayers, trusting that God will give you the wisdom to govern and give Kaduna State an enviable reputation among other States,” the letter concluded.
