2023: APC Stakeholders Reject Muslim Muslim Candidate
The All Progressives Congress (APC) National Stakeholders have called on the leaders of the party to ensure that a northern Christian becomes the 2023 Vice Presidential candidate.
Malam Aliyu Audu, National Coordinator of the group, made the call at a news conference on Monday in Abuja.
He added that picking a northern Christian as the party’s vice presidential candidate would ensure national inclusion and help to manage differences and promote national unity.
“Having successfully crossed the hurdle of producing a presidential candidate from the southern region in the person of Sen. Bola Tinubu, the APC is now faced with yet another important hurdle it must cross before the deadline for the submission of nominations by political parties elapses.
“The bone of contention this time around lies in which of the two dominant religious faith will produce the Vice Presidential candidate,” Audu said.
He added that the APC national stakeholders were deeply concerned about the raging controversy which had heated the polity in the last few days.
“Why we are conscious of the fact that religion should not be a determining factor in our leadership selection process, the peculiar circumstance the nation finds herself calls for reflection in the decisions we take, so long as they bother on our national lives.
“Today, the country is deeply divided within our fault lines of ethnicity and religion and we cannot afford to jettison this sensibilities in critical decision making.
“This is why we think that the APC must be guided by the sense of these sensibilities in the selection of the Vice Presidential Candidate of the party,” he said.
He added that to do otherwise, would be to further fuel what divided the nation and gave room for mischief makers to take advantage of our differences.
According to Audu, Nigeria is in dire need of good governance and this can come from either a Muslim or a Christian leader.
“But in the spirit of nationalism, justice and fairness which the northern governors demonstrated a few days ago, the leaders of the North on whose shoulder the emergence of the Vice Presidential candidate rests must also demonstrate this spirit,” he said.
This, he said, they should do by ensuring that the vice presidential candidate comes from the Christian faith.
He added that the northern APC had in its fold, capable individuals from the Christian faith with proven track records that could deliver just like anyone from the other faith.
Audu said aside their capability to deliver on the party’s ideals, they also had the capacity to win elections for it.
