The Official Spokesperson of the APC Presidential Campaign Council, Festus Keyamo has flayed the Pentecostal Fellowship of Nigeria (PFN) over its stance on the Muslim-Muslim ticket adopted by the party for the 2023 presidential election.
Keyamo spoke after the PFN disowned some Northern Christian clerics under the aegis of ‘Pentecostal Bishops Forum of Northern Nigeria’, who met APC presidential candidate, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu in his campaign office last Thursday.
The northern bishops led by Archbishop John Praise were said to have engaged the APC candidate on the rationale for his “divisive” decision as well as his plans for Christians in the North.
Speaking to journalists, Deputy National Secretary of the PFN, Bishop David Bakare said the Pentecostal Bishops Forum of Northern Nigeria was unknown to PFN.
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He added that the position of PFN has not changed on the same-faith ticket adopted by the APC.
In an appearance on ‘Politics Today’, a popular Channels TV programme, Keyamo said that the group should concentrate on preaching the gospel of salvation to Nigerians instead of dabbling into politics.
He said it was not the place of PFN to decide which candidates should be elected by political parties to contest for political office.
“The purpose or duty of pastors, we have said so before, is to lead people to heaven. It is not to lead people to Villa. The PFN should go and vote for their choice of candidates on Election Day if they seek to. They should not be questioning the decision of our party publicly.
“They are called by God to lead to heaven. If I go to Church every Sunday, I want to hear the sermon of God, not the sermon of politics on who should rule me. I want to listen to them talk about salvation, not villa.
“Nigerians are hungry and want to see how the hunger issue can be addressed and not the same-faith ticket. They want to see our policy on Agriculture and see what Asiwaju has done before as governor of Lagos State and he can bring over such dexterity,” Keyamo said on the Sunday programme.
He said the PFN and Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) have made it a habit to dabble in the internal affairs of APC without being members of the party and should be called to order.
“Is the PFN or CAN a member or structure of APC? The vice presidential candidate is a decision of our party leaders. It is our party’s decision. These external bodies are not part of us. If they want to take part in the decision-making process, they can as well come and join the political party. But they cannot stay outside and dictate to us how to conduct our affairs.
“If it is so offensive to certain persons, there is no need for the noise. They have options. In the past, there have been Muslim-Muslim tickets in this country and we heard no such noise. In fact, the Action Congress of Nigeria fielded a Muslim-Muslim ticket in 2011. Sometimes, these issues are things that are just over-trumpeted by the Press,” Keyamo said.
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