Northern CAN Wants Christian President in 2015

Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN), northern chapter, says if the presidency is to return to the North in 2015, the position should go to a Christian in the region.

The association, however, insists the immediate concern of the region should be solutions to insecurity and poverty ravaging the area and not the Presidency.

Public Relations Officer of the CAN in the 19 northern states and Abuja, Mr. Sunny Oibe, said this in an interview in Abuja on Sunday.

Oibe said, "In all the years of Northern Nigeria dominating the leadership of this country, it is only one Christian we have produced and that was during the military. If the Presidency must come to the North in 2015, it must be of a Christian extraction.

"The Muslims in the North should allow Northern Christians be. They should forget about the Presidency because their time is up. What have they done today that they are thinking of 2015? Let us solve the problem of today and not 2015, which should not be the preoccupation of any reasonable Nigerian.

"Our position as Christians in the North is that those northerners who don’t understand anything more than lust for power should solve their regional problem themselves, because Boko Haram is a regional problem and not a Nigerian problem.

"Why is it that Boko Haram is reigning only in the North? Let the so-called northern politicians eyeing the Presidency in 2015 think of how to solve the problem first.

"If there is no North and no Nigeria, which Presidency would they preside over? So they should talk to their people because Boko Haram members are not spirits, but northerners. This is our appeal to them.

“If they think they will have to count on anybody [for the 2015 Presidency], they should forget it because Christians cannot become guinea pigs.

“The North has been dominating the leadership of this country for years. So what have they got to show for it, apart from crises, insecurity and division among us? So the North should forget about any dream of the Presidency in 2015.”

The CAN chief warned the Federal Government against negotiating with Boko Haram or another violent Islamic sect, Jama’atu Ansarul Muslimina fi Biladis Sudan.

He said, "Whether you call them a new Islamic group or Boko Haram, it is the same finger of a leprous hand; all of them are the same and their agenda is one.

"The Islamisation of this country and intimidating Christians so that there won’t be Christianity in the North is one of their agenda. It is just changing from Boko Haram to another group for them to get attention."