Ugar Ukandi Odey, Jos
Founder of Living Stone Assembly Church, Bishop Jonas Katung, has carpeted former Secretary to the Government of the Federation, Babachir Lawal, over his comments on the Pentecostal Bishops of Northern Nigeria who held an interactive meeting with Bola Ahmed Tinubu, describing him as “eleventh hour Christian champion”.
Describing the comments credited to the former SGF as unfortunate and disparaging, Katung noted that the meeting became necessary “as a result of the controversy generated by the nomination of Senator Kashim Shettima as the vice presidential candidate of the APC by Bola Ahmed Tinubu, occasioning a Muslim-Muslim ticket by the APC”.
Katung noted further that “divergent voices have been heard across the polity, with some, especially the Christian community, expressing disapproval of same faith joint ticket in a multi-religious country like Nigeria”.
Thus, he said, “as Church leaders and concerned citizens, a group of Pentecostal Bishops from Northern Nigeria – the region most aggrieved by the same faith joint ticket decision of the APC, decided to engage with Senator Bola Ahmed Tinubu, who is at the center of the controversy, to express the concerns and fears of the Christian community in Nigeria as a whole”.
Reiterating that the “interface was not in any way an endorsement of the same faith joint ticket of the APC”, Katung said it came to him as a shock that “Babachir Lawal, an eleventh hour Christian champion, had the effrontery to describe these Church leaders as fake bishops”.
“The question Babachir Lawal must answer”, he continued, “is, why is it now that he suddenly found his voice to speak for Christians in Nigeria?”
Katung also recalled that “it is on record that Babachir Lawal was Secretary to the Government of the Federation under the Buhari administration for about three years before he was unceremoniously relieved of the position for conduct not in accord with Christian teachings”.
“During that time”, Katung recalled further, Christians have suffered unimaginable marginalization in appointments into offices by the Government. While many Christians voiced their displeasure at the glaring injustices on adherents of the faith, Babachir Lawal recoiled to his cocoon, preferring not not to put his position in the same Government to risk”.
Katung said the general position of Christians which Babachir Lawal did not support is that after eight of Northern presidency spear-headed by a Muslim from the same region, power should rotate to the South to be spear-headed by a Christian from the South.
