Muslim-Muslim Ticket: “Our Intention Is Not To Undermine Christians” – Gov Kayode Fayemi

According to Governor Kayode Fayemi of Ekiti State, the Muslim-Muslim ticket chosen by his party, the All Progressives Congress’ presidential candidate Bola Tinubu, was merely a political strategy.

Speaking to the new executives of the Ekiti state chapter of the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN), led by its chairman, Emmanuel Aribasoye, on a courtesy visit to the governor, Fayemi claimed the decision wasn’t made to discredit Christians.

The governor, who urged for increased Christian involvement in politics, also stated that politics is a “game of numbers.”

The governor said, “I have been talking to both the presidential candidate and other leaders of the party, that we need to take quick steps that we should have taken earlier, by approaching the leadership in Christendom and explain the context of the selection that was about to happen.

“Even if they don’t agree with our choice, they would have seen the sincerity of purpose and understood that the decision was not on ground of competence because we have competent Christians all over Nigeria but on grounds of strategic political moves, which is what we do in politics.

“We have to look at scenarios and calculate where the votes would come from, it is a game of numbers.

“I think it is time for Christians to move away from the theology of disengagement — the notion that politics is dirty and that it is not for a child of God.

“When serious Christians committed to the ideals of social justice and the common good turn away from politics, they open the door for unprincipled opportunists to take power.

“The Christian leadership should use this current challenge as an opportunity to present a charter of demands to all political candidates, especially our party (APC), outlining the irreducible minimum conditions acceptable to Christians in the next political dispensation — a charter of demands that would represent those values you preach to us in church highlighting our concerns, stressing the place of Christendom in the Nigeria project, and then placing our demands before the political leaders.

“I want the Church to organize debates around issues of concern among all the candidates.”