There were indications on Monday that crisis might have engulfed the Northern Christian Association of Nigerian (CAN) over the call on President Goodluck Jonathan to resign.
The assocation had on Sunday called on the President to resign for saying he could not crush the Islamic sect, Boko Haram. The president reportedly said, “They are our siblings and you cannot set the army to wipe out your family”.
The Northern CAN had expressed shock and disbelief at the President’s statement despite that the sect had killed several innocent Nigerians, particularly Christians, wondering why his administration could not descend on the sect.
The spokesman for the body, Mr. Sunday Oibe, had said, “Jonathan has failed us Christians, he has failed Nigerians and he should resign as president because by this statement, it is very clear that he is not capable of handling the danger posed by the Boko Haram insurgency.”
Our correspondent learnt that the Northern CAN spokesman had come under fire over the statement credited to him.
A source within the leadership of the organisation, who would not want his names in print, told our correspondent on the telephone that “when I called the young man, he said he didn’t mean that our president should resign. We in the Northern CAN would not want to do anything that will cause crisis for President Goodluck Jonathan.”
However, Special Adviser to Governor Patrick Yakowa of Kaduna State on Religious Matters, Reverend Joseph Hayab, on Monday warned religious leaders across the country against overheating the nation’s polity with inflammatory statement that could cause disaffection in the country.
Hayab, in a statement in Kaduna on Monday, said the statement urging the President to resign was capable of inciting “Northerners and especially Christians against the Jonathan Administration,” warning that religious leaders must not overheat the Nigerian polity.
The governor’s aide, a former Secretary-General of the Kaduna CAN, said, as a former Secretary of CAN Kaduna State and also a former PRO of CAN 19 Northern states and the Federal Capital Territory, added, “Northern CAN has no quarrel with the statement from President Jonathan that it would not be the preference of the Federal Government to send in soldiers to wipe out Boko Haram for the simple reason that Boko Haram are faceless and when soldiers are sent in to wipe out a faceless group it is the innocent that suffers.”
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