Visit to Buhari not your business, CAN to NCEF

Following criticism from the National Christian Elders’ Forum (NCEF) lashed out at the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) over the congratulatory visit to President Buhari recently, CAN has stated that its visit is none of the Forum’s business.

Gaintability News gathered from Vanguard that the Director of Legal and Public Affairs, CAN, Samuel Kwamkur, while making this known in a statement on Wednesday, explained that NCEF had no right to fault the decisions of the Church and Electoral commission on the outcome of the presidential poll, considering the forum had been nullified in 2018.

Kwamkur stated, “It is getting to one year now since CAN disassociated itself from the activities of NCEF. The decision to visit President Buhari is not supposed to be with their knowledge since they are not part of CAN. CAN has disbanded NCEF and they have no reason to join issues with CAN. If CAN is going right, they will go left. CAN has no business with the elders forum on this matter.

“Most of the leaders of CAN were in that team who went to see President Buhari. The five blocs constituting CAN were fully represented by the leaders of the blocs. We visited Buhari as a constituted body, not a political party, neither do we share political interest as an association. We work with the authority that be, and if Independent National Election Commission (INEC) is the constituted authority with the mandate to conduct elections and declare the winner, what reasons do we have to say no to it?”

While acknowledging that they will be partisan if they go against the decision of INEC, they advised Christians to respect authorities, adding that “the bible did not say respect the leaders that love you or behave well to you. There is no condition to that admonition in the Bible. If you read our speech to President Buhari, we stated that we visited because INEC has declared him winner.”

The Association commended the opposition party for taking the bold step by going to court over the results, as they said, “There is nothing wrong with the opposition going to court. In fact, we appreciate the moves to avoid crisis after election. If the court later decided in favour of the opposition, CAN will also go and congratulate the person again.

“We have been confronting this administration with the truth. How can the elders’ forum want to summon the CAN president and direct him on what to do? It is not proper.” Kwamkur stated.

However, NCEF had disassociated itself from the visit, stating that it is ‘sub judice’ as the victory in the presidential poll is still under contention pending the court’s verdict.