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| Most. Rev. Joseph Ekuwem |
The Metropolitan Bishop of the Calabar Archdiocese, His Grace, Most.
Rev. Joseph Ekuwem, has given reasons President Muhammadu Buhari should
not seek re-election.
Speaking to journalists on Sunday shortly after a 3-day Catholic
Bishops’ Conference of Nigeria (CBCN), the Cleric lamented the senseless
killing that cut across Nigeria.
“There is no section of the constitution that forbids Mr. President
from seeking re-election but he can only seek for re-election if he is
able to stop the senseless killings on-going in several parts of the
country, otherwise he should not run again.
“Besides, if this is what we call change, that was being trumpeted,
and Mr. President is not able to defend and secure life in Nigeria, the
Nigerian Bishops say resign,” he stated.
He said that the Bishops condemned the incessant killings of innocent
citizens in some part of country, noting that the church had written
letters to the Federal Government to address the situation with no
further delay.
“If the President sees himself as lacking the capacity to handle the
situation, he should resign before the situation escalates to war. As a
church, we are still angry with the development,” he added.
As it concerns defection, he said, “We hear of
decamping on daily basis, does it in any way add value to the
socio-political economy of our nation? Does it make political life in
Nigeria better than before? These are issues that became worrisome to
the conference.
“We cannot sit down and fold our hands, fail to do the needful so
that we can participate in the political process, only to look for who
to blame when the process to elect our leaders commences.”
The Archbishop listed another issue that was worrisome to Church to
include the use of youths as political thugs during electioneering era
with a view to destabilizing the process.
He warned that those who failed to avail themselves of the
opportunity of collecting their PVCs from the electoral umpire, the
Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, should not cry foul
that they had been schemed out from the political process.
“How many of us have the voter’s cards? How prepared are we amidst
crisscrossing/cross carpeting of our politicians who move from one
political party to another and back to the same political party that
they dumped?” He asked.
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