The President, Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN), Pastor Ayo Oritsejafor has been accused by former Head of State and 2011 presidential candidate of the Congress for Progressive Change (CPC), Maj.-Gen. Muhammadu Buhari (retd.) of working for the re-election bid of President Goodluck Jonathan.
Buhari said with many statements credited to the pastor concerning him (Buhari), it was evident that he was desperate to help the electoral fortunes of the President.
The former head of state made this statement on Sunday in response to the call for his arrest by the CAN President.
The CAN president had said in a statement last week that Buhari was a prime leader of the Boko Haram sect, and should therefore be arrested for questioning.
Oritsejafor had said, “He (Buhari) is, therefore, the prime leader of this religious and blood thirsty sect called Boko Haram, a movement that is based on a warped interpretation of a strict adherence to force people of other religions into Islam.
“This kind of fundamentalism is the driving force behind his failure in each election in the country.”
But Buhari, in a statement by the National Publicity Secretary of the Congress for Progressive Change, Rotimi Fashakin, described Oritsejafor’s statement as lacking in facts.
He said, “It is our view that this statement is utterly tendentious and unsupportable by incontrovertible facts.
“We are aware that as it was before and after the 2011 elections, Pastor Ayo Oritsejafor is keen on helping the electoral fortunes of his friend, President Goodluck Jonathan.”
While enumerating Buhari’s stand on Boko Haram, whose activities he said had been condemned by the former head of state, Fashakin also described the CAN’s president’s call as reckless.
He said, “We leave discerning Nigerians to judge and see the incongruity in Pastor Oritsejafor’s reckless call and GMB’s unwavering patriotic stand on Nigeria’s insecurity.
“Again, Pastor Oritsejafor has proven to be a willing implement for destabilisation in the hands of the Presidency, in the orchestrated heckling of GMB ahead of the 2015 elections.
“The moral rectitude, personal discipline and patriotic love for Nigeria by GMB is head and shoulder above what the current leaders of the nation possess.
“GMB is not in the mould of leaders that do not match their words with deeds. In the run to the 2011 election, Dr. Goodluck Jonathan told an unsuspecting nation, “My ambition is not worth the blood of anybody. But truly, his electioneering campaign was trailed by blood, tears and woes.”