The Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN), Northern Region has denied endorsing Governor of Kogi State, Yahaya Bello for the 2023 presidential race.
The is contained in a communique released at the end of an extraordinary meeting of the CAN leadership in the 19 Northern states and the FCT in Abuja weekend.
Northern CAN said it has never endorsed any political aspirant and was not about to start doing so.
“The strategy meeting is to collate reports from the various zones concerning the security situation in various states that make up the zone with the aim of helping the leadership of Northern CAN in making a bold statement to the nation concerning the worrisome security challenges in the North.
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“We pray for Nigerians to close ranks for the purpose of defeating the enemies of Nigerians, especially those killing in the name of religion, those kidnapping for ransom and those raping our women across the country. We must unite to stamp out this evil from our nation.
“We also want to clarify the recent report in some online papers that Northern CAN had adopted Governor Yahaya Bello of Kogi State as its presidential candidate for the 2023 general elections. Northern CAN, from history, has never adopted any individual for any elective position in the history of elections in Nigeria and will not do so this time. Our duty to the Nigerian nation as a religious body, is to pray for the peace of the nation and encourage our members to participate in every constitutional process towards nation building.
“As an organisation with large followership and its members belonging to different political persuasions, it is unthinkable to assume that we have adopted a particular individual who is not even a flag bearer of any political party as our candidate for the 2023 presidential elections,” the communique stated.