Dogara tears defence of Muslim-Muslim ticket apart saying it cannot be justified as it breeds division

FORMER speaker of Nigeria's House of Representatives Hon Yakubu Dogara has added his voice to the growing objection to the All Progressive Congress (APC) decision to go for a Muslim-Muslim presidential ticket in next year's elections.

Last  month, Asiwaju Tinubu emerged as the APC presidential candidate after coasting home in a landslide victory following the party's convention in Abuja. Following his victory, he laboured to select a running mate after publicly declaring that he will pick a Christian from the northeast geo-political zone as his deputy but the process appeared fraught with difficulty.

Earlier this month, however, after weeks of prevarication, Asiwaju Tinubu, himself a Muslim, ended up selecting a fellow Muslim in former Borno State governor Senator Kashim Shettima. His choice has polarised the country as the Christian faithful feel highly marginalised and already, several senior party members have left the APC over the matter.

Now, Hon Dogara, himself a northern Christian from Bauchi State in the northeast, has warned the adoption of a Muslim-Muslim ticket would lead to the country’s disintegration. Speaking at a summit organised by APC Northern Christians Leaders in Abuja yesterday, Hon Dogara agreed with many Nigerians who have described the ruling party’s Muslim-Muslim presidential ticket as an injustice to the Christian community.

Hon Dogara said: “Truth must be told that anyone who is not bringing us together is consciously tearing us apart. When we talk about a Muslim-Muslim ticket, God forbid that we should be understood to be objecting to Muslims or that we don’t want Asiwaju Bola Tinubu to be president.

“It is not about Senator Kashim Shettima either but it is about what is right and what is wrong. It is about justice, fairness, and equity and it is about Nigeria, its diversity and how it can be harnessed in an inclusive manner for the greater good of all of us.

“Be that as it may, some of us really wanted Asiwaju to be president because he has sacrificed much for our party, the APC and for what he represents to so many people. So, our position cannot be against Muslims or Islam, that fact cannot be denied in any way.

“However, when it comes to choosing between the love and admiration I have for an individual and what is right and what I believe represents my vision for Nigeria, my choice will clearly be for the latter. In 2015, when we were called the Janjeweed party, my response was usually very simple, I could then say that John Oyegun was the chairman of my party and my vice presidential candidate was Pastor Yemi Osinbajo.

“We don’t enjoy that luxury anymore as the president, senate president, speaker and his deputy, senate and House leaders, national chairman and the deputy national chairman, presidential and the vice presidential candidates are all Muslims, leaving the Christians with just the position of vice president Osinbajo and deputy senate president Omo-Agege at that level in a country whose population is fairly split between Muslims and Christians.”

He further faulted the claims that there is no competent Christian to be APC’s vice presidential candidate, describing the insinuations as hogwash, adding that such talk only speaks to the need to deliberately exclude, whereas the need now is for inclusion. Hon Dogara stated that the APC’s Muslim-Muslim presidential ticket was a bad decision, noting that it fuels inequality.

He added: “The other funny argument in the media is the claim that without a northern Muslim on the ticket, elections cannot be won. The implications of that argument are quite unambiguous as it implies that northern Muslims don’t vote for southerners even if the candidate is a Muslim like them and of course, don’t vote for Christians."

“However, nothing can be further from the truth. If you stretch this argument further, it may lead to questions such as, if Muslims in the North don’t trust a southern Muslim for any reasons, why should Christians in Nigeria trust a Muslim from the south and north?

“Other unhelpful framings of the debate by the so-called pundits posit that Christians in the north are so small in number that their votes don’t count. This strange argument seeks to reinforce the satanic agenda of dividing the church in Nigeria into north and south and also ignores the fact and reality that Nigeria is evenly split on religious lines.

“These pundits are still not smart enough to tell us what is in the Muslim-Muslim ticket for southern Christians. The argument also ignores the fact that our official policy excludes religious affiliation from census data.

“There is therefore no scientific basis for these bizarre conclusions. Let us now look at a model for managing diversity.”