Last week, the leadership of the Christian Association of Nigeria, CAN, paid a congratulatory visit to President Muhammadu Buhari at the Presidential Villa, Abuja.
The visit came on the heels of earlier reports that the apex Christian body was being pressurized by some influential individuals working with Buhari to pay the president a visit and congratulate him on his victory in the recently concluded presidential election.
CAN leadership had swiftly denied the report saying, “there was no pressure whatsoever from any quarter on the leadership of the association to congratulate Mr. President on his victory in the recently held Presidential poll.”
The association’s President, Samson Ayokunle described the report as the handiwork of politicians in cassocks and quickly led the leadership of CAN to the Presidential Villa to congratulate Buhari.
However, the congratulatory visit is at the moment ruffling feathers in the apex Christian body as the action has come under severe criticism from eminent personalities in the fold, mainly the National Christian Elders Forum, NCEF.
Condemning the controversial visit, NCEF-led by Solomon Asemota, SAN, and General Theophilus Danjuma (rtd), described it as morally and spiritually reprehensible and accused the CAN president of dragging the association into the murky waters of politics by working hand in hand with the ruling party, All Progressives Congress, APC.
According to NCEF, “It is therefore premature and presumptuous for anyone to congratulate President Buhari for ‘winning’ an election that is contested in court.
“The NCEF wishes to state that the congratulatory visit to Aso Rock Villa by CAN, could not be in the interest of Nigerian Christians who daily bear the agony of thousands of brethren being killed, maimed, displaced and marginalized in the Jihad launched in the northern parts of the country.
“It is well known the indifference of the Buhari administration to the murder of Christians all over the country. This indifference has led many including foreign observers to conclude that Buhari administration is complicit in the genocide that is taking place in Nigeria.”
However, CAN in its response slammed the NCEF for criticizing it on the visit, saying that the elders have no basis to oppose the visit since their forum is no longer a member of the association.
Before the latest controversy, CAN leadership’s visit to Buhari in 2018 had raised some concerns at the time when it was revealed that they (leaders) of the association collected millions of naira from Buhari as transportation money.
Sadly, the leaders of CAN have continued to deepen their romance with politicians and government in power to the detriment of the vision of the association’s founding fathers.
CAN, in its heyday was in constant faceoff with the dreaded military regimes of Nigeria, such confrontations used to ensue whenever the government rolled out what the association perceived as anti-people policies.
For instance, CAN waged relentless battles against the government when the country was enlisted as a member of Organization of Islamic Cooperation, OIC.
In 2000, the Christian body protested the adoption of Sharia Law in some parts of the North and warned the government about the dangers of such a law in a secular state like Nigeria where Christians and Muslims inhabit together.
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Also in 2006, the CAN’s leadership was upset by the constant killings of Christians in some parts of the North by Muslims. It therefore issued a statement condemning the attacks and warned the perpetrators that they did not have a monopoly on violence. The statement spurred Christians in the North to action at the time that stopped the attacks on them.
Regrettably, the association suddenly lost its vibrancy when it started to hobnob with the Federal Government leading to its decline.
Even the warnings by the few surviving founding fathers of CAN that the association was derailing fell on deaf ears.
For instance, Anthony Cardinal Okogie observed with concern that the CAN’s leadership lost its bearing because of its closeness to the Jonathan administration. Such closeness has continued till date.
Accordingly, Okogie had described the association as an organization without a leadership. “Today’s CAN’s leadership is zero, it has no leader. As one of the founding fathers of CAN and I was there as their leader for eight years; then, the whole country knew that CAN had a leader, not by my own might but by God because what we were doing then, we had only one voice. But the problem we have now is that people are struggling for power in unrighteous way. And because they are struggling for power they can do little or nothing.
“And we didn’t buy the position but this time around, because they are rushing to be in power, nobody obeys them. And look at how they are making mockery of themselves and making mockery of religion. Today, they are with the federal government. We saw the writing on the wall when we left.”
CAN was formed in 1976 and it had Cardinal Dominic Ekanem of blessed memory as its first National President. Over the years, other notable clergymen from various denominations have presided over the affairs of the Christian body.
Some of its past leaders were Cardinal Okogie; former Prelate of the Methodist Church, His Eminence Sunday Mbang; Primate Peter Akinola of the Church of Nigeria Anglican Communion; John Cardinal Onaiyekan of the Catholic Church; Pastor Ayo Oritsejafor of the Pentecostal bloc and the incumbent Rev. Ayokunle of the Baptist Convention who was elected in 2016.
The organization is made up of five blocs, they are the Christian Council of Nigeria, the Catholic Secretariat of Nigeria, the Pentecostal Fellowship of Nigeria, the Organisation of African Instituted Churches and the Evangelical Fellowship of West Africa.
Some of its objectives at formation included; to function and serve as a basic action for the unity of the church, especially as ‘in our Lord’s pastoral prayer; ‘that they all may be one.’
To act as a liaison committee by means of which its member churches can consult together and when necessary, make common statements and take common action; to be a watchdog of the spiritual and moral welfare of the nation; to propagate the Gospel; to promote understanding among the various people and strata of the society in Nigeria among other functions.
Has CAN derailed in its watchdog role? This is the question that only the leadership of the apex Christian body must address. Posterity is watching.
