The General Superintendent, The Holy Spirit Mission Church (aka the happy family centre), Bishop Charles Ighele has advocated that development of Nigeria and bringing Nigerians out of poverty through competent political leaders should take centre stage than religious dimension being introduced into Nigeria’s political stage.
According to him, religion consideration is an ill wind that will blow no good to anyone, given the volatile nature in a country like Nigeria, warning politicians and those who are fanning the embers of religion.
The cleric, who was visibly disturbed at the state of the country, addressed some reporters in Lagos recently on the state of the nation.
On the Muslim-Muslim ticket of the All Progressives Congress that threw up the former governors of Lagos State and Borno State as Presidential and Vice Presidential candidates respectively, Ighele said he has nothing against Tinubu’s ambition.
Ighele said, “My colleagues and I have nothing against Asiwaju Bola Tinubu. When he took over from the then charismatic Military Administrator of Lagos, Brigadier Buba Marwa as governor of Lagos State, that time I was in Edo State before we relocated to Lagos. At that time, there was criticism against his government. Then he rejigged his cabinet.”
He continued, “Thereafter, things turned around in Lagos and I told people back then that they should watch out for this man that Tinubu is a strategist and he will go far. He is a planner, that was my impression of him.
“But my concern is this and this is what is really troubling me seriously. If he wins as president and serves two terms of eight years under a Muslim-Muslim ticket, when the presidency goes to theNorth, they won’t give it to northern Christian. This is quite suffocating. But development does not know religion. The Emir of Dubai has developed the country as a world stage.”
Bishop Ighele, a development advocate, scored President Buhari low on the state of the nation saying that under his watch, security his getting worse daily.
“President Buhari brought religion, ethnicity and sectionalism to a level that is destroying the nation. The president should be held responsible for what’s going on in the country. He has sycophants around him and they are not telling him the truth.”
By Olusegun Obisanya
