The Christian Association of Nigerian, CAN, an umbrella body
for the country’s teeming Christians, descended into full-blown crisis
Wednesday with the Catholic Bishops Conference of Nigeria making public its
decision to pull out of the fold over the way the Pastor Ayo Oritsejafor-led
executive is running the association.
The Catholic bishop’s action is perhaps the first time in
the association’s 37-year history that any of its five blocs would pull out
over alleged poor leadership and politicization of the association. CAN was
formed in 1976 by five Christian blocs in the country: the Christian Council of
Nigeria; the Catholic Secretariat of Nigeria, the Pentecostal Fellowship of
Nigeria; Organisation of African Instituted Churches, and the Evangelical
Fellowship of West Africa.
But in a letter to Mr. Oritsejafor in September but made
public Wednesday, the Catholics, one of the association’s most influential
blocs, said it was temporarily exiting “over some recent attitudes, utterances
and actions of the national leadership of CAN which in our opinion negate the
concept of the foundation of the association and the desire of Our Lord Jesus
Christ”.
The letter, dated September 24, 2012, is signed by Most Rev
Ignatius Kaigama, President, Catholic Bishops’ Conference of Nigeria (CBNC) and
addressed to Mr. Oritsejafor. Mr. Kaigama said his group was suspending
“participation in CAN meetings at the national level until such a time the
leadership of CAN reverse back to the original vision, mission and objectives
of CAN”.
Expatiating further on its grouse with the Oritsejafor-led
leadership of the association, the bishops lamented that CAN had been
politicized and was no longer being used to promote peace and unity in the
country. “CAN is being dragged into partisan politics thereby compromising the
ability to play its true role as conscience of the nation and the voice of the
voiceless,” the bishops said.
Mr. Oritsejafor has often been accused of being divisive in
the way he is running the association, often making comments in support of the
Peoples Democratic Party-led federal government and President Goodluck
Jonathan.
Some Christians believe he has pushed CAN into ignominy with
his utterances and actions making Nigerians to regard the association as an arm
of the PDP. Mr. Oritsejafor became even more unpopular among his colleagues and
around the country in late 2012 when he got a new jet as gift from unknown
donors even as many more than 70 percent of Nigerians live below the poverty
line.
He is yet to disclose the names of those who gave him the
jet. But he maintained that the jet would enable him to travel around Nigeria
and the world for evangelism with little or no flight delay.
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