By CHARLES IWUOHA

The Leadership and Entrepreneurship Advocacy (LEAD) Network Africa, an NGO, has vehemently kicked against the All Progressives Congress (APC) Presidential Candidate, Senator Bola Tinubu’s Muslim-Muslim ticket pick in a country with over 100 million Christians.

It would be recalled that Tinubu presented Senator Kashim Shettima, a former Governor of Borno State, as his running mate for the 2023 general elections.

The Executive Director of LEAD, Mr Chukwuma Okenwa, while reacting to the latest political move of the APC flag bearer on Tuesday in Enugu, noted that the choice of a fellow Muslim as running mate by Tinubu suggests his unfitness to lead a diverse nation like Nigeria where ethnicity and religion represent the reality of the people.

According to Okenwa, it was instructive to note that in 2015, Tinubu lost his chance of becoming the Vice-President because of the lack of political lustre and unacceptability associated with a Muslim-Muslim ticket.

“How does he want to lose out again, this time at the poll, now that he has got the chance to run for the position of the President?

“For those who claim that his choice was entirely based on competence; does that suggest that the Nigerian Christians are a group of incompetent folks?

“If Ahmed Tinubu did not pick from same region or ethnicity as himself under the guise of competence because of our reality in a country of many parts, why would he choose from same religion which when compared with the dynamics of region and ethnicity is even a stronger factor in Nigerian society.

“We have practically seen how religion is capable of separating people of the same region or ethnicity.

“With Christians dominating four regions in Nigeria, it is arguably that Nigeria has more Christians than Muslims, thus this level of insensitivity is detestable and condemnable and should not be associated with someone who wants to lead a diverse society like Nigeria,” Okenwa said.

The LEAD boss said that what was even more worrisome “is that this decision is coming at a time when there is so much of religious suspicions.”

“There are feelings in some quarters that this is a deliberate and desperate move to adopt a state religion,” he said.

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