President Muhammadu Buhari and the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) are plotting to sponsor a pro-Buhari clergyman from the North as the next President of the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN), a Christian group alleged yesterday.

Christ Redeemers Union (CRU), which made the allegation, claimed that the Presidency is seeking to install the successor to current CAN President, Pastor Ayo Oritsejafor, whose tenure expires in July 2016, so as avoid any radical opposition to the Buhari administration from the Christian community.

The National Director of CRU, Dr. Ebenezer Olusola Abednego, told journalists in Abuja, that Christians would resist the plan by the Presidency to install its stooge as the next CAN President

He said: “Our determination to resist Buhari and APC in determining who becomes President of CAN is a battle of No Retreat, No Surrender. A top official in the Presidency, who is spearheading the campaign, has started deploying resources for logistics towards ensuring the emergence of a church leader in the Northern part of the country believed to be friendly to Buhari.

“The government official funding some religious leaders in the North who have been recruited as foot soldiers to perfect the strategy. There is tension now in CAN and the action of the Presidency has polarised the association along North – South dichotomy as Northern religious are being lobbied to support the plot.”

Continuing, Olusola said: “We have it on good authority that any leader being installed by the Presidency in CAN would avoid any virulent criticism of the Buhari government and this has informed their desperate to install a leadership that will not be critical.

“But we are vehemently opposed to government meddling into a purely religious affair and should the Presidency succeed in installing an APC/Buhari stooge in CAN, we will pull out of CAN. We are ready for them; we have it on good authority that some Muslim leaders from the North are behind the plot. But by the power in the name of our Lord, Jesus Christ, every knee shall bow and they won’t succeed.”

Several calls and SMS the Minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed for comments were not replied.

•Photo shows outgoing CAN President, Pastor Ayo Oritsejafor.

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