The presidential candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC), General Muhammadu Buhari (retd), has re-affirmed his commitment to ensure that Nigeria remained a multi-religious state where every individual was free to practice his religion of choice.

Buhari, who spoke yesterday at an “Episcopal” Town Hall Conversation with representatives of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of Nigeria in Abuja, stated that although he had been severally and consistently vilified and maligned, he had no personal religious agenda, neither would he support any moves by anybody or group of persons to either Christianise or Islamise Nigeria.

In his speech, titled “One Nation bound in Freedom, Peace, Unity and Love”, Buhari, who was accompanied to the event by his running mate, Pastor Yemi Osinbajo, the Director General of the APC Presidential Campaign Council, Governor Rotimi Amaechi, and a host of other members of the party’s presidential campaign, said he “will not condone any initiative that seeks to promote one religion over the other.”

Earlier in his welcome speech, President of the Catholic Bishops Conference of Nigeria,Bishop Ignatius Kaigama, who is also the Archbishop of Jos, said the body believed in the unity and progress of Nigeria.

He regretted the wide communication gap existing between the leaders and the people, hoping that the conversation was an indication of the willingness to establish a sustainable communication platform.

•From a Vanguard report. Photo shows Buhari.