By Sam Eyoboka

MANY eminent Nigerians including the Sultan of Sokoto and president of Nigeria Supreme Council of Islamic Affairs, His Eminence Alhaji Muhammad Sa’ad Abubakar III, Delta State governor, Dr. Emmanuel Uduaghan and his Ogun State counterpart, Otunba Gbenga Daniel have congratulated the new president of the Christian Association of Nigeria, CAN, Pastor Ayo Oritsejafor.

Messages of goodwill have also come from the Plateau State governor, Chief Jonah Jang, deputy governor of Delta State, Prof. Amos Utuama and a close colleague in ministry, Bishop Simeon Okah of the Flock of Christ Mission, Warri in Delta State.

The Delta State chairman of Pentecostal Fellowship of Nigeria, PFN, Bishop Pius Odioko, apart from being one of the first persons to congratulate the new CAN president, was said to have lead a delegation of Pentecostal ministers to await the arrival of Pastor Oritsejafor from Abuja at the Osubi Airport in Warri.

The new CAN president confirmed receipt of a congratulatory message from the Sultan in which the co-chairman of the Nigeria Inter-Religious Council, NIREC looked forward to working with Pastor Oritsejafor in their quest for religious harmony in the country.

Sources close to his Warri church told our reporter yeterday that the immediate past CAN president, Most Rev. John Onaiyekan has also dispatched a letter of congratulations to the new CAN president, wishing him success in the task  ahead.

Similarly, the Association of National Awardees had congratulated one of their own.  

In his own letter to the new CAN helmsman, the Spiritual leader of the Saint Joseph Chosen Church of God, SJCCG, Apostle Hayford Alile prayed that God would endue Pastor Oritsejafor with the needed wisdom, courage and the enabling grace to pilot the affairs of Christians in the country.
“It is with hearty cheers and thanksgiving to God, we received the news of your election as the new president of the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN). We say glory be to God! It is the Lord’s doing. It is marvelous in our eyes and we will continue to praise God,” Alile stated in the letter personally signed by him.

Continuing, he said: “Your election as the CAN’s helmsman did not come to me as a surprise, going by the chains of successes recorded in the Pentecostal Fellowship of Nigeria (PFN) under your stewardship, and it is one of the “New Beginning with God” which revelation has been beaming from our Sovereign God in the last two or three years. Vice-President Jonathan translating into President Goodluck Jonathan is one of Nigeria’s New Beginning with God. More and better things will follow.

“Once again, on behalf of my family and I and also your co-heir of salvation in St. Joseph’s Chosen Church of God, please accept our congratulations!

“We pray that our all-sufficient and Omniscient God, will continue to endow you with the wisdom, courage and the enabling grace to excel in your new office in Jesus Name. Amen!” Apostle Alile concluded.

Other goodwill messages have continued to pour in to his Lagos and Warri offices while many Nigerians are more comfortable sending text messages to congratulate him on his ascension to the position of the leader of Christians in the country.