AHEAD of elections to choose the next president of the Christian Association of Nigeria, CAN, the apex body on Tuesday cancelled the controversial March 29, 2016 primaries of TEKAN/ECWA bloc which was conducted while the bloc head, Rev. Emmanuel Dzig-gau was under kidnapp-ers’ captivity and ordered a fresh election within two weeks.

Arising from an extraordi-nary meeting of the National Executive Council of CAN summoned to resolve the crisis rocking the TEKAN/ECWA bloc, CAN urged all parties in the dispute to sheathe their arsenal, sort out their differences in the interest of peace and unity among the august Christian body and conduct fresh elections that will pick an acceptable rep-resentative of the bloc.

Informed sources close to the NEC meeting pointed out that CAN gave them till May 24 to come up with a common position, warning them against undue publicity, stating that anybody who goes to court or media is on his own. Our source explained that the TEKAN/ECWA bloc was given the grace period after presentations by the bloc leader and the ECWA presi-dent, Dr. Jeremiah Gado, as well as contributions from delegates. The election of a CAN president will take place on June 21 or 22 while the General Assembly will ratify the choice on July 19 and 20.

Our source said the outgoing CAN president had earlier enjoined the gathering on the need to resolve the intractable crisis fast because he was not in the mood to spend a day more than necessary on the seat. Giving reasons for the extraordinary meeting, Pastor Ayo Oritsejafor empha-sized that NEC had given a time table which he passed on to the Electoral College accordingly, stating that the Electoral College had refused to perform its functions and instead of exchanging cor-respondents, he opted to summon the emergency NEC meeting to resolve the crisis.