The All Progressives Congress (APC) has denied claims by the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) that it is dividing Nigeria along religious line, warning that even in its desperation to cling to power at all cost, the ruling party must desist from fanning the embers of religion

”This irresponsible accusation by the PDP that the APC is dividing Nigerians along religious line is a new low even for a party that stands for nothing but incompetence, looting and election rigging. It is an indication that the desperadoes in the PDP will throw everything, including the kitchen sink, into their campaign to stop the wave of change blowing across Nigeria,” the party said in a statement issued in Abuja on Wednesday by its Interim National Publicity Secretary, Alhaji Lai Mohammed.

The statement reads further that, ”no party wishing to lead Nigeria aright can do so on the basis of religion or ethnicity. Therefore, we are compelled to warn the PDP not to play what it believes to be its trump card, the religious card, against the APC, because whatever politicians do, they must refrain from ethnic or religious politics and put their country above selfish considerations. Only an irresponsible party will play the religious card for any reason,”.

The party also accused the PDP’s top leader, President Goodluck Jonathan of kneeling down before respectable religious leaders and pushing the pictures into the media in an apparent ploy to score political gains.

The spokesperson of the APC said it is neither logical nor rational to accuse his party whose 35 interim officials are almost equally split between the adherents of the two major religions (18 Muslims and 17 Christians) and cuts across all ethnic lines; a party whose elected officials – Governors, Senators, House of Representatives members etc – profess various faith and a party that has never expressed any preference for one religion over another as an ”Islamic” party.