By Sam Eyoboka

BARRING any other unforseen circumstance a new president that will pilot the affairs of the umbrella body of Christians in the country, the Christian Association of Nigeria, CAN, for the next three years will emerge on Tuesday, July 6. Feelers reaching Sunday Vanguard indicate that, after months of high wire political manoeuvering by elements wishing to cling on to power at all costs, church leaders weary of the dangers inherent in such acts, have directed the current leadership to bend over backward and constitute a fresh electoral college which will conduct elections to the new executive tomorrow.

Under the new arrangement, the newly constituted 15-member Electoral College will meet tomorrow in Abuja to vote for the three candidates that have indicated interest in the post of president. According to the CAN constitution, the candidate with the highest vote and the runner-up will be recommended to a 105-member National Executive Committee which will now meet on Monday, July 5, to recommend the two leading candidates to the General Assembly which has also scheduled its meeting for the next day.

The General Assembly made of 301 members, 10 each from the five federating groups, one each from six zonal offices of CAN and one representative from each of the 36 states of the country plus Abuja, 10nnational officers and one one national chairman of CAN Youth wing, YOWICAN and Women’s wing, WOWICAN is expected to ratify the election of the candidate with the highest vote while the runner-up automatically becomes the vice president of the August body for the next three years.

The elections which were scheduled for March were stalemated because the electoral college headed by an OIAC member, Evangelist S.O. Usu, refused to conduct the election unless the PFN candidate, Pastor Ayo Oritsejafor was disqualified. The 15-member college chairman, apparently acting a script, searched for every legal avenue to disallow the PFN candidate and resorted to apply, what he thought was a joker—that is to insist that Pastor Oritsejafor did not get a consensus nomination from his CPFN/PFN group. The CPFN arm of the group had earlier written a letter to the Secretary-General of CAN that its members would vote for the current president, Catholic Archbishop John Onaiyekan but they were not opposed to the nomination of Oritsejafor.

That was when other members of the college started smelling a rat especially when they reminded the chairman that the situation was not different from when Bishop Mike Okonkwo, then PFN president contested the CAN presidency in 2004. He came third in that election. This same Archbishop Onaiyekan returned second while his then Anglican counterpart, Most Rev. Peter Jasper Akinola emerged victorious, but because the Catholic archbishop would not play the second fiddle, Okonkwo became the vice president.

Similarly in 2007, Okonkwo then vice president was also allowed to contest the election even though the CPFN did not again support his candidature. He also came third and Akinola who came second to his Catholic counterpart, Most Rev. Onaiyekan also declined to play the second fiddle, but instead of Okonkwo automatically becoming the vice president, some elements who were uncomfortable with him, called for another round of elections to pick a vice president. That was how, Archbishop Daniel Okoh of OIAC who did not originally contest the presidential election emerged as the vice president in 2007.

Members of the electoral college who did not see anything wrong in Oritsejafor contesting the elections even if his candidacy was not endorsed by CPFN, also referred to the reversed CAN Constitution which was signed into law on June 17, 2004 by the then president, Most Rev. Peter Akinola did not frown at such practice. They argued that the only provision in the said constitution that deals with such matters is Article 14a (v) which says that a candidate fr the post of president or vice president must “represent one of the established Church Group in order that he may earn loyalty of all Church Leaders in Nigeria.”

Article 14a which deals with Nomination before election, states: “The president and Vice President shall be elected by the National Assembly from nominations submitted by the National Executive Committee and shall hold office for an initial term of three years and shall be eligible for a final term of another three years, thereafter the office shall rotate to another Church Group accordingly.”

In a petition to the leadership of the Association, a member of the Association from Kaduna State, Danladi Yerima said; “since inception, the group (CPFN/PFN) has never, in any way, worked nor taken major decisions together and the national body is aware of this and is even appreciating the status quo hence the collection of N125,000 annual dues separately from either side annually.”

Despite all these reminders, the college chairman, Usu, who repre-sented OAIC, the same group that fielded the second candidate, Archbishop Daniel Okoh for the race, was not moved.  Ironically, the 15 members that make up the electoral college was drawn from among the five Church Groups—Catholic Secretariat of Nigeria, CSN, Church Council of Nigeria, CCN, Christian Pentecostal Fellowship of Nigeria/Pentecostal Fellowship of Nigeria, CPFN/PFN, Organisation of African Instituted Churches, OAIC and TEKAN and ECWA Fellowship—with equal representation of five each.  Some people were argued that it was unhealthy to elect a chairman from a group with vested interest in the elections but their protest did fly and decided to go ahead with the elections in the interest of peace, but he would not conduct the elections unless the PFN candidate was barred. Could there be some other underlying factors, not made known to the other members of the electoral college; besides the constitutional provisions?

Even the intervention of the National Executive Council, NEC, which on April 19, 2010 suspended its deliberations and ordered the college to conduct the elections among the three candidates did not make him bulge. Following the stalemate, the General Assembly which was called to ratify the election of a new president for CAN was only able to recommend the matter to an expanded version of the President-In-Council, an amorphous organ of the Association that has no definite role beyond advising the president in times of emergency. After an exhaustive deliberations the Church leaders were said to have counselled against any act that will destabilise the Association and went ahead to advise the current CAN EXCO to constitute another electoral college to conduct the elections among the three candidates. The candidates include the incumbent, Most Rev. John Onaiyekan representing the Catholic Church, Most Rev. Daniel Okoh representing OAIC and Pastor Ayo Oritsejafor representing the CPFN/PFN.

Factors that will determine the next president

It is not exactly clear what the aim of the anti-Oritsejafor group was, but the protracted dispute over his candidacy which turned out to be an unnecessary battle, may have even raised the PFN president’s profile beyond what his detractors ever imagined. He definitely have gained more sympathy since the dispute started because more and more people have come to understand that there was a groundswell to preclude him from the elections. And the question in many people’s lips had been, who is afraid of Oritsejafor?

Inadvertently, Oritsejafor’s detractors have done for him what Barack Obama campaign manager may not have been able to do. Obviously, he is now the man to beat in the  coming 3-tier contest begin-ning tomorrow.

Beyond his person, it has also become obvious to Christians across the nation that the protracted religious crises in parts of the North will play a major role in who leads the Association in the next three years and years to come. Christians in the North have continually called on their counterparts in the South, over the years, to ‘come over to Macedonia and help us’, without much assistance and now they are no longer going to fold their arms and allow somebody who will use them to fester his own nest to lead the Christian body. In the last three years, they argue, there have been more religious crises in parts of the North than ever before and instead of their leaders to properly articulate a peace move to resolve the crisis, they go about saying it is ethnic and not a religious war.

Many of them who have been at the receiving end of each crises, including the CAN North Central Chairman, Rev. Yakubu Pam have consistently challenged anybody who says the problem in Jos is political, to tell the nation why political offices or politicians’ houses have never been burnt in such crises.

Christians in that region believe that the current leadership has done very little to alleviate their sufferings as they continually come under attack by Muslim fundament-alists in the North. Northern Christians are not happy with the current leadership of CAN, who they believe had not adequately represented their interest all through these years when their kith and kin were killed and their places of worship torched by Islamic fundamentalists. They are particularly piqued that the CAN president had consist-ently seen the incessant violent clashes as political and ethnic rather than religious with many of them questioning him why the burning had been restricted to churches and mosques and not political offices.

According to them, despite the series of violent clashes in different parts of the North, the CAN leadership had only visited the area twice and on each of the occasions it was on the platform of NIREC. “We can no longer allow our pastors and relations to be killed on a daily basis and some persons are playing politics with our lives. No! We are no longer comfortable with such a leader who is not sensitive to the plight of his subjects,” one of the local leaders in Maiduguri told our reporter, stressing that the CAN presidency must first of all be a leader of Christians before being a joint chairman of the inter-religious body, NIREC.

Like the saying that who feels it knows it, they are of the opinion that it was time for one who can speak their mind and ensure that there will be an end to religious persecut-ion in the North. Their argu-ment is that 50 years of political independence, Christians in the North are still not qualified for C of Os to build churches in the North just like their Islamic counterparts in the South. According to them, and they are passionate about this, there has to a loud voice who will present their case before the powers that be in the country, saying that this country belongs to all us.

From Maiduguri to Jos through Bauchi there are reports of how Oritsejafor, on different occasions, led PFN delegations to different parts of the North to, not only, felicitate with victims, but also to give relief materials to displaced persons. It is also on record that he had rehabili-tated several widows and their orphans.

Besides religious crises in the North, there are some Christians who believe that the make-up of the CAN Executive Council is lacking in symmetry as, at least, five principal officers hail from Kogi State. This group are poised to break that dominan-ce of the Association for a more broad based fellowship that will take care of the interests of all Christians in a 36-state structure in line with federal character of the country. This group argues that CAN can do without a lopsided executive council led by the president, Onaiyekan who is from Kogi State with four other kinsmen including the General Secretary, Engineer Samuel Salifu, the treasurer, Pastor Yusman, the director of Legal and Public Affairs, Barrister John Achi-mugu as well as the director of Ecumenism and Interfaith, Bishop Idowu Fearon from the Confluence State.

Their arguument was further fuelled by newspapers reports last week of certain officials of CAN attempting to use state security operatives to hood-wink some state executive councils perceived to be disloyal to a particular interest or be hounded out of office before the elections. The Sokoto State council, in a swift reaction, dispatched a letter of protest to the CAN president, Onaiyekan and copied the Police Inspector-General, Director of SSS and the state Commissioner of Police, alleging harassment by people loyal to the Secretary-General of CAN, Engr. Salifu. The petition signed by the state chairman and Catholic Bishop of Sokoto, Most Rev. Kevin Aje and his secretary, Evangelist Hassan Karatu, enjoined the CAN helmsman to call Salifu, who they say is an employee of CAN, to order. The CAN scribe who was said to have confided in some aides that he cannot work with Oritsejafor, is perhaps doing everything humanly possible to maintain the status quo, but Rev. Chris Okotie commenting on the impasse in an interview recently, said that when a man comes to the end of himself, God takes over.

Here’s praying that God will do what He has to do to ensure that the Association of Christian leaders does not degenerate to a Den of Political Rascals, because His Name is at stake here!