The Christian Association of Nigerian, CAN, an umbrella body for the
country’s teeming Christians, descended into full-blown crisis Wednesday
with the Catholic Bishops Conference of Nigeria making public its
decision to pull out of the fold over the way the Pastor Ayo
Oritsejafor-led executive is running the association.
The Catholic
bishop’s action is perhaps the first time in the association’s 37-year
history that any of its five blocs would pull out over alleged poor
leadership and politicization of the association.
CAN was formed in
1976 by five Christian blocs in the country: the Christian Council of
Nigeria; the Catholic Secretariat of Nigeria, the Pentecostal Fellowship
of Nigeria; Organisation of African Instituted Churches, and the
Evangelical Fellowship of West Africa.
But in a letter to Mr.
Oritsejafor in September but made public Wednesday, the Catholics, one
of the association’s most influential blocs, said it was temporarily
exiting “over some recent attitudes, utterances and actions of the
national leadership of CAN which in our opinion negate the concept of
the foundation of the association and the desire of Our Lord Jesus
Christ”. The letter, dated September 24, 2012, is signed by Most Rev
Ignatius Kaigama, President, Catholic Bishops’ Conference of Nigeria
(CBNC) and addressed to Mr. Oritsejafor.
Mr. Kaigama said his group
was suspending “participation in CAN meetings at the national level
until such a time the leadership of CAN reverse back to the original
vision, mission and objectives of CAN”. Expatiating further on its
grouse with the Oritsejafor-led leadership of the association, the
bishops lamented that CAN had been politicized and was no longer being
used to promote peace and unity in the country. “CAN is being dragged
into partisan politics thereby compromising the ability to play its true
role as conscience of the nation and the voice of the voiceless,” the
bishops said. Mr. Oritsejafor has often been accused of being divisive
in the way he is running the association, often making comments in
support of the Peoples Democratic Party-led federal government and
President Goodluck Jonathan. Some Christians believe he has pushed CAN
into ignominy with his utterances and actions making Nigerians to regard
the association as an arm of the PDP.
Mr. Oritsejafor became even
more unpopular among his colleagues and around the country in late 2012
when he got a new jet as gift from unknown donors even as many more than
70 percent of Nigerians live below the poverty line. He is yet to
disclose the names of those who gave him the jet. But he maintained that
the jet would enable him to travel around Nigeria and the world for
evangelism with little or no flight delay. Read full letter below.
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