Civil rights advocacy group, Human Rights Writers Association of Nigeria, on Sunday, cautioned All Progressives Congress presidential candidate, Bola Tinubu, to stop mulling a Muslim as his running mate in the forthcoming general elections.
HURIWA’s National Coordinator, Emmanuel Onwubiko, in a statement, stressed that the emergence of a Muslim-Muslim ticket Presidency will further heighten the aggression against Christians by bandits and terrorists who claim allegiance to Islam.
The group said Tinubu’s move is unconstitutional and violates Section 14 (3) and (4) and Section 318 of the 1999 Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria which specifically stated that the principle of federal character should be reflected in the composition of government and that no group, religious or ethnic, should dominate the other.
According to a report by Saturday PUNCH dated July 2, 2022, and titled, ‘Running mate: Tinubu pencils Zulum, Shettima, aide debunks meeting with Wike’, the former Lagos State governor may in the next few days name either Governor Babagana Zulum of Borno State or his predecessor, Senator Kashim Shettima, as his running mate to beat the July 15 deadline by the Independent National Electoral Commission.
The report said about 13 Muslim northern governors are pressuring Tinubu to choose of them because they backed his candidacy during the fiercely-contested APC primary.
Reacting, however, HURIWA’s Onwubiko said, “It is crucial to warn APC presidential candidate, Bola Tinubu, for the umpteenth time to stop his sinister plot to nominate a Muslim running mate. The nomination will endanger national unity and will divide Nigeria irretrievably. If Tinubu goes on with a Muslim running mate, the APC should just forget about Nigeria because religious war will break out and Nigeria’s case will be worse than Somalia.
“With President Muhammadu Buhari, a Muslim from Katsina State, who is obviously not concerned about the terrorist attacks on Christians, what will happen when Nigeria has Muslim-Muslim Presidency?
“HURIWA urges Nigerians to reject the APC or any party that wants to foist same religion ticket on a heterogenous and multi-religious people like Nigerians. What happens to a Muslim-Christian ticket? What happens to a Christian-Muslim ticket? If a Christian-Christian ticket can’t work, then, a Muslim-Muslim ticket should never work! Nigerians should reject such parties with their Permanent Voter Cards!”