Bishop Jonas Katung, the founder of Living Stone Assembly Church, slammed Babachir Lawal, the former secretary to the government of the federation, for his remarks regarding the Pentecostal Bishops of Northern Nigeria, who had a conversation with Bola Ahmed Tinubu.
The meeting was required “as a result of the controversy generated by the nomination of Senator Kashim Shettima as the vice presidential candidate of the APC by Bola Ahmed Tinubu, occasioning a Muslim-Muslim ticket by the APC,” Katung said, calling the remarks attributed to the former SGF unfortunate and derogatory.
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Further, Katung stated that “many opinions have been heard across the political spectrum, with some, particularly the Christian community, expressing opposition to same religion joint tickets in a multireligious nation like Nigeria.
“As Church leaders and concerned citizens, a group of Pentecostal Bishops from Northern Nigeria – the region most aggrieved by the same faith joint ticket decision of the APC, decided to engage with Senator Bola Ahmed Tinubu, who is at the centre of the controversy, to express the concerns and fears of the Christian community in Nigeria as a whole.
“The interface was not in any way an endorsement of the same faith joint ticket of the APC”, Katung said it came to him as a shock that “Babachir Lawal, an eleventh hour Christian champion, had the effrontery to describe these Church leaders as fake bishops.
“The question Babachir Lawal must respond to is why he has just now discovered his voice to speak for Christians in Nigeria,” he concluded.
According to the public record, Babachir Lawal served as the federation’s secretary for roughly three years under the Buhari government before being abruptly fired for behavior at odds with Christian principles.
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“During that time,” Katung continued, “Christians have experienced unfathomable marginalization in Government appointments into offices.” While many Christians protested the obvious injustices meted out to followers of the faith, Babachir Lawal withdrew into his cocoon because he preferred not to jeopardize his position within the same government.
Katung said the general position of Christians which Babachir Lawal did not support is that after eight of Northern presidency spear-headed by a Muslim from the same region, power should rotate to the South to be spear-headed by a Christian from the South!
