Politicians campaigning in churches, using religion as tool should be punished: El-Rufai 

Kaduna Governor Nasir El-rufai says politicians going to churches to campaign, using religion as a divisive tool among Nigerians should be punished. 

“Our people are united in their poverty, in their need for education, for a decent healthcare and to put food on their table, that is what unites us, that is what we should focus on. 

“But some people are campaigning in churches, some are holding internal meetings with religious leaders to promote ethnic and religious division, it is the last thing Nigeria needs now at a time when the whole world is facing challenges ultra-nationalism and global supply chain disruption,” Mr El-Rufai said.

The Kaduna governor made this statement a

at the commissioning ceremony of the head office of the Sultan Foundation for Peace and Development on Tuesday. 

Speaking further, Mr El-Rufai said 

“I am concerned as a citizen, as a governor and as a Muslim about the way and manner some of the politicians have gone about campaigning using religion and ethnic division as a tool. 

“And your Eminence I think this election causes for us a very unique opportunity to take religion out of politics in Nigeria and punish those that are trying to use religion as a tool,” he added.

Nigerians have a longstanding habit of voting along ethno-religious lines, with clerics and emirs, especially in the Muslim North, wielding a strong influence among illiterate and impoverished masses.

Ahead of the 2023 presidential election, emphasis of sectional bias has become rife as leading contenders work to rouse their bases for massive vote haul.

Bola Tinubu, the candidate of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), Atiku Abubakar of the main opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), surprise contender, Peter Obi of the Labour Party and former Kano governor Rabiu Kwankwaso of the New Nigeria Peoples Party NNPP).

Mr Tinubu, a former Lagos governor and Mr El-Rufai’s party man faces stiff opposition for votes in the Muslim North where PDP’s Atiku Abubakar is expecting to curry home support ahead of Mr Kwankwaso.

Mr Tinubu’s case is worsened by his Muslim-Muslim ticket largely resented among northern and in eastern Nigeria.

Also, Mr Obi, a former Anambra governor and staunch Catholic is angling to fulfil the age-long agitation for power shift to the South-East and his ambition has assumed a desperate dimension among Igbos and religionists who feel a southern Christian should take over power after an eight-year tenure by President Muhammadu Buhari.