Worried about the conduct of the elections held recently in the country reported to have be marred by violence, intimidation of voters and party agents and vote buying, the Legacy Initiative International, LII, a Non-Governmental Organization in collaboration with Christian Association of Nigeria, CAN have met to set the path for free, fair and credible elections come 2019.
At a meeting in Lagos with the theme; ‘The Church, One Voice for Good Governance’, the leadership of the two groups have agreed that Nigeria must be put on the path of progress and become a champion in development, Agriculture, good governance and only with leaders with conscience and fear of God that this could be achieved.
President of CAN, Dr. Supo Ayokunle said the time was now to make the needed change in the country by electing credible leaders who would instill Justice, fairness, love and mutual respect.
According to him, ahead of the elections in 2019, law enforcement agents and the judiciary must be allowed to do their work without fear or intimidation, adding that Nigerians must be ready to put an end to God-fatherism and do the right thing by electing people that would feel their pains as theirs.
He said CAN had set up a committee to enlighten people about the voting process and also encourage them to vote on the day of the elections and that CAN had registered with INEC as election monitors.
” we have spent N11million for mobilization and for the training of 300 people who will in turn train others to man the various polling stations, we require N12 million which has been donated by a leader of a church”.
” we need prayer, be vigilant, part with your resources to pursue this course”
Dr. Ayokunle urged the media never to support evil but to always allow their God given conscience to direct them by refusing any inducement to do the wrong thing by politicians.
In his opening remarks, Patron, Legacy Initiative International, Dr. Kenny Martins said CAN and Legacy focus was to help Nigeria to enthrone good governance by making sure that only suitable persons with proven leadership qualities were voted into public offices during elections.
He emphasized Legacy had proposed that CAN leaders and the Muslim leaders would hold a joint meeting soon whereby the two biggest,” faith groups in Nigeria will jointly talk to both the politicians and the electorate directly on their resolve to work together with each other to contribute to the emergence of a new set of credible and God fearing leaders on a non- partisan basis by encouraging their followers to vote only such leaders into public offices during elections”.
At the end of the meeting between the CAN leadership and Legacy Initiative International, a communique was issued and read by Barrister Jonny Ucheagha among which include the need to organize a National Peace Convention for all the registered political parties and INEC with a view to getting them sign a Peace Pact to keep the peace during elections and to compete with each other in accordance with the rules and regulations guiding the elections with the Muslim leaders.
And that where a candidate had gotten elected into public office based on the intervention of the inter-faith community but failed to live up to expectations, both leadership would support the recall of such official by the constituents and would not support such candidate in any future election.
