Three opposition political parties have accused the Taraba State chapter of the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) of soliciting N50 million to support Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) governorship candidate Col. Kefas Agbu.
The Taraba State governorship candidates of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Emmanuel Bwacha; the Labour Party, Joel Ikenya; and the Social Democratic Party (SDP), Danladi Baido, on Thursday raised an alarm that the Christian body in the state allegedly collected N50 million to endorse Agbu ahead of the March 11 governorship election because he is a Christian candidate.
In a joint press conference at the Correspondents’ Chapel in Jalingo, the three governorship candidates expressed disappointment in Taraba CAN, noting that the state leadership of CAN accepted money to support him at the polls.
They claimed that instead of serving as an umbrella body for all Christians and the development of the state, the association has devolved into a politically self-serving government parastatal that is unconcerned about the state’s future.
They said;
We are disappointed at CAN Taraba state for collecting N50 million from an unqualified person and endorsing him as a preferred candidate for Christians in the state. Rather than being for the entire Christians, they have turned themselves into selfish political government parastatal, trying to plunge the state into another mess, we will not allow it to happen again.
To put the story straight, we were all sent an invitation text message last week from CAN for prayers toward our journey to become governor. We both honoured the invitation and the CAN leadership told us that it was good for us Christian candidates to have an understanding before we go into the poll. We all agreed that it was a good idea since it was for the continued peace of the state.
To our greatest disappointment, we came home and got another massage from CAN that they have endorsed the PDP candidate Kefas Agbu and we should all support him. It is disappointing that our findings reviewed that they collected N50m from the candidate and want all Christians to support him.
We are not religious candidates, we are candidates of the people who are out to save Taraba state from the mess found in. We will not allow a stranger to rule Taraba again, we are calling on all Christians to disregard the endorsement and support a candidate that knows Taraba and the people’s problems.
Look at the three of us, can Kefas be compared to us in terms of who is qualified to save Taraba from the abysmal performance of governor Darius Ishaku? He doesn’t know anything or anywhere in Taraba state even in Wukari where he comes from, he can not even mention five council wards in the local government.
It would have been acceptable if CAN had chosen among the three of us here because we are all qualified. We are grassroots political servants of the people and we know what the people want. Kefas Agbu is not qualified to be governor of Taraba so, we will not allow that bad endorsement stand to confuse Christians because it is all about the future of Taraba state.
Taraba has been taken backwards in the hands of an unqualified person who does not know the problem of the state and now CAN still want the state to continue in the same mess. We will not allow it to happen.
We can not stop CAN from abandoning the work of God and embarrassingly looking for money that is capable of destroying the future of the entire Taraba state but we will not allow Christians to follow them in such a bad decision.