2023: APC Muslim-Muslim Presidential Ticket Will Fail – Dogara

A former Speaker of the House of Representatives, Yakubu Dogara, has said the Muslim-Muslim ticket fielded by the All Progressives Congress for the 2023 presential election will fail.

Dogara stated that the presidential candidate of APC, Bola Ahmed Tinubu, failed to listen to the national outcry regarding the same faith ticket and also dismissed the consequences of the action.

He said this in Abuja on Tuesday at a summit tagged, ‘Meet The Church,’ organised by the Nigeria National Christian Coalition with the theme: ‘The role of the church in nation-building’.

The former speaker asserted that the adoption Muslim-Muslim ticket by the ruling party is a fruitless political effort that has been doomed to end in spectacular failure.

He said, “In their convoluted posturing, they have placed state-building ahead of nation-building; a task never before achieved in history. We need no seer to tell us that such endeavour is guaranteed to end in spectacular failure. No divided people have ever built any civilization

“I am so elated that today’s church in Nigeria has shaken off the beast of the complacency of the past into fire by speaking up and resisting measures adopted by some political platforms that will hamper nation building.

“In a manner that negated the fundamentals of nation building, such as shared identity, values and visions, the APC adopted the same faith ticket in a country that has never attained nationhood.”

Dogara maintained that Tinubu failed to listen to the warnings from Christian and Muslim leaders on the adoption of the Muslim-Muslim presidential ticket.

He said, “These warnings were not only ignored but dismissed in one fell swoop by the APC presidential candidate who strangely believes that he can build a strong, secure and viable nation-state without first forging a shared identity, vision and values for our people thereby enabling us transit from citizens of a country into a nation of people with strong shared identity and values.

“To demonstrate that the church is right, it is not alone in condemning the same faith ticket. Other prominent Islamic clerics and leaders have also spoken in the same light.

“It is a good omen that both Christian and Muslim elites are not complacent over this matter. To this end, it will be easy to generate the needed elite consensus that is key to nation-building. All nations are built by elite consensus while all countries that failed in nation-building were destroyed by elite complacency.”

The former Speaker also called on Christians to resist the temptation to waste their votes in the 2023 general elections.

He added: “Every Christian knows that our God does not tolerate waste. It is unchristian for the church to waste anything given to us from above as we own nothing except what is given to us from above.

“I have gone to great lengths to demonstrate that the church must not waste its votes or sow same on unproductive grounds.

“Every Christian must see his vote as talents given to him by God to trade with and as seeds that must not be wasted.

“The only way we can build a nation out of Nigeria is by doing the right things. A united, inclusive, peaceful and prosperous Nigeria is possible if we go to work. We can start building that Nigeria of our dreams if we don’t waste our votes in the next election circle.”