Nigeria’s current challenges are beyond religion – Oshiomhole

The former National Chairman of the All Progressives Congress (APC) Adams Oshiomhole, on Thursday faulted the criticism of the party over its adoption of a Muslim-Muslim ticket for the 2023 general elections.

.Oshiomhole, who addressed journalists in Abuja, insisted that Nigeria’s challenges are beyond religion.

He urged Nigerians to discuss what each presidential candidate has for the country instead of focusing on religion.

The former Edo State governor also described the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) criticism of APC over the Muslim-Muslim ticket as blackmail.

Oshiomhole said: “Those who are speaking and leading the campaign in the APC family, if they were such believers in Christianity they had the opportunity to vote and canvass for votes for one of the Christian candidates and there were quite a few.

“But they were on record as having led the campaign on the side of Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, knowing very well that he is a Muslim. I think the Nigerian challenges are beyond religion.

“I think the issues before us which we have to spend time discussing is what will any of the presidential candidates do differently to expect a different outcome, not what will a Christian or Muslim do.”

READ ALSO: Tinubu can’t take blame, credit for Buhari govt’s performance – Oshiomhole

He also faulted claims by some Christians that they were being persecuted, saying there was no evidence to support the claim.

He added: “I don’t think they bothered to show the evidence and yet we have not just a Christian Vice-President, we have a pastor, a senior advocate.

“So if religion is the issue, I guess Nigeria will be Eldorado.”

On the country`s security and economic challenges, the ex-governor insisted that President Muhammadu Buhari inherited a nearly collapsed economy while the 2015 general elections was postponed because of security challenges in parts of the country at the time.

“In looking at the security situation for example, we observed that the size of the Nigerian Army after the Civil War was about 250,000.

“Today, it’s about the same size, then the population of Nigeria was about 50 million, today we are about 200 million,’’ he concluded.

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