Apostle Babatunde Oguntimehin, the President of the Nigeria Coalition of Pastors for Good Leaders, on Monday, provided membership registrations and confirmation of ordination to refute the Christians Association of Nigeria’s assertion that they were faceless clerics.
The action was taken within 24 hours after a group of pastors and bishops from Abuja endorsed Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, the APC’s Presidential candidate, at a town hall meeting with some of the party leaders of Tinubu’s supporters, the ‘City Boy Movement’.
Hours after the endorsement, however, CAN disavowed the clerics and reiterated its former stance of “No to same-faith ticket.”
As much as the organization cannot stop people from voting for specific politicians, according to Luminous Jannamike, Special Assistant on Media to CAN President, Most Rev. Daniel Okoh, they also cannot be seen siding with religious groups that are not associated with CAN.
Oguntimehin, who was visibly upset, said in a media interview that it was sad that the nation’s foremost Christian organization would make such a remark.
He asserts that all of the pastors who showed up at the town hall gathering over the weekend were there and identifiable as members of one or more of the CAN’s five blocs.
This is true even though he claimed that everyone in Nigeria has the right to participate in politics.
He said, “Let me clear the air on CAN recent comment, tagging us faceless pastors. We are not. We are Christians, pastors and members of CAN. Some of our pastors are also members of PFN and Organisation of African Instituted Churches.
“I think we should be careful in our choice of words as men and women of God. Even the Bible told us that it is not what goes into us that defines us but what comes out of us. We can’t say anything against them because they are our fathers and body. But I just want to appeal to them not to use such words against men of God. We are not faceless. This is my face.
“To further prove that these pastors are not faceless, I have a register of their names, churches, locations and even streets of their churches here with me as evidence. We have a nine-member executive committee in every state of the federation.
“In my own church, for instance, I have 750 members. Others have mega centres with about 1,000 to 2,000 members spread across Nigerians. This is because our coalition deals with grassroots pastors who have personal connections with their followers. I don’t think it is out of place if these pastors and their members all over the country made up their minds to vote for APC candidates.
“In that town hall you attended that day, you have seen the 630 pastors in attendance. These pastors you saw were heads of several churches. Some of them are general overseers that have about five to 10 parishes under them.
“When it comes to politics, we have our rights to support a candidate and participate in elections. That is the position we took on Saturday.”
