Anglican church says call for impeachment satanic, barbaric

Posted by admin Latest Politics Thursday, April 5th, 2012

The Anglican Church of Nigeria yesterday berated the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) over its recent call for the National Assembly to begin impeachment procedure to remove President Goodluck Jonathan over a church renovated in his native town of Otuoke, Bayelsa State by a construction company, Ghitti.

The ACN, through its Publicity Secretary, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, had claimed that the church renovated by Ghitto, a construction company working in Bayelsa State, contravened the constitution and, therefore, amounted to bribing Jonathan.

But presidential spokesman, Dr. Reuben Abati on Wednesday said in a statement that the renovated church in Otuoke did not belong to the president or his family, but the Anglican Church and the entire Otuoke community.

The Anglican Church, owner of the renovated church, through the South-east Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) chairman and Bishop of Enugu, Most Rev. Emmanuel Chukwuma, yesterday at a press conference, said it was “unfortunate and very sad that Mohammed, the publicity secretary of the ACN, should be allowed to make this unfortunate statement against the president.” Bishop Chukwuma, who said he had the permission of the Primate of Anglican Church, Nicholas Okoh, to make the pronouncement, said the church regarded ACN’s action as “barbaric, satanic and godless and capable of causing distraction for the president, which we will not tolerate.”

His words: “We want to make it quite clear that the church in Otuoke does not belong to President Jonathan, everybody in this country has his or her home-based church and mosque which belongs to the community and Alhaji Lai Mohammed should get it quite clear that the church at Otuoke is not a new church, it is a renovated church by Ghitto company which has long been doing contract work in Bayelsa even when Jonathan was the governor there.

“And I think that it is in the right direction that a company that appreciates the community where it has been working, to feel that the place where the president should have as his home church is not presentable and should be renovated; so, it is not a gift or bride, it is a matter of complimenting the gesture given to them to do work in that community for the community.”
“So, the Anglican Church of Nigeria for which I have the permission to give this statement and also as the South-east CAN chairman, totally condemn the act of the ACN and ask them to apologise to the president for that distractive act. And, of course, we ask the National Assembly to disregard that statement because this is a distraction. There are more important issues to be attended to by Mr President and the National Assembly than talking about a renovated church in the president’s home town.”

The bishop advised the ACN to attach more importance to the various fraud allegations in the country and the embezzlement of pension funds than a place of worship that was renovated. Chukwuma insisted that the renovated Anglican Church at Otuoke was not newly built “and we say it was not a gift or bribe; it was a compliment to the community and the Anglican Communion.” He also noted that there was nothing wrong for the president to build a place of worship with his friends if he so desired, pointing out that former President Olusegun Obasanjo built a “library in his place; this same company was engaged in building it for him and nobody talked.”

He cautioned ACN party to be more constructive in its opposition, saying that, “if they are going to be opposition party, they should be opposition in things that are right, not on insignificant things which are capable of causing religious indifference and division.”

“So, I, on behalf of the Primate of the Church of Nigeria and Bishop of the Anglican Church of Enugu, totally condemn this act by ACN and, therefore, call on Alhaji Lai Mohammed, the ACN publicity secretary to retract that accusation and apologise before this case goes out of hand. And I call upon the president to ignore this rubbish, including the National Assembly not to give attention to this hopeless, insincere and satanic statement for the president’s impeachment; the president has nothing to do with the church at Otuoke. We call on the party, ACN to call his publicity secretary to order to allow peace to reign,” Chukwuma said.

-Sunwp_posts