Maj-Gen. Mohammadu Buhari

The Borno State government has declared Monday (today) a work-free-day for the visit of the All Progressives Congress presidential candidate, Maj. Gen. Muhammadu Buhari (retd.) to the state.

Secretary to the state government, Alhaji Ahmed Jidda, announced this on Sunday in a statement in Maiduguri, the state capital.

Jidda said that the public holiday would enable residents of the state to receive Buhari during his campaign rally.

The statement read, “The Borno State Government has declared Monday as a work-free day. The declaration is to enable the people of the state welcome the APC presidential candidate, Gen. Muhammadu Buhari, who will arrive Maiduguri on a campaign visit on Monday.

“Governor Kashim Shettima has enjoined all Borno residents to come out en mass and line up the streets to welcome the Peoples’ General.”

Meanwhile, the National Christian Elders Forum on Sunday dissociated itself from the purported endorsement of Buhari by the Northern Christian Leaders Eagle-Eye Forum, led by one Pastor Aminchi Habu.

The Secretary of NCEF, Pastor ‘Bosun Emmanuel, in a statement issued in Abuja, advised Christians “to resist the temptation of putting personal interests above the interests of the Lord Jesus Christ, because such compromise has terrible eternal consequences.”

Emmanuel also called on politicians “to put the interest of the nation first in all forms of electioneering campaign and desist from acts that could be interpreted to imply desperate manipulation of the electorate for political power.”

His statement partly read, “It has come to the notice of the NCEF that an unaccredited group, claiming Northern Christians Leaders Eagle Eye-Forum, purportedly on Thursday February 12, 2015, in Abuja, adopted the presidential candidate of the All Progressives Congress in the forthcoming elections, Maj. Gen. Muhammadu Buhari (retd.).

“The National Christian Elders Forum wishes to state clearly that the only Northern Elders Forum accredited and recognised by the Christians Association of Nigeria is the Northern States Christian Elders Forum.

“The Elders Forum hereby declares that neither CAN, NOSCEF nor the NCEF at any time supported or approved of the action of this unaccredited group. The National Christian Elders Forum wishes to admonish Christian leaders in Nigeria to resist the temptation of putting personal interests above the interests of the Lord Jesus Christ, because such compromise has terrible eternal consequences.

“The Elders Forum also advises politicians to put the interest of the nation first in all forms of electioneering campaign and desist from acts that could be interpreted to imply desperate manipulation of the electorate for political power.”

-Punch