Bishop Korie said such Presidential aspirants that refused to condemn the action of the mob should not be entrusted with the affairs of the nation.
By Ishaya Ibrahim, News Editor
Chairman of the Southern branch of the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN), and National Vice President, South-East Pentecostal Fellowship of Nigeria (PFN), Bishop Maxwell Korie, has urged voters to shun presidential aspirants who have “cowardly” refused to make statements condemning the killing of Deborah Samuel.
As at the time of filing this report, former Senate President Anyim Pius Anyim is the only one of all the 2023 presidential aspirants that has publicly condemned the gruesome murder of the 200-level student of the Shehu Shagari College of Education.
In a statement he personally signed earlier in the day, Senator Anyim decried the killing of Miss Deborah Yakubu as cruel, illegal, callous and inhuman.
The former Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF) and frontline presidential aspirant on the platform of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) insisted that “there is no place in a modern Democracy such as Nigeria for jungle justice and killing of human beings illegally.”
According to Anyim, “Miss Deborah Yakubu deserved to have been put through the full process of the law which has adequate punishment for all offences including the one she was accused of. We cannot afford now to add religious intolerance to the plethora of problems bedeviling our country.”
Former Vice President Atiku Abubakar had earlier condemned the killing of the Christian female student and even commiserated with her family, only to delete the message on all his social media handles in what appears to be an attempt not to offend Muslim fanatics.
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Vice President Yemi Osinbajo, former Lagos State Governor Bola Tinubu, former Anambra State Governor Peter Obi, Rivers State Governor Nyesom Wike, Kogi State Governor Yahaya Bello and other presidential hopefuls have kept sealed lips despite the outrage that greeted the murder of the female student.
Bishop Korie, during a one-day Minister’s Conference in Ebonyi, said such Presidential aspirants that refused to condemn the action of the mob should not be entrusted with the affairs of the nation.
Bishop Korie said: “We are keeping track of the responses of the Presidential candidates. If any of them is such a coward, that he refuses to make an appropriate statement about this, we now know that we should not entrust the affairs of the country into such a hand.”
Bishop Korie added: “To the Federal Government, we are saying that we don’t just want to hear statements of condemnations about what has happened, we want to hear statements of definite actions of the federal government to bring justice over this matter.
“All the people involved must be given the appropriate punishment according to the laws of the land. It is a case of wicked murder. It’s not manslaughter.
“They moved against her with a deliberate intention to get her eliminated. So it is not a case of manslaughter,” he said.
Bishop Korie said the Christian body would work against any move by either the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) or the All Progressives Congress (APC) to field Moslem, Moslem candidate in the 2023 presidential election.
“As we prepare for election in 2023, the Pentecostal Fellowship of Nigeria, PFN, which is the umbrella Association for all Pentecostal and Charismatic Churches in Nigeria is making an emphatic statement that any political party that fields Moslem-Moslem candidates for the presidential election, we will work against their candidate succeeding.
“That is, by withholding our votes from them and in order to punish them for such plunder, we will make sure that all their candidates from the State House of Assembly upwards will lose our votes.
“If you dare it, our reactions begin from the State House of Assembly election.
“We are calling on all well-meaning Nigerians, including Moslems who have a sense of equity, justice and fairness to fall in line with us to ensure that this absurdity is not associated with any of the two major political parties in Nigeria, APC and PDP,” the PFN leader added.