The Public Relations Officer of the 19 Northern States of CAN and Abuja, Mr. Sunny Oibe, who spoke with journalists yesterday on the alleged threat, also accused Catholics of arrogance. He said: "There is no division in CAN and we are all speaking with one language.
There are some certain elements in the leadership of CAN, led by Cardinal John Onaiyekan because he lost the CAN Presidency to Oritsejafor who has a lot of achievements. "There is no need for anybody to lose sleep over the threat by Catholics to pull out of CAN, because without them, CAN will still continue.
The constitution of CAN makes provision that membership can be terminated by any group that is misbehaving or any group can also terminate their membership. "Why is it that when Catholics were in the leadership of CAN, every bloc supported them but now because power has changed hands, they are threatening to pull out and causing confusion?
"They have been agitating that the Presidency of CAN must from the South. They are an appendage of PDP and PDP themselves. They are known for double standards.
A man of God should not be double speaking." He said in exercising their right to free association, Catholics should not mislead the public. "The Catholics are claiming that the current CAN leadership has deviated from the vision of the founding fathers when they don't even know how CAN came about.
What did the Catholics know about the vision of the founding fathers? "CAN was formed because of the marginalisation of Christians in the North.
The Christians in the North, particularly those of them from the TEKAN extraction came together and formed Northern Christian Association. It was that body that metamorphosed to CAN," he said.
According to him, during the administration of Olusegun Obasanjo when CAN was to be registered, "the leadership was given to them because Catholics were in leadership; I want o correct that impression because they have been telling the world that they are the founding fathers of CAN.
"Catholics have accused the current CAN leadership led by Pastor Ayo Oritsejafor of being pro-government. But if you look at the whole scenario, you will be able to find out who between Oritsejafor and Onaiyekan is more close to government.
"The problem of Catholics is that they always display arrogance of knowledge. They don't want to be under anybody but they want everybody to be under them. It doesn't work like that because there is no seniority in CAN," he added.
It will be recalled that the Diocesan Administrator of the Catholic Diocese of Abeokuta, Ogun State, Monsignor Christopher Ajala had on Tuesday said that the church decided to boycott the activities of CAN last November, particularly at the national level because it was no longer comfortable with the closeness of its leadership to the government.
The Catholic Church said because it would not want to be part of an association that had become a mere appendage of the present administration, it therefore had no other choice than to boycott CAN activities. Ajala said that the umbrella Christian body had failed to meet its goals and objectives as a religious organisation, which should be the mouthpiece of the ordinary people.
"I don't know, what can we call them after Executive, Legislative, Judiciary then maybe they are the religious arm. But the Catholic Church says no, it should not be like that because they would dictate to us what to do and they would not take our advice seriously."
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