THE Sultan of Sokoto, Alhaji Muhammad Sa’ad Abubakar-led Jama’atu Nasir Islam on Sunday said that the Christian Association of Nigeria was overheating the polity ahead of the 2019 general elections in the country.

The Secretary General of the JNI, Dr. Khalid Abubakar Aliyu, while reacting to a statement credited to the Secretary General of CAN, Dr. Jonathan Asake, at a press conference in Kaduna, blamed CAN for the current herdsmen attacks in Benue State and other parts of the country.

Asake had during the press conference condemned the government’s poor handling of the Benue State killings believed to have been perpetrated by some Fulani herdsmen.

He also criticised the constitutionality of certain actions of the President Muhammadu Buhari-led administration.

But Aliyu said CAN was using the herdsmen issue to destabilise Nigeria so as to achieve its “agenda.”

“We nonetheless make bold that CAN is deliberately covering up by using the herdsmen debacle as a franchise to perpetrate evil as witnessed in the Boko Haram tale.

“Seeing that they have got away with those crimes, CAN has now devised a new approach to destabilise Nigeria in order to achieve its agenda,” alleged the JNI scribe.

While describing the statement ascribed to CAN’s scribe as one overheating the polity ahead of the 2019 general elections, Aliyu advised CAN to register as a political party to test its popularity.

He described the press conference addressed by the CAN Secretary-General on the 16th of January as mendacious, provocative, full of blatant lies and misinformation, disinformation as well as seditious to the state.

According to him, some Christian leaders across the country are making hate speech which the repercussion could be better imagined.

He said, “The ‘herdsmen’ debacle; it must be understood that this is a coinage mischievously invented by CAN over time and its biased errand boys among media practitioners to stereotype an ethnic group so as to achieve a pre-planned agenda. Moreover, why not call a spade by its name?

“And why is the whole herdsmen issue heightened in 2018? Simply CAN is unnecessarily overheating the polity because 2019 is around the corner. Our take is that CAN should better go and register as a political party and contest election if it wants to test its popularity!

“We, nonetheless, make bold to say that CAN is deliberately covering up by using the ‘herdsmen’ debacle as a franchise to perpetrate evil as witnessed in the ‘Boko Haram’ tale. – Punch

– Jan. 22 2018 @ 07:05 GMT