The Senate Chief Whip, Senator Orji Uzor Kalu, has said with the emergence of former Lagos State Governor, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, as the All Progressives Congress presidential candidate, the party has no option but to field a Muslim running mate.
Kalu, who backed the proposed Muslim-Muslim ticket by the ruling party, also claimed that the party would struggle to win the presidential election should it consider any other factor and jettison the idea.
“…if we don’t play the Muslim Muslim ticket, we are in trouble, and it will be difficult to win the election because the only thing left for Ahmed Tinubu today is to play a Muslim-Muslim ticket,” Uzor-Kalu said while addressing journalists at the National Assembly on Wednesday.
Furthermore, Uzor-Kalu told Christians that there was nothing to fear as Tinubu’s wife is a pastor who would always have the interest of the people at heart.
He said, “If I am in Ahmed Bola Tinubu’s position, the wife is a Pastor in a Pentecostal Church. I will go for a Muslim-Muslim ticket. The most important thing is for the party to win. We should stop this rubbish about religion.
“Whether you put a Christian there, after all, if we win, already the wife is a Pastor and they have been living together for over 40 years. These are facts. So, don’t blame anyone, Tinubu’s wife is already like a deputy president. I am saying my opinion. I am a Catholic. This is Orji Kalu’s opinion. You cannot deny me my opinion.”
He added that it wasn’t about a person’s religion but the person’s conscience and more importantly for the party to win.
“But you can also play Christian Christian tickets depending on the scenario. Because if we don’t play the Muslim Muslim ticket, we are in trouble, and it will be difficult to win the election because the only thing left for Ahmed Tinubu today is to play a Muslim-Muslim ticket.
“I know the Church I go to, the Catholic secretary may not be happy about this but what is wrong with Muslim-Muslim ticket? I don’t see anything wrong with it. There is nothing wrong with a Christian-Christian ticket, it depends on the condition. The condition we found ourselves in today is that you cannot play two minorities.
“Tinubu is a minority Muslim from the South, if you put a minority from the North, the minority can’t get it. It is difficult. What I am telling you is the position of mine, it is not the position of my party. This is the Orji Kalu position.”
“Let me tell you, in my house, my wife is the head of the house in reality. Even you men that are here, now that your wives aren’t here, they are the head. Like if I wear this clothe, my wife will tell me ‘My dear, this clothe is not good remove it’. Your wife will tell you you are supposed to eat Akara and Akamu, whether you argue with her, you must take that Akamu and your wife want you to pay children’s school fees, whether you argue or not, you must pay.
“The Christians should relax because Tinubu’s wife is a pastor and once she’s a pastor we are protected because she’s not a housewife. She has political knowledge,” he said.
( PUNCH)
