The presidential candidate of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP), Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, has challenged the Centre for Qur’anic Reciters of Nigeria to rise up and nip in the bud, the monster of disunity ravaging the nation, owing to what he described as “escalating precarious fault-lines in our societies, occasioned by inefficient governance.”
Delivering a goodwill message yesterday, in Sokoto, at the National Conference on Alarammomi organised by the Qur’anic Reciters, in concert with the Centre for Intellectual Services on Sokoto Caliphate, Atiku said religious leaders have a key role to play in mending the deep divisions existing among Nigerians of different shades and colours.
He said, “We must have a nation first before anything else. Right now, unless something drastic is done, our national unity will be permanently ruined.”
He urged Nigerians to vote for another government that would take the interest of the people first, and exploit the nation’s heterogeneity to huge advantage.
Atiku was represented at the conference by his media associate, Suleiman Uba, a senior editor and author.
Also speaking on the occasion, the Sultan of Sokoto Alhaji Sa’ad Abubakar, tasked the leadership of the Qur’anic reciters to flush out quack clerics, “who take pleasure in twisting the true teachings of Islam to achieve selfish and, most often, dangerous ends.
