A Pro-Democracy Group, The Nigerian Agenda for Inclusion, TNAI, has dared the presidential candidate of the All Progressives Congress, APC, in the 2023 election, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, to test the feelings of the Muslim community in Lagos state with a Christian-Christian ticket.

TNAI in a statement on Thursday, signed by its Co-Convener, Alexander Obisesan, described Lagos as a reflection of Nigeria’s religious diversity and a fine place for Tinubu to test the “alternative reality of his unthoughtful action with a Christian-Christian ticket.”

As contained in the statement, “The supporters of the APC presidential candidate are putting together all manners of disingenuous narratives when they could easily test the alternative reality of their agenda in Lagos.

“Alhaji Bola Tinubu is the god-father of APC in Lagos; he is in a pole position to field a Christian-Christian ticket to gauge the temperament of the Muslim community in the state as the first line of evaluation of his insensitivity to Nigeria’s diversity.

“If former governor Tinubu could not broach the idea of a Christian-Christian ticket in his immediate domain in Lagos State, which is more secular and diverse, why is he contemplating such a divisive option for Nigeria?

“Lagos has indeed had the history of a Muslim-Muslim regime under the Jakande-jafojo administration, but that situation has seriously changed because the man Tinubu supported to power in 2015 has deeply polarised the country along religious lines.

“The APC has also made 1993 impossible to repeat in Nigeria because it has widened Nigeria’s fault lines and deepened the ethnoreligious divide among Nigerians.

“We will appeal to our people in the South-West to put aside sentiment in the country’s overall interest because it never worked for the people of North-West in the last seven years.

“We want Nigerians to take their time to evaluate Tinubu’s consistent relegation of Christians in the scheme of things: he wanted a Muslim-Muslim ticket in 2015; when APC won, he opted for a Muslim-Muslim arrangement in both chambers of the National Assembly, but he failed.

“When Tinubu had another chance in 2019, he openly pushed for a Muslim-Muslim leadership of the National Assembly, including an arrangement that ensured a Muslim-Muslim Speaker and Deputy Speaker when the President is a Muslim.

“Asiwaju Tinubu’s latest high-level insensitivity toward the Christian community did not start with his picking of a Muslim vice candidate; he was prevailed upon to field Gov Akinwumi Ambode, a Christian, after himself and Babatunde Fashola had had 16 years together as Muslims, but never wanted to,” the statement added.