The National Coordinator of Young Christian Democrats (YCD), Mr Ezekiel Dinfa, has described the presidential hopeful, Dr Gbenga Olawepo Hashim, as a true unifier, having both northern and southern parentage.
Dinfa was reacting to a statement credited to President Bola Tinubu when he visited Jos at the weekend, asking Christians in the North to support him because he respects freedom of religion, arguing that his wife is a pastor.
According to him, only a president of Christian extraction from the North can protect the people against religious extremism and terrorism ravaging parts of Northern Nigeria and threatening more than 250 minorities who have, for centuries, maintained their identities.
‘This is not a time for that statement President Tinubu is talking about, as even southern Christians do not understand what we are going through. Only a northern Christian does.
‘We have already identified a northern Christian who can do the job in the person of Dr Joel Gbenga Hashim, and he is running on the platform of the PDP.
‘He is a successful entrepreneur and one of the founders of the PDP. He understands national security and economics,’ Dinfa stated.
He maintained that ‘Dr Hashim is a fair-minded democrat who will protect Muslims too because, like most northern Christians, he has his Muslim roots as well.’
Dinfa restated that Dr Hashim was capable of promoting national unity and harmony, given Nigeria’s ethnic heterogeneity.
‘Like our own son in Plateau, General Yakubu Gowon, who brought Nigeria back together when war broke out, Dr Hashim has the capability to manage Nigeria’s diversity, while most aspirants in the field do not even know or understand Nigeria,’ he said.