The six Christian delegates at the ongoing national conference have denied accusing the conference leadership of bias, as claimed by a front-page report in the Daily Sun of today, headlined, Conference in shocking start: Christian delegates accuse leadership of bias.
The paper had written that constitutional lawyer Mike Ozekhome challenged the provision of praying for Muslims and the exclusion of Christians, saying the same treatment should be meted out to Christians in the interest of fair play.
“Some of us are in our Lent period. Since you have provided a place for the Muslims to pray, are you going to do the same for Christians?” the paper quoted Ozekhome as saying.
But responding on Wednesday, the six Christian delegates described the report as misleading, as none of them made such contribution.
“The attention of the ‘Christian Leaders’ delegation to the national conference has been drawn to misleading media reports on the goings on at the national conference”, Godswill Iyoha Iyoke Esq said on behalf of the group.
“The Daily Sun of instant date has this caption: Conference in shocking start: Christian delegates accuse leadership of bias. This was in apparent reference to the contributions of Pastor Tunde Bakare, who introduced himself as a Nigerian on the delegation of Ogun State, and Chief Mike Ozekhome (SAN) who humorously introduced himself as ‘a Federal Government Addendum’ delegate. None of these two eminent Nigerians represent Christians at the on-going Confab”.
They maintained that for clarity and avoidance of doubt, the Christian delegates to the Confab are Bishop J. D Bagobiri, Barr. J. A. Achimugu, Professor Andrew Haruna, Dr, (Mrs.) Kate Okpareke, Pastor Emmanuel Olatubosun, and Godswill Iyoha Iyoke.
“We wish to say that none of our six-member delegates made any contributions on the floor of the conference, or on those issues under reference. We are therefore worried as to how clear unambiguous introductions and contributions by others could be credited to us.
“Furthermore, we do not find anything unusual in the comments or conduct of the said personalities at the conference to be clothed with the cloak of controversy and contention, as the reports seek to do”.
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