He called on the politicians and statesmen in the country to ensure that they save the country from religious and ethnic upheavals, looking at possible sentiments that may crop up in 2015 general election. The professor of theology, however, urged Christians who had interest in political office to go for it to obey the biblical injunction and contribute their quota to the development of the country. He said: "It is the responsibility of all the politicians and our elders in this country to ensure that political polarization along religious line does not occur. It is in our own best interest to ensure that such polarization does not occur. "If for any reason we notice that the formation of a mega party is tending towards the division of the country along ethnic or religious lines, the leaders should quickly come together and work out a system or strategy that will ensure that that does not happen. "Our founding fathers laboured very hard to ensure that we had a peaceful and united country. Unity is of utmost importance, and that is why even the 1999 Constitution catered for the need to promote unity through federal character. Under the principle of federal character, a lot of things came to play such as ethnicity, religion, gender as well as age. "It is of utmost importance that the present crops of leaders look at such things, and build upon them for a better Nigeria. "Our experience so far with about 40 political parties has shown that the best thing for Nigeria is to choose between not too many parties and too few parties. But tending towards 2-party system may end up with one party state.
"This is because if you end up with two parties, and the party in opposition is not strong enough, people will decamp to the winning party, and the opposition party will be left without people who can really make the government in power or the party in power to be on their toes. "Our recent experience shows that people are decamping to the winning side, and that is what led to lack of opposition. Now, if we have a two-party system, chances are that people will move to other party for greener pasture." Some governors over night decamped to another party without minding the sensitivity of the people who voted them into power. They just moved to the party of their choice in search of political relevance. "Our fear now is that in 2-party system, people may decamp to the ruling party, and there will not be an effective opposition party. In that case, it becomes one party state, and you know it leads to dictatorship. So that is my fear. "Even now we have over 45 political parties, but if people decamp to another party, there are so many parties in opposition, and that is where we even got people to come and form APC. My suggestion is that we should limit political parties to four or five very effective political parties. It will make the difference politically for us in Nigeria.
"Our country is big enough, and if America can have up to that number, I believe that we can have it. People will be allowed to express themselves in the party of their choice. "The idea of over 45 political parties is not very healthy for Nigeria, two parties too is not very healthy for Nigeria. "Christians who are not interested in political offices are doing disservice to the country because as citizens they should be able to contribute to the political development of the country. "According to the provision of the Bible in Romans chapter 13: 1-3 we must respect the constituted authority, and if you must respect the constituted authority, and that same constituted authority now makes electoral act, and you as a Christian has to respect the constituted authority, and that constituted authority makes the electoral act, and now says that every citizen in the country is free to contest.
"So you will be going against that act if you as a Christian fails to carry out that responsibility, and you will be committing sin against God because that amount to dereliction of duty under the act and the provision of the Bible. So you can see that the Bible empowers us to do what we suppose to do as citizens under the Romans 13:1-3. "With that kind of provision, it is incumbent on every Christian to rise and contribute his or her quota to the development of this country. "If one requirement of doing so is through going out and participating in electing your leaders, then, so be it."
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