The Borno State-based pastor, Kallamu Musa-Dikwa, who accused the Christians Association of Nigeria, CAN, of collecting N7bn bribe from President Goodluck Jonathan to campaign against the All Progressives Congress, APC, Presidential candidate, Muhammadu Buhari, in the March 28 election, has insisted that the CAN received the said bribe. Speaking on Monday in Kaduna, Musa-Dikwa maintained that the Jonathan government gave CAN N7bn to campaign against Buhari. He, however, added that he had always insisted that neither Jonathan nor Buhari was fit to govern the country. According to Musa-Dikwa, CAN collected N7bn from Jonathan and not N6bn as alleged by Governor Rotimi Amaechi of Rivers state. Amaechi is also the Director-General of the APC Presidential Campaign Organisation, APCPCO. It would be recalled that Amaechi had a few weeks ago alleged that unnamed leaders of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, paid N6bn to Christian clerics to campaign against the APC. Followng the allegation by the governor, the Pentecostal Fellowship of Nigeria and the Northern State Christian Elders Forum called on Amaechi to name the church leaders who collected the N6bn bribe. But reacting to the challenge by the Northern States Christian Elders Forum, Dikwa, who is the Executive Director of the Voice of Northern Christian Movement, had told journalists in Kaduna last Thursday that the said money was channelled through CAN, and that the association got N7bn on January 26, 2015 and disbursed N3m each to state chairmen of the CAN across the country. Musa- Dikwa also alleged the CAN had started threatening Christians in Borno that they must re-elect President Jonathan in the rescheduled election. He added that he fell out with the national body of CAN in 2013 when some clerics from the United States (Christians Association of Nigeria-Americans) visited Nigeria and donated the sum of $50,000 to the victims of the Boko Haram insurgency in Borno State. According to Musa-Dikwa, rather than disbursing the money to serve the purpose for which it was meant, CAN merely gave the victims a mere N100,000, adding that when he questioned the leadership of the association about the $50,000 for the victims, they became furious.
“This was the beginning of our disagreement with the national body of CAN,” he said. On the alleged N7bn bribe money, Musa-Dikwa played a recorded audio of someone confirming that CAN had collected the money before members of the Correspondents’ Chapel of the Kaduna Council of the Nigeria Union of Journalists in Kaduna on Tuesday. Musa-Dikwa said that when Amaechi first accused the clerics of collecting bribe to campaign against the Buhari candidacy, “I sent a text (message) to the leadership of the CAN to repent or be exposed.” He said since he opened exposed the shady dealings in CAN, he had received several threat messages from yet-to-be identified persons, who claimed that “I am against Christians and working for the All Progressives Congress presidential candidate.” Dikwa, however, insisted that he wasn’t working for Buhari. He also added that since the revelation, many of the CAN leaders had called him to confirm that the allegation was true and that they indeed collected the money (N7bn) and disbursed N3m to the state CAN in the 36 states of the Federation. He said, “There was no newspaper or news coverage of the disbursement of the N7bn to CAN. A national officer of CAN confirmed to me that CAN received the money and disbursed N3m to each state CAN. “I sent text messages to the CAN leadership, asking them to repent otherwise I will expose them. Nobody replied me. That is why I decided to open up. Some people say that I am working for Buhari. It is not true. I am not working for anybody. It is not today that I started writing on Boko Haram. I stand for the truth. Boko Haram affects everyone, Christians and Muslims.” “I am not working for anybody. I am standing for the truth. I am standing for righteousness and for my people, whether Christians or Muslims. “I have always said that both President Goodluck Jonathan and Maj-Gen. Muhammadu Buhari(retd) are not good for Nigeria. I am praying and I am always telling the people that God will stop them (Jonathan and Buhari).”
Source: Today Internet.
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