Plateau State Commissioner for Land, Survey and Town Planning, Mr. Yakubu Dati, said Governor Simon Lalong accepted the job of Director General of the Bola Ahmed Tinubu Presidential Campaign Organisation as part of efforts to promote unity in diversity in Nigeria.
Dati said Lalong was out to rally critical stakeholders from every part of the country to work together in pursuit of harmony, peace and togetherness even as the All Progressives Congress (APC) push to win the 2023 presidential election in 2023.
He said by taking the appointment, Lalong wanted to provide a counterforce against the divisive interpretation of the well-calculated political decision, which would benefit the ruling party.
“Governor Lalong is rising above the fault lines of religion and ethnicity to project religious tolerance and steer the nation away from plunging into the tenterhooks of war, to setting the building blocks for harmony and peaceful coexistence. Lalong would shun what divides citizens, drawing from his personal experience where his kith and kin are made of a fine mix of Christians and Muslims living in harmony, to build on this long desired unity,” he said.
The Plateau commissioner urged that Nigerians should not overheat the country with religious and ethnic polarisation, knowing that insensitive religious insinuations could ignite crisis that may go out of control.
Dati also frowned at the attempt to misconstrue the message contained in Lalong’s statement that the Catholic pontiff, Pope Francis had not told him it was wrong to be DG of a Muslim-Muslim presidential and vice presidential candidates.
He explained that the Catholic Church has over the years made it a policy to explore ways of opening avenues for inter-religious harmony and the reference by Governor Lalong is an enunciation of this pursuit and his belief in peaceful coexistence.
“As one whose worldview is shaped by unity in diversity, the governor is driven to replicate this win-win experience for national cohesion. Therein lies his motivation to defend peaceful coexistence and promote the Tinubu/Shettima APC presidential ticket without fear or intimidation. While his political traducers resort to exploiting the Freudian slip to ply their trade, men of goodwill will dig deeper and appreciate his internal train of thought that means no harm,” he said.