The governor of Lagos state, Babatunde Raji Fashola has condemned the call for his successor to be christian.
The governor while declaring open an inter-faith conference in Lagos stated that, insecurity in the nation would reduce drastically if everyone embraced religious harmony.
According to him; “People have said that they want one particular governor and I have ask myself two questions – the people who said that they want one particular governor or said that there must be this particular governor, are they still conscious that it is an election where a choice has to be made? If there are two democrats, they should expect that citizens must have a say in who is sworn-in as the governor of their state.”
“Secondly; I wonder when I heard those things. You can insist, but can you insist that you will be alive in the next one hour. I know that things can rub off badly, you may be on the wrong side of the government policy, but we must trust ourselves.”
“We have integrated more than 50 years ago rather than toying with what we are doing at the moment. The danger is too much, this cloth will not tear in one straight line; it will tear in shreds if we pull it too far and let us restrain the pull on the cloth. It is no longer a new cloth; it is a well worn cloth and when a well worn cloth tears, it doesn’t repair well.”
“Good governance means different things to us. It may mean that there are more religion institutions of one faith than the other in the state; that maybe good governance for some people. And for majority, good governance is just food, the ability to get a job and provision of social amenities. For those people, the faith of the governor is never their problem.”
“What will the preference of governor of one faith over the other even benefit the people? Will it give on religion roads that the other faiths can’t use? Will it give them schools that children from other faiths can’t attend or will it bring water that only one faith can drink? Maybe we should begin to have Christian Money, Muslim money and in the blood banks when life is being threatened, we should begin to have Christian Blood ad Muslim blood”