 Mae cwmwych wedi gwirio'r ffordd i'r gofyn y Ffeduratwyr Babachael Lawr wedi'i gweithio'r ei gwasanaeth tigwydol yng Nghymru, ddod o syniadau yng Nghymru a'r pwletysgwr yn y Nôrden ffartfynol yng Nghaergyrraedd, byddai'n meddwl i'r ddechrau yn ystafell ar yr eich cyfweld, yw'r eich cyfweld a'u llwyddol. Byddwch i'w gofyn, yng Nghymru o'r ei eich cyfweld syniadau o'r gyfweld, Y Smyla Mosa is the Director of Strategic Communications Coalition of Northern Groups. Thank you so much, gentlemen, for joining us. Thank you for having me. Great. Reverend Hyab, you and I have had a similar conversation on this Muslim-Muslim ticket and the agitations. Now we see, it would be normal when we see outsiders who are not necessarily members of the party agitating against the ticket and the Muslim-Muslim or the same faith ticket. But then we're seeing members of the APC who are agitating against this ticket. Now also, I'd like to quickly put in that over the weekend we saw some clerics who were meeting with the presidential candidate of the All-Progressive Congress and this seemed to have been frowned upon by the Pentecostal Fellowship of Nigeria. Shut some light on that for us, please. Here, when we advised the political parties long before their primaries that, look, Nigeria is actually divided, there is need for us to be sensitive to the reality at the moment. There is so much tension, there is suspicion. Let all political parties ensure that they have a balanced ticket. It simply means we will not support any same faith ticket if it is Christian or Muslim-Muslim. So it's not just about Muslim. If the ticket is Christian, we will also say no to it as we are doing now. And so when this denomination came out publicly, we came out to condemn it and express our concern. And we actually turned in the Christian members of that political party and asked them, look, this is not an insult to us as Christians but to you Christians of that political party, because if you say he didn't find any northern Christian suitable or qualified or competent, I don't believe he's talking to us, he's talking to you. Those of you who are in that party, it shows that you are not qualified. And I must commend Babachi Lawal and commend Ogaran, others, and Senator Abo, who came out publicly and said, yes, we agree, this is wrong and must be corrected, or something must be done about it. So, unfortunately, instead of this political party to come out and even offer arguments of clarification, it seems they've just recruited so many characters, come out to insult people, and then now they begin to buy people to come out and identify with them. Like the group you talked about, I know many of them, and the truth is that I personally, they reach out to me and I told them, I have no reason to disagree with the position of Khan to meet Ahmed Ballatiniw, if he wants to meet Christians at all, when he meets Khan, I will sit there as one of the executive officers and discuss with him, but I won't have another private meeting under any name. And when I actually look at some of those who, when they are, I challenge them, I even call one of them to the ICB shop. You were introduced as a Pentecostal fellowship bishop. Are you one? Because I know you don't belong to that group. And you try to say, you know, I said, no, excuse me, be honest to yourself, you are not a PFN, because some of those people who even stood up there or sat in the ITB with them are not Pentecostal bishops. So these are the mix-ups. So there's so much effort out there to show that no Christians are discussing with them, where they cannot even have the patience to go out and reach the real Christian leaders who people know, because I'm going to say this, that Christians in Nigeria and in Northern Nigeria, specifically, know the difference between some characters that are being bought for political reason and their leaders who have been there, even when there was no primary for political election, they know the leaders who have been there, when there is crisis, when there is kidnapping. So people know the difference between these leaders and those ones who are coming out now and going to get some envelopes in those political actors. So we feel strongly that something is wrong. And then the next thing we saw is some groups that we've never seen, we've never heard about them coming out to start castigating these names like Babachi Llawal and Dogara and calling them names. I'm not sure that's how we're supposed to play politics. If we want to play politics, we must come out and sell our candidate with love, sell our candidate with respect, convince people with superior argument about whatever decision we've taken but not trying to play a smart one. They started that in the day they were presenting their vice-president by bringing people who were not bishop and claiming they were bishop. And some of us told them that they didn't even do a good rehearsal in knowing how bishops were there coming. So these are many others, some of the mix-up that we are seeing. But let me put this clear. I don't think we can waste time on this matter anymore. We have made our point known and we stand by that and we are not involved in all this kind of conversation. If this candidate like he should call as many characters, parade them on television and say they are Christians, like I've said earlier, the Christian community knows the difference between their leaders from people who are hungry. Smaila, let me bring you in now. You of course are a young person and you belong to a group of people who are from the North. Of course that group, I believe, have Christians and have Muslims. What's your take on the same faith ticket? Because I know that there are people who are of the school of thought that, oh, Nigeria is at a point where we don't necessarily want to look at the religious background or what you bring to the table. But I'd like to hear your position on this particular matter and why the APC seems to be very comfortable with this ticket. Okay, I think it's very important at this point for us to just lay it bare at the tease. I don't know if you can hear me clearly. Okay, you see, we actually tried to see how we can move this nation in terms of our policy gain, you know, the atmosphere of politics in this nation to a pedestal that's actually beyond all this primordial sentiment. But unfortunately, the APC actually didn't take the right step. Like Reverend Hire rightly pointed out, we've always been of that opinion that, you see, this is not the time for some kind of arrogance. We are all humans. We know how we are in this country when it comes to issues of our ethnicity, issues of religion. But of course, so I would try to see how we can go back to the old system of the United Nigeria and of course, like we keep referring to all the time, during our father and fathers, we need to also be very, very considerate and know the kind of languages would be used on television or on radio, you know, trying to be blind to other people's pain, you know, it's very okay if you say, oh, we are taking a decision as a political party. I don't remember of your political party, which means I really don't have a say on how you run your politics. But one thing that is very key is that when you're giving an appointment to a spokesperson, there should be clear terms of reference. There should be some languages that shouldn't be used. You should be very, very sensitive to the audience you're addressing knowing that they belong to both religions. The APC at this juncture can actually retrace its steps and say, well, we have actually taken this decision not because we are considering the issue of religion to be of any paramount importance at this stage, but because of the complexity of the candidates themselves and then the running mate, why the choice of the running mate. I don't explain to Nigerians, not just the Christian community, not just the northern Christians, but Nigerians at large. You need to come up with superior arguments like he mentioned. One I'm not also forgetting the background and trying to leave is that this time around, Nigeria is actually in a very terrible mess. We need people behind who can actually pull us out of this doldrum, but at the same time while we're trying to do that, we should be fair enough to everyone. But having said that, the APC has its genuine reasons why they come up with this, but you see the manner of approach, the utterance is what is completely unacceptable. You should be able to convince because politics campaigns is about trying to convince the others, even your own opponent trying to convince them while your candidate should be the right choice. So it's not late for the APC to try to do that. I don't like some of the faces of the spokesperson of APC that I'm seeing on television. I hate it when I see people being arrogant. You see people who are arrogant this way, especially the APC cannot actually be divorced from being arrogant because we saw that in the president of the nation where things happen and it doesn't feel there's any need to address the nation where things are going bad, or when people get killed in their hundreds and it doesn't feel there's any need to explain anything to anyone. And the same thing is played out by the choice of the spokespeople of the APC. And I think, you know, people might initially like the candidates or even like the candidate option now, but some people will have reasons to say, oh no, but what I don't like is this arrogant. The APC presidential candidate is not arrogant. The running mate is not arrogant. But the people who are sad with their accessibility and trying to explain to Nigerians are putting out a different body language that is saying you can go to hell, which is very, very unacceptable. So I think the APC should go back to the drawing board. I'm curious. Let me come in there, Simaila. So you're saying that, oh maybe Fastos Kayama was nicer with his words, that the same-face ticket would sit better with Northern Christians. Is this the case that you're making? And are you speaking for Northern Christians that maybe if arrogance were taken out of the picture it would go well with them? Yeah, you know, our position is widespread in all the Northern States, including the Estuary. And you know, we have members of it up to the world level. And so we need to relate what are the feelings like from even the grassroots. It's not that people really have much issues with people who actually have the capacity to pull Niger out of the Daldrum, out of this mess. But the manner of approach, the utterance teeth, in particular Fastos Kayama, has been very arrogant with the way he's going about it. This is not activism. You know, you can be an activist, and I don't have a problem with that. But you see, when it comes to campaign, you should know that beyond your opponents you're also trying to address the masses. So there's the need to explain these things in a way that doesn't feel hot into the other people who are actually trying to make awesome value points. But beyond that, it's that who and who has the capacity. What we should be talking about at this particular time should be beyond the issue of religion. Should be that, oh, what are your credentials? What have you done for yourself? What have you done in the past? What posts have you held? And how did you perform in those positions that you've held in the past? What are people saying about you, about your body language? What is your leadership approach to diversity? How do you feel about the other religion? How do you feel? So questions need to be asked. And there should be answers that are very comforting. You know, but not this arrogance about spewing all manner of, you know, just the separation of this kind of things all the time. It doesn't sit well with people, and then it's further divided us as a people. And if you notice from the angle of the coalition of Northern groups what we've been trying to do all this while is just trying to see how we can actually unite the people, especially between the Christians and the Muslims in Northern Nigeria, especially. And even there's no time there are crises that we are not actually in the forefront of trying to see how we can bring an end to that crisis. All right, let me bring you back in, Reverend Hyab. Just coming from where he stopped, he's saying that maybe the manner of approach, maybe if we dropped the arrogance, maybe this ticket would be a bit more less of a bitter pill to swallow for those who seem to be against the same-faith ticket. That's my first question. My second question is, how have these politicians played, what role have they played in helping us to grow to a point where we would be devoid of all of these differences and these very obvious lines that are drawn against us as opposed to where we are and where we want to be? Well, you see, anytime we want to speak nicely, we say we want to be politically correct. We will say, you know, we don't care about where the candidate is. We don't care about his tribe. We don't care about his religion. We don't care about his religion. We just want someone who would deliver the good. That is right and politically correct. But let me put it this way. If we say that and we honestly believe in that, then that means we can also accept to have a president and a vice president all from Lagos as long as they are going to deliver the good. We can also say we are willing to accept the president from where we are, as long as we deliver the good. So that means we don't care whoever becomes the president wherever he is. But the reality is different from that sweet language. So there is this need for people to be carried along. Some of the places that these things have been tested, we saw that it didn't give good results. It instated deep room for more fear, more doubt, more fear. Deep room for more fear, more doubt, more suspicion. And we don't want that to continue in Nigeria. As we continue this journey of helping each other to know that we are one country, one in this visible country, let's be honest to ourselves that we need other people. And our constitution clearly provided an avenue for character reflection or for character reflection. And this character reflection is not just about state. It's not just about religion. It also talks about other things that we need to know that are sensitive to our unity, sensitive to our togetherness. So for my submission simply is that at this time, Nigerians are not happy. What I know from my competition in the grasslands and I don't know the other ones where they are conversing, people are not happy with this at all. The impression people are having is delaying. It is another plan for domination. Someone somewhere, and how people say to me, it won't even have a vice president or we have a mixed situation. And certain things are done on challenge. How will it happen when we don't even have it? So I think the political class want to think that everybody do not understand. We do understand more than they do. And we are saying that do the right thing because we want to hear the country first before we talk about that. Then I want to say that. I'm running out of time quickly. I just want to bring him back in. So by that quickly, Senator Habunwa of the APC has said that this Muslim-Muslim ticket might be the end of the road for APC, meaning that it might just cost them the election. Quickly, what are your thoughts because we're out of time? OK, my thoughts exactly are that. Usually I don't really want us to overheat the polity or the issue of this Muslim-Muslim ticket. There are other parties actually, you know. So if we feel OK, this one is not doing, it's not being fair to us. You know, within the political parties or within the party itself, I know there are Christians there who perhaps are silent because of what also they are looking for within the party. Or maybe they are also privy to some information that the rest of the masses are not aware of why the choice of the Muslim-Muslim ticket. It's high time for them to begin to voice it out to say to explain in total why this has to happen. But having said that is that, look, there's no point to overheat this polity. There's Labour Party there as well. There's PDP there as well. Except if you feel, oh, I'm a member of the APC. And then I'm not happy with what my party has just done with this Muslim-Muslim ticket. You have the right to protest. And that's why I give kudos to Babachur Lawan and the former speaker of the House of Representatives for what they're doing. We have to go. We have to go. Time is up. OK, so. So, OK, no problem. Well, I would say thank you, gentlemen. Unfortunately, we're racing against the clock. Reverend Joseph Hyab is the chairman, Christian Association of Nigeria, Cadunia State, and Smyla Mosa is the Director of Strategic Communications, Coalition of Northern Groups. Thank you so much, gentlemen. I wish we had more time to have this conversation. But thank you. Thank you too for having us. All right. And that says on the show tonight. I'm Mary-Anne Cohn. I hope you enjoyed the stories in our political scene in Nigeria and, of course, other parts of Africa. Have a good evening.