Bishop Seun Adeoye, the lead bishop of Worldwide Anglican Church (WAC) in Nigeria, has called for the arrest of Bola Tinubu following his charge to supporters to grab victory violently.
He slammed, the presidential candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC), for telling his supporters to snatch power “at all cost.”
Tinubu, in a video that is now trending online, while addressing a group of people believed to be APC supporters in the diaspora said, “Political Power is not going to be served in a restaurant, it’s not served in à la carte. It’s what we’re doing. It’s being determined to do it. At all cost fight for it, grab it, snatch it.”
Disappointed by the call, the spokesman of World Bishops Council (WBC) in Africa, Adeoye, called on security agencies to invite and interrogate Tinubu over his inciting comments during a meeting with one of his support groups.
The Bishop who made the assertion in a statement released on Friday, said Tinubu’s comments simply meant that the forthcoming elections in Nigeria should be a do-or-die affair.
He stressed that inviting Tinubu and making him to face the wrath of the law would signal a new beginning for Nigeria and serve as a caution to other politicians who are loose with their speeches.
The statement reads; “For emphasis, let me quote Tinubu in this video trending on the social media, ‘Political power is not going to be served in a restaurant… it is being determined by what we are doing, to do it all cost, fight for it, grab it, snatch it…'”.
“To get political power at all cost and to fight for it, grab it and snatch it have grave implications. He is saying in essence that the forthcoming elections in Nigeria should be a do or die affair.
“This is a call to mayhem, lawlessness and pandemonium. He is simply inciting his followers to violence and to cause chaos in the country.
“Nigerians should not forget in a hurry the bloody violence of 2011 General election where over 800 souls including some innocent youth corpers were massacred just because of an inciting comment of a presidential candidate.
“And we are still living to remember how a sitting president said his ambition did not worth the blood of anyone. For Tinubu who is the ruling party’s presidential candidate to have spoken as this should worry Nigerians.
The cleric noted that a man of Tinubu’s status should not be frivolous with his speeches knowing well that comments such as “at all cost” would be considered by his ardent supporters as “an order to get the job done by whatever means even if it means killing and maiming.
“I am sure Tinubu is not too big and he has no immunity neither is he above the law of the land to be interrogated by the Department of State Services or by the Nigerian police. To avoid bloodshed in the coming election, the APC flag bearer’s comments must not be waved aside.
“People like Tinubu and his family will flee this country if there is any form of violence. But over 99 percent of Nigerians, including my humble self, have nowhere to go”, Bishop Adeoye stated.