The leadership crisis that has engulfed the Benue State chapter of the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) might have taken a new dimension with claims and counter-claims of who is the authentic chairman in the state.
But speaking with Daily Independent in Makurdi on Sunday, the state CAN chairman, Archbishop Yiman Okwar, who insisted that he remains the authentic CAN chairman, describing those who claimed to have purportedly removed him as “wolves in sheep clothing”
He further stated that the leaders that claimed to have removed him “have adopted the spirit of Sanballat, Tobiah and Geshem to engage in all manner of falsehood and mischief to pull down the body of Christ in Benue State”
In a statement dated 10 July, some leaders of four Christian blocs in state allegedly dissolved the executive of the state CAN led by Okwar.
The statement, which was signed by the Bishop of Makurdi diocese, Attanitius Usuh, and representatives of three other Christian blocs, advised Okwar to cease “forthwith” to act in that capacity.
They stated that the decision to dissolve the state CAN was allegedly taken at the end of a meeting of Benue Church Leaders’ Consultative Conference (CLCC) on 11 June.
However, the CLCC took the decision against the advice of the national secretariat of CAN that conducted the election that brought in Orkwar even as the CLCC disregarded the letter of the national leadership of the body recognising Orkwar as the authentic CAN chairman in the state.
However, Orkwar who said he remains the only CAN chairman, explained that after his election in October 2012, the aggrieved leaders had written a petition against his election but after investigation by the national body, his election was upheld.
The CAN chairman explained that after that the four leaders that the statement “employed all manner of intrigues and mischief to make the Christian community in Benue ungovernable, a borrowed syndrome presently characterising the Nigerian polity.”
He also observed that two of the signatories, Bishop N.N Inyom and Rev. C.T Ishom, lacked “the powers and competence to sign any document” for their blocs, describing their actions as “impersonation”
Orkwar further observed that the third signatory, “Tor Uja has never been a CPFN/PFN chairman, therefore, he lacks the competence to sign any document on behalf of the bloc”
