CAN and its cassock, By Kunle Awosiyan

Some pastors visited my facebook wall yesterday to protest against my post on Christian Clerics who attended the unveiling of Senator Kashim Shettima, the running mate of the APC presidential candidate, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu.

What they saw was the clerics’ manner of dressing and straight away they condemned the men and women in the pictures. ‘They are fake, they are impostors, they are not Christians’, the noise was deafening.

I was disappointed not because of my post but because those that should know the difference between fake pastors and fake stories joined to condemn the post and the author.

However, today, Tinubu Campaign Team led by a revered journalist, Mr. Bayo Onanuga bemoaned the character of the critics and said that Tinubu never hired clerics to the event but that the upcoming bishops came to grace the occasion because they had no issue with APC Muslim-Muslim ticket but CAN.

It was a day that members of the orthodox church joined the pentecostal to condemn the cassock of the “unknown priests”.

The irony is that in this season of politics, the pentecostal church has quickly forgotten it is a breakaway from the orthodox church.

Of course the clerics are not the big names and so they should be regarded as carpenters and roadside mechanics, according to CAN.

Hmmmm, I feel for the clerics who are associating with Tinubu at this time because like some of us, we are going to feel the burn for loving the man they hate.

Critics even went to the extent of publishing the names and mobile numbers of the gentlemen just as the pharisees did to the disciples of Jesus Christ who were hiding when Jesus was being led to the Golgotha.

For some of my friends to have opened the story of Ballam and Ballack over my post on Tinubu, then there is a serious problem in this country and I don’t think reasons can prevail because the minds of many religious people seem to have been programmed. It is either Christian-Muslim or nothing.

For friends who came to raise curses, please be reminded that the “curse causeless shall not stand”, the Bible says.

It amazes me that some of those who claim to be pastors find it easy to offer curses when things are not going their way. They said the gowns were bought in Oshodi and Jankara markets.

If it is true that the cassock is sold in Oshodi market and that a mad man can buy, sew and wear, why did it then become a measure of priesthood for those who wore it to Tinubu’s programme?

Is Cassock a CAN identity? And why do critics who claim to detest fake news now fall in love with fake stories on blog sites and social media platforms when it is anti-Tinubu.

If the stories favour Tinubu, to them it must be false but if a fake story is against Tinubu, to them it is authentic. The critics who are using CAN to set Christian standard have forgotten that there was a time in this country when money was allegedly being shared by the top echelon of the Christian association.

The question is, will I make heaven if I refuse to join CAN? yes of course I will because my salvation will not be determined by the church but by His grace.

Pastor Tunde Bakare has given us an idea that the body of Christ should organised a summit and present its agenda to all presidential candidates and their running mates instead of kicking against a particular party like an opposition party.

To the clerics that were at the event yesterday, I bless you even though they tagged you as fake.

-Awosiyan is a Lagos-based journalist