By Seyifunmi Odunuga
A socio-political group in Oyo State, The Future Is Now (TFIN), has condemned what it described as desperate move to Islamize the state by a former Governor Rasheed Ladoja, warning that dividing citizens and residents of the state along religious lines will spell doom for the state.
The group in a statement by its Coordinator, Comrade Segun Akindele, disclosed that the former governor all in the attempt to back the gubernatorial candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Senator Teslim Folarin, on Monday, invited two Muslim clerics from every mosque in Ibadan, to his house and told them that a Muslim must take over as governor in the state.
Akindele while describing the move as unacceptable, maintained that the former governor is pursuing an Islamisation agenda knowing fully well that there is a Muslim/Muslim ticket at the federal and thus pushing for a Muslim governor, disclosing that the three senators-elect in the state are Muslims as well as more than half of those declared as winners of the House of Representatives election.
He stated further that since the inception of the present democratic dispensation in 1999, the state has produced more Muslims as governor, lamenting why the desperation to have a Muslim governor this time around.
He wondered why the former governor who is respected as an elder statesman would descend so low to rubbish his name on the altar of religion, stating that people of the state in spite of religious differences have lived and will continue to live peacefully together in peace and harmony and not elevating religion to determine who will be their governor.
Akindele berated the former governor for travelling on what he described as grossly irresponsible and immature divisive route that is capable of setting the state on fire all in the name of wanting to install a Muslim governor.
He then called on those who meant well for the state to call the former governor to order before he plunges the state into religious crisis, saying Ladoja was backing a leading gubernatorial candidate who is a Christian until he brought religion to political space in the state.
According to him, “We call on our dear former governor not to set the state on fire through Islamization agenda knowing fully well that the people of the state whether Muslims, Christians and Traditionalists and freethinkers have always co-existed peaceably in line with the Yoruba’s lifelong history of love and understanding with almost all families having members practicing one or two of these faiths and everyone joyfully celebrating each other’s festivals.”
