Abuja, 31 January, 2022 / 8:30 pm (ACI Africa).
The leadership of the Catholic Church “does not play partisan politics”, a Nigerian Priest has sought to clarify ahead of his country’s general elections scheduled to take place next year.
Addressing journalists at a media briefing on January 28 ahead of the Communication Week, Fr. Uche Obiechina said, “Catholic Church does not play partisan politics but members of the church are expected to play party politics, just that the church as an institution ought not to play party politics.”
“Party politics means politics of APC, PDP, PRP and whatever,” Fr. Obiechina said in reference to various political parties in Nigeria, and added, “The church cannot play such politics, because there are members of the church that are in APC, PDP or PRP. Because of this we cannot identify with any political party."
The Priest who oversees the Church and Society department at the Catholic Secretariat of Nigeria (CSN) noted that what the Church does is to “recognize individual church members and to encourage them (to) participate actively in politics but not to support the parties.”
“The Church identifies with our sons and daughters in various political parties. And that is why the church will not field a candidate and say vote for PDP or APC. The church does not do that and would not do that,” he said.