Nigeria’s ruling party announced on July 10 that its ticket in the 2023 presidential election will not include a Christian, as presidential candidate Bola Tinubu selected Senator Kashim Shettima as his running mate in the 2023 general elections.
The announcement came less than a month after the Nigerian bishops’ conference warned that a ticket consisting only of Muslim candidates would further undermine national unity, amid years of bloody Christian persecution in the West African nation.
After the announcement Sunday, Christians expressed concern that ignoring the country’s custom of electing Muslims and Christians together could compound religious employment and property discrimination in the country.
Several high-profile members of the All Progressives Congress, Nigeria’s ruling party, having resigned their membership over the decision. The June 10 announcement was made in Daura, the hometown of President Muhammadu Buhari, who is leader of the APC. Buhari is term-limited and can not seek a third term in office.
With Catholic and other Christian leaders pushing back on the prospect that both Nigeria’s president and vice-president will be Muslims, the announcement has amplified division among Nigerians along religious lines, in a country where the fault lines of ethnicity and religion have claimed lives and livelihoods.
Nigeria, Africa’s most populous nation, has 3 major religions, more than 400 languages and 250 ethnicities. Hundreds of Christians have been killed in the country in recent months, in terror attacks that have also seen more than a dozen priests kidnapped or killed.
Nigerian society is divided between a predominantly Muslim northern region and predominantly Christian southern areas. The country has customarily elected presidential tickets with one Muslim and one Christian candidate, usually representing both religious diversity and regional balance — a practice that many Nigerians believe has helped hold together a country with deep religious, regional, and economic rifts.