Days after Senator Godswill Akpabio from Akwa Ibom North West senatorial district was elected the President of the Senate, Vice-President Kashim Shettima has apologised to Muslim faithful and lawmakers for insisting on the election of a Christian Senate President for the 10th National Assembly.<\/p>\n
Shortly before the election, the Vice President had said to the chagrin of Muslims: \u201cUnder the current dispensation, the worst incompetent Southern Christian is better than the most puritanical Northern Muslim for the Presidency of the Senate of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.\u201d<\/p>\n
The comments intended to ensure a religious balance since the President and himself were of the Muslim faith drew the ire of many, especially Muslims who felt betrayed and made to play second fiddle.<\/p>\n
But in an interview BBC Hausa Service Shettima explained: \u201cThe comment I made is for the benefit of Nigeria but was misinterpreted. I received confidential intelligence reports that are not suitable for public disclosure.<\/p>\n
\u201cI sincerely did not have any intention to cause harm to any individual or the Islamic religion. However, being an imperfect human being, I seek forgiveness from the community and from my Lord. I pledge that I will never reiterate such words again, as I am a devout Muslim, and my family lineage has faithfully followed the path of Islam for more than 1,400 years.<\/p>\n
\u201cTo anyone who was hurt by my statement, I apologise, as it was never my intention to disparage any religion.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Days after Senator Godswill Akpabio from Akwa Ibom North West senatorial district was elected the President of the Senate, Vice-President Kashim Shettima has apologised to Muslim faithful and lawmakers for insisting on the election of a Christian Senate President for the 10th National Assembly. Shortly before the election, the Vice President had said to the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":64176,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5772,15,7],"tags":[3601,5171,3216],"class_list":["post-64816","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-faith","category-jobs","category-news","tag-christian","tag-muslim","tag-shettima"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64816","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=64816"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64816\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/64176"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=64816"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=64816"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=64816"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}