Nigeria’s two leading parties are at war over the issue of religion. The All Progressives Congress (APC) said this afternoon that it is “gravely alarmed and totally disgusted” by the tag of Islamic party hung on it by the ruing Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).

PDP National Publicity Secretary, Chief Olisa Metuh, had in a statement issued yesterday in Abuja accused APC of having an Islamisation agenda and of “moving round the country organising protests and investing heavily in planting seeds of discord and disagreements among the people using their stock-in-trade of propaganda, deceit, falsehood and doomsday prophesies.”

PDP thanked “all Nigerians, especially true Muslims for exposing and rejecting the APC and its devilish plot. Now that their plot has been exposed, we advise the APC leaders to retrace their steps and purge themselves of their evil machinations.”

Reacting angrily to the statement this afternoon, APC’s Interim National Publicity Secretary, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, condemned “PDP’s decision to use religion as a trump card in the run-up to 2015,” warning: “Even in its desperation to cling to power at all cost, the ruling party must desist from fanning the embers of religion.”

According to Mohammed, “This irresponsible accusation by the PDP that the APC is dividing Nigerians along religious line is a new low even for a party that stands for nothing but incompetence, looting and election rigging. It is an indication that the desperadoes in the PDP will throw everything, including the kitchen sink, into their campaign to stop the wave of change blowing across Nigeria.”

APC said the reason it has refrained from joining issues with the PDP, “despite its sponsored campaign to portray the APC as an ‘Islamic’ party, is because it (APC) knows the dangers that religious politics portends for any nation that brings religion into politics, and that no nation which has descended into religious warfare has survived intact.”

“No party wishing to lead Nigeria aright can do so on the basis of religion or ethnicity. Therefore, we are compelled to warn the PDP not to play what it believes to be its trump card, the religious card, against the APC, because whatever politicians do, they must refrain from ethnic or religious politics and put their country above selfish considerations. Only an irresponsible party will play the religious card for any reason,” APC said.

The party said even when the PDP’s top leader, President Goodluck Jonathan, decided to wear religion on his sleeve, kneeling down before respectable religious leaders and pushing the pictures into the media in an apparent ploy to score political gains, the APC refrained from making any comments on it.

It said when President Jonathan also decided to lead a bloated delegation of his cabinet to an extended pilgrimage in Israel and ferret to the media back home the pictures of the delegation members at the Wailing Wall and other religious landmarks, the APC did not make an issue of the glaring exhibitionism.

“The basis of our circumspection is that in the first instance, we believe that all Nigerians are constitutionally guaranteed their right to any faith of their own choosing, and that playing their religious card should be avoided at all cost in the larger national interest,” APC said.

The party said it is neither logical nor rational to accuse a party whose 35 interim officials are almost equally split between the adherents of the two major religions (18 Muslims and 17 Christians) and cuts across all ethnic lines; a party whose elected officials - Governors, Senators, House of Representatives members etc - profess various faith and a party that has never expressed any preference for one religion over another as an “Islamic” party.

“We are therefore warning the PDP to stop this dangerous campaign forthwith, unless of course it has decided that its interest supersedes that of the nation. If the PDP fails to stop this campaign, we will be compelled to conclude that the party (PDP) is trying to plug in to the global stereotype against adherents of a certain religion just to spread fear and garner support in certain circles,”

it said.

APC appealed to Nigerians to ignore the dangerous game that the PDP is playing by labelling the APC an “Islamic” party as a scaremongering tactic that the comatose ruling party hopes will revive it.

“Nigerians have a history of religious tolerance that has served the country so well. We urge our compatriots to continue along this path, irrespective of the antics of a party that has finally drowned due to its own internal failings and contradictions,” the party said.

It called for a clean electioneering campaign that focuses on issues that are relevant to the well-being of the long-suffering people of Nigeria and issues that are edifying for the country, saying Nigerians want to know, for example, how the present situation of hopelessly can be turned around, how corruption can be stamped out; how a 24-hour electricity supply will be achieved just like in most countries of the world; how our teeming unemployed youths will be gainfully employed and how our dilapidated infrastructure will be rebuilt.

“On our part, we are focused on issues that will lift the living standard of Nigerians and make our country great again, and these we have enunciated in our manifesto which is accessible on our website. And once the green-light is given for electioneering campaign, we will be ready to unveil our strategies for achieving the stated objectives,” APC said, adding:

“For now, we ask anyone who needs to be convinced of our capability to visit any of the states under our control and see how we are utilizing the scarce resources at our disposal for quality-of-life initiatives that are serving the people well.”

•Photo shows APC spokesman Lai Mohammed.