REACTIONS have been mixed over this week's vote of no confidence passed on the President Umaru Musa Yar'Adua's administration by the Christian Association of Nigeria, CAN, for its failure to contain the increasing spate of violent religious crises in some parts of the North that have claimed hundreds of innocent lives.

Whereas the immediate past National Secretary of the Pentecostal Fellowship of Nigeria, PFN, Bishop Joseph Ojo did not agree that the President Yar'Adua and his deputy, Dr. Goodluck Jonathan should be held liable for the incessant violent disruptions of the nation's peace, Rev. Chris Okotie said the vote of no confidence was long overdue.

In two separate interviews, Bishop Ojo said: "I do not agree that the president and the vice president should be held liable. It will take a collective effort of all Nigerians to arrest the ugly situation in the North where innocent persons are slaughtered like cows."

But Okotie who contested the presidential election in 2003 and 2007 under the platform of the Fresh Democratic Party, told our reporter that such a vote of no confidence by the umbrella body of Christians in the country was long in coming, adding that the president has not understood the dynamics of governance and hence he is not abreast of the state of nation.

"We cannot totally hold him responsible for the failure because the man is not well and cannot fulfill his obligations to the state nor himself," the head pastor of Household of God Church said, "CAN has actually been merciful to the man till now before telling the world how Christians feel about the ugly developments in the North.

"For me, to pass a vote of no confidence on the president in late February 2009 is an act of mercy because the man has not appreciated the enormous responsibility the office he is occupying has bestowed on him," Okotie added.

Addressing media men in Abuja, the CAN secretary, Engineer Samuel Salifu also said that the umbrella body of Christians in Nigeria would soon despatched a bill to the National Assembly to enable adult Nigerians to carry arms as part of measures to forestall the state of insecurity in the North.

Bishop Ojo subscribes to this suggestion, saying if Nigerians carry guns, and cutlasses, daggers, bows and arrows, knives, matches and petrol at all times there will not be any incident of burning churches in that part of the country.

"To that one, I agree. We all should be licenced to carry guns and let us see if there will be any other incident of religious riot in the North," he added.

On this proposal, Okotie said CAN may have taken that route out of frustration as a result of the state of insecurity in the country, adding that security is paramount for the socio-political development of the nation.

"It is just a measure of the state of security in the nation," the flambouyant preacher said, adding it will be good if the National Assembly will pass such a bill that will enable every Nigerian to carry arms and protect themselves from marauders in the religion.

"Security is paramount to any given people and I will therefore not hesitate to endorse such a move," he said "but it must be done through a legal means to avoid misuse of such hands if they find their ways to wrong hands.|