Photo: Vanguard

Pastor Ayo Oritsejafor

Abuja — The Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) has said that no amount of internal crisis could split the organisation.

The association also said it had put in place appropriate mechanisms for the resolution of the issues in contention.

In its first major reaction to the alleged plan by the Catholic bloc to pull out its fold, the leadership of CAN in a communique read to journalists Tuesday in Abuja by the association's General Secretary, Dr. Musa Asaka, after a meeting of its President-in- Council (PIC), comprising all the blocs, appealed to the media to exhibit social responsibility for which they have been known in reporting the seeming crisis.

Against the background of criticisms against CAN President, Pastor Ayo Oritsejafor, over his alleged romance with the government, the PIC reaffirmed its implicit and explicit confidence in its leadership.

The communique was signed by CAN's Vice-President/Head, Organisation of African Instituted Churches, Most Rev. Daniel Okoh; Head, Christian Council of Nigeria, Most Rev. Emmanuel Udofia; Head, "Tarayar Ekklisiyar Kristi A Nijeriya," a conglomeration of 13 church groups in CAN/ECWA Fellowship, Most Rev. Emmanuel Dziggau and Head, Christian Pentecostal Fellowship of Nigeria/Pentecostal Fellowship of Nigeria.

It was also resolved: "That CAN is a family; as a family, it has its own internal mechanisms for resolving its issues. CAN has therefore set in motion the processes for resolving these issues.

"The President-in-Council reaffirms its implicit and explicit confidence in the CAN President, Pastor Ayo Oritsejafor, in all his public statements on behalf of CAN.

"We appeal to the well known sense of social responsibility of the press in handling the current situation."