The Northern Elders Forum, NEF, has accused politicians of playing a game with Nigerians’ faith, intelligence, and future.

Hakeem Baba-Ahmed, the spokesman of NEF, spoke while reacting to the controversy trailing the Muslim-Muslim ticket of presidential candidates in the country.

There have been claims that Bola Tinubu, the All Progressives Congress (APC) presidential candidate, may pick a Muslim as his running mate.

While some Nigerians oppose such a move, the Senate Chief Whip, Orji Uzor-Kalu, backed reports of Tinubu picking a Muslim as his running mate.

Speaking on the controversy generated, Tinubu said he would pick a Northern Christian as his running mate.

Reacting to the controversy, Ahmed said ordinary Nigerians are no longer interested in the religious background of their leaders.

Featuring on Channels Television, the NEF spokesman said politicians are using religion as a tool to get into power in 2023.

According to Ahmed, “I think there is a lot of deception here, which has gathered momentum as politicians began to learn more and more about the weaknesses of ordinary Nigerians." 90 percent of us ordinary Nigerians are devout Christians and Muslims. We care very deeply about personal faith.

We care about the fortunes of our faith. We don’t like to be attacked or affected because we are Christians or Muslims.

By and large, in most instances, our faith is faith. Politicians use faith and other forms of identity politics to wrestle for power.

This is basically what it is and it is becoming clearer that every time politics comes, religion surfaces as a factor.

What it does is that it creates this idea that Nigerians would fight because the vice-president is not a Christian or a Muslim.