President of the Kaduna-based Civil Rights Congress (CRC), Mallam Shehu Sani, has accused governors in Northern Nigeria of using religion to misinform their subjects and to neutralise resistance from political opponents.
He said religious sentiments have dominated political campaigns for the general elections, Sani said such development portended grave dangers for the nation's democracy.
Sani, who is also the Alliance for Democracy (AD) senatorial candidate for Kaduna Central District spoke on Monday at an interactive session with reporters in Kaduna.
He said, 'most of the governors in Northern Nigeria were exploiting religious sentiments to whip their people into line in the way governors in the South exploited resource control.
'They use religion to misinform the people, they use religion to neutralise resistance, they use religion to justify injustice in the society and they use religion to bring about division among the people.
"It is unfortunate that wherever we go, we have been faced with the stark reality - people are not interested in your electoral promises, they are not interested in your capability to bring about the necessary change, the first question they ask you is, what is your religion?"
Sani said, "one of the greatest problems in the campaign and politics in Kaduna State is the high level of religious sentiments of the people."
After several years of human rights advocacy, Sani explained that he decided to join partisan politics to rescue what he described as the sliding democratic process.
"Most of these people holding political offices today are the same people who never believed in democracy.
"No politician is talking about ideas or efforts to liberate the people from the current economic retrogression and social decay.
"There is need to deviate from the so-called continuity syndrome, there is need for generation power shift.
"I am not in politics because I want to join the bandwagon of these discredited politicians but because of my conviction that we can offer a better alternative."
Sani described the National Assembly as a den of corruption and vowed that his first assignment would be to sanitise the federal legislature.
He said he would ensure the restoration of an enduring peace and religious harmony especially in the Kaduna Central district which has remained a hotbed of ethnic and religious unrest.