Matthew Kukah, the Catholic Bishop of Sokoto Diocese, has cautioned supporters of politicians against fighting over their principals.
Bishop Kukah said opposition politicians are friends jostling for their piece of the national cake and shouldn’t be taken too seriously.
The clergy spoke on Channels Television’s Sunrise Daily programme on Tuesday hours after the presidential candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Bola Tinubu; and his Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) counterpart, Atiku Abubakar, bantered at the private wing of the Nnamdi Azikwe International Airport in Abuja on Monday.
Kukah, who is the Convener of the National Peace Committee, said political fanatics should learn a lesson from the public exchange of pleasantries between Tinubu and Atiku.
He said the message from the banter is that political loyalists of both frontline presidential candidates for the 2023 election should be wise, eschew violence and not kill themselves for people drinking from the same pool.
“These politicians are struggling and they’ve lived their lives struggling for the national cake which they will distribute amongst themselves. It is therefore in the interest of ordinary Nigerians to know that they have to vote to stay alive,” the cleric said.
Kukah also said that enthusiasts of politicians “must understand that these politicians know themselves” regardless of their grandstanding and posturing.
He, therefore, advised supporters of candidates all over the country to be “a bit more restrained and wise”.