Plans by former First Lady and wife of ex-President Goodluck Jonathan, Patience Jonathan, to hijack the All Progressive Congress in Bayelsa State to foist a candidate of her choice in the forthcoming governorship election in Bayelsa State has been uncovered.
A group simply known as the ‘Forum For Political Freedom in Bayelsa State’ (FOPOF) accused the former First Lady of using illegally acquired wealth to heavily fund and create a power bloc in the APC in Bayelsa State, using members of the defunct Transformation Ambassadors of Nigeria (TAN) whom she equally used to undermine the leadership of the PDP in the State in the period leading up to the last presidential election which the husband lost.
According to the Director General of FOPOF, Elder Adenzi Kakarite, the majority of those defecting from the PDP to the APC are not only her close associates, but vocal members of the defunct TAN in Bayelsa State, whom she wants to use to impose a candidate of her choice to run on the platform of the party in the upcoming elections.
Elder Kakarite pointed out that the former First Lady, who had promised to remain in Okrika, has now made Otuoke her political sanctuary, where she holds daily meetings and raises funds, with a view to ensuring that the defectors hijack the machinery of the APC.
The FOPOF statement further alleged that Mrs Jonathan was also funding and working with the PDP Unity Forum, made up of PDP members who were accused of anti party activities during the last State House of Assembly polls in the state, and were either expelled or suspended from the party.
FOPOF explains that most of this group of PDP members, who were readmitted into the party after the peace and reconciliation efforts of the National and State offices of the party, are being funded by the former first lady to carry out campaigns of calumny and spreading deliberate falsehood to discredit Governor Seriake Dickson.
FOPOF also warned Bayelsans to be mindful of the dirty and anti progressive antics of this group of persons, who are going about propagating falsehoods, using some vulnerable Bayelsans to state that the PDP would lose the Bayelsa governorship if it fields incumbent governor Henry Seriake Dickson in the upcoming election.
The statement read in part:
“The former First Lady is very greedy and selfish by wanting to sponsor the candidates of both the PDP and the APC, so that she can continue to milk the state dry.
“Bayelsans must rise up and resist this woman, who clearly does not mean well for Bayelsa state, because she was partly the reason for the husband’s defeat in the last presidential election; and since she couldn’t succeed at the national level, she wants to come and force a governor of her choice down our throats. No, we must resist it.”
The statement disclosed that Mrs Jonathan was meddling in Bayelsa politics, because she has fallen out of favour with her kinsmen in Okrika, Rivers state.
http://sunnewsonline.com/new/bayelsa-poll-tension-in-bayelsa-as-patience-jonathan-plans-to-hijack-apc-pdp/
Wednesday, 5 August 2015
Pope Francis: Divorced People Who Remarry Will Not Be Excommunicated From Church
Pope Francis on Wednesday said divorced people who have remarried “are still part of the Church” and should not be treated as if they have been excommunicated or cast out.
“These people are not excommunicated — they are not excommunicated! And they absolutely must not be treated as such. The are still part of the Church,” the pontiff said during his weekly general audience at the Vatican.
Speaking ahead of a highly anticipated global meeting on family life in October, he said “awareness that a brotherly and attentive welcome… is needed towards those who… have established a new relationship after the failure of a marriage, has greatly increased”.
The Church does not recognise divorce but divorcees can still take communion unless they remarry, which is considered to be adultery.
“No closed doors! Everyone can participate some way or another in the life of the Church,” Francis said, in a clear call for Catholic bishops and priests to treat those in so-called “irregular situations” with greater compassion.
People who are excommunicated are expelled from the Church, unless they repent, and are considered to be condemned to Hell in the afterlife.
The issue of remarried divorcees is likely to be addressed during the upcoming synod — a gathering of bishops — on the family, which Francis hopes will help reconcile Catholic thinking with the realities of believers’ lives in the 21st century.
According to The Guardian, the pontiff said it was not just divorced adults who needed compassion, but their children — potential future believers that the Church risks alienating by treating their parents as outcasts.
“If we look at these new relationships through the eyes of young children… we see even greater the urgency of developing in our communities a real welcome towards those who are living such situations,” he said.
Children, he said, “are the one who suffer the most” from broken families.
It would be difficult to call on parents “to do everything to educate their children according to Christian values… if we keep them at a distance from community life, as if they were excommunicated,” he explained.
Francis’s stance sets him on a fresh collision course with the Church’s most conservative members, who have fiercely resisted his attempts to soften the centuries-old institution and highlight its more human side.
http://pulse.ng/religion/pope-francis-divorced-people-who-remarry-will-not-be-excommunicated-from-church-id4044849.html
“These people are not excommunicated — they are not excommunicated! And they absolutely must not be treated as such. The are still part of the Church,” the pontiff said during his weekly general audience at the Vatican.
Speaking ahead of a highly anticipated global meeting on family life in October, he said “awareness that a brotherly and attentive welcome… is needed towards those who… have established a new relationship after the failure of a marriage, has greatly increased”.
The Church does not recognise divorce but divorcees can still take communion unless they remarry, which is considered to be adultery.
“No closed doors! Everyone can participate some way or another in the life of the Church,” Francis said, in a clear call for Catholic bishops and priests to treat those in so-called “irregular situations” with greater compassion.
People who are excommunicated are expelled from the Church, unless they repent, and are considered to be condemned to Hell in the afterlife.
The issue of remarried divorcees is likely to be addressed during the upcoming synod — a gathering of bishops — on the family, which Francis hopes will help reconcile Catholic thinking with the realities of believers’ lives in the 21st century.
According to The Guardian, the pontiff said it was not just divorced adults who needed compassion, but their children — potential future believers that the Church risks alienating by treating their parents as outcasts.
“If we look at these new relationships through the eyes of young children… we see even greater the urgency of developing in our communities a real welcome towards those who are living such situations,” he said.
Children, he said, “are the one who suffer the most” from broken families.
It would be difficult to call on parents “to do everything to educate their children according to Christian values… if we keep them at a distance from community life, as if they were excommunicated,” he explained.
Francis’s stance sets him on a fresh collision course with the Church’s most conservative members, who have fiercely resisted his attempts to soften the centuries-old institution and highlight its more human side.
http://pulse.ng/religion/pope-francis-divorced-people-who-remarry-will-not-be-excommunicated-from-church-id4044849.html
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