Six Million Rivers Christians Elect CAN Leaders ‘Morrow

The Rivers State Council of the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN)- the umbrella body of over six million Christians in the state, will tomorrow elect a new leadership. The election is scheduled to hold at the CAN secretariat in Port Harcourt, the state capital.
Over 80 delegates drawn from the state executive council of the association including state officers, former chairmen, local government coalition, youth/women and delegates from the five families of CAN are expected to vote at the election in which 11 offices are at stake.
A CAN source explained that the chairmanship of the association is rotated among its five families, in line with its constitution. The CAN families include Catholic Secretariat of Nigeria (CSN), Christian Council of Nigeria (CCN) and Christian Pentecostal Fellowship of Nigeria (CPFN) and /Pentecostal fellowship of Nigeria (PFN).
The rest are the Organisation of African Instituted Churches (OAIC) and TEKAN/ECWA.
The out-going state chairman of CAN, Apostle Zilley Aggrrey is from CPFN/PFN. According to our source, each family will have 10 accredited voters while each local government, youth wing, women’s wing, state officers and former chairmen of the association will have a vote each.
Our source paid glowing tribute to the out-going executive headed by Apostle Zilley Aggrey for spearheading the Ecumenical Centre Project at the Greater Port Harcourt City at which over 275 plots have been secured in partnership with the Rivers State Government which it said, had pledged to ensure the centre comes on stream.
Aggrey was also said to have, with the support of the state government, renovated the state CAN office, acquired a power transformer worth over N1million, vehicles and other facilities to make the secretariat functiona.
It was gathered that two offices will be keenly contested for, at tomorrow’s election. They include the office of the state chairman being contested by Archbishop Benjamin .A. Obomanu, MFR and Bishop Deborah Ibim Anabraba both of OAIC to which CAN zoned the chairmanship.
The other office is that of the secretary where Rev (Dr) Boma Williams, Venerable Jolly Ndubuisi and Prof Abere all from CCN are contesting. It was reliably gathered that the other offices recorded one contestant each who may all be returned unopposed.
Our CAN source said the new leadership would be expected to be more vocal on all issues affecting Christians including politics, execute projects on the drawing board and initiate programmes and projects that would benefit Christians in the state.

Donald Mike-Jaja