THE Muslim Ummah of South West Nigeria (MUSWEN) has denied having any political meeting with any Imams or endorsing any candidate in the coming elections.

The organisation said its concern regarding the elections is peace, a position which, it said, it had expressed several times in a series of press releases and text messages to Muslims who have been regularly counselled against any act of violence.

MUSWEN made the clarification in a release signed by its media consultant, Dr Femi Abbas, in a reaction to a report that it had thrown its weight behind the candidature of Major General Muhammadu Buhari of the All Progressives Congress (APC), a situation purported to be pitching it against some other Muslim elders in the geopolitical zone.

According to the release, as a religious body, MUSWEN’s constitution does not allow it to dabble into politics, partisan or casual, and the body has consistently adhered to that constitutional provision since its inception in 2008.

The body described as insulting, attribution of political bribery to it by claiming that the Muslim apex body in the South-West distributed the sum of N10,000 to certain clerics or participants in a meeting for the purpose of endorsing the candidature of a particular contestant in the forthcoming election.

“For clarification and avoidance of doubt, MUSWEN is an Islamic body duly registered with the Corporate Affairs Commission (CAC) as the coordinating Islamic body in the South-West with its main office at Iwo Road, Ibadan, Oyo State and does not hold its meetings at Bodija Islamic Centre or anywhere else as claimed in the story,” the release said.

It also denied that any meeting of MUSWEN was ever chaired by the chairman of Oyo State Muslim Community or any other person outside the leadership of MUSWEN as insinuated by report.