Bookmakers Favour Cardinal Arinze Of Nigeria To Emerge As Next Pope

Francis Arinze of Nigeria, Peter Turkson of Ghana and Marc Ouellet of Canada have been hotly tipped as favourites by bookmakers on Monday to take over from Pope Benedict XVI who announced his resignation earlier today.
William Hill bookmakers named 80-year-old Arinze as their favourite to replace the pontiff following Monday’s shock announcement of the pontiff’s resignation with odds of 2-1, followed by Turkson at 5-2.
Coral also tipped Arinze as the likeliest successor with odds of 7-4, followed by Turkson at 2-1 and Ouellet in third place at 5-1.
The bookmaker also offered odds of 8-1 on Archbishop Angelo Scola of Italy and 10-1 on Cardinal Oscar Rodriguez Maradiaga of Honduras.
Irish bookmaker Paddy Power named Ouellet as the favourite with odds of 5-2, followed by Arinze at 3-1 and Turkson at 4-1.

During the 2005 conclave of the Vatican’s College of Cardinals that elected Benedict, Arinze was considered “papabile,” or a potential successor to the late John Paul II.
A quarter of the cardinals that can elect a new pope are Italian. The last non-Italian pope before Benedict, who is German, and his Polish predecessor John Paul II was Adrian VI, who died in 1523.
Arinze and Turkson, the head of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace who is considered a progressive candidate, are among 18 Africans in the Vatican’s College of Cardinals.
InformationNigeria