How far about the APC’s registration?
I can assure you that APC will be registered soon. APC has a date with history and our leaders must bend backwards. I have been quite impressed with the level of achievements so far, because nobody gave this thing a chance. They thought it will unravel at the level of finding a common name. They thought the logo was going to divide it. I believe a lot of sacrifices have gone into this by all the merging parties. That is why it amuses when people tag us as an Islamist party.
What are the chances of your party in the 2015 elections?
The 2015 elections will not be about one party replacing the other or about one president being replaced with another. 2015 elections will be whether Nigeria will continue to stay as one country. It will be where about how do we avert imminent civil war again. That is why the leaders of the APC must be able to make the ultimate sacrifice to rescue Nigeria.
But I can assure you that the APC will not only field candidates for all elective offices in the 2015 elections but will win the majority of seats in the elections.
What do you think is the solution to the insurgency in some parts of the country?
In Nigeria today, there is a low burning war. The entire North-east is like it is not part of Nigeria. The insecurity in the North-West is palpable. Why the ACN has restrained itself from making further comments on the Boko Haram insurgency is because of the PDP and others’ mischief to label us an Islamist party. That is completely untrue. But as long as we are unable to address the root causes of Boko Haram, for so long will the solution elude us.
We are not saying that there might not be religious overtones in the issue of Boko Haram, bad governance, corruption and hardship have created a fertile market for Boko Haram. The time bomb that is waiting to explode is youth unemployment and this might be more dangerous than any other form of ailment that we have seen so far. If we don’t tackle this, nobody will be secure in Nigeria. Therefore, the goal of any government is to ensure that they are able to calm the restiveness of our youths.
There are insinuations that Gen. Babangida and former Vice President, Atiku Abubakar, are jostling for APC Board of Trustees chair. What is your take on this?
The Nigerian rumour mill is the most active in the world and it amuses me when some stories make page one or headlines of newspapers. A party which is yet to be given its certificate of registration; a party which is yet to have permanent offices; a party yet to have its convention at which ward, local and state officials would be elected, a party that has not even got the guidelines for primaries election within and outside the party, how can that party all of a sudden now start talking about board of trustees (BoT).
I think the alleged jostling by General Ibrahim Babangida, Abubakar Atiku and others for the BoT chair of the APC is a figment of the rumour peddlers’ imagination. The people you have mentioned so far, am not aware that they have indicated to join the APC. Where will the issue of fighting for the chairmanship of the BoT come from? “
What is the position of your party on the Rivers State crisis?
What is happening in Rivers state should be seen as not a local matter. Even in a war, war starts on a very insignificant misunderstanding. But what is happening in Rivers state is worrisome in many respects, because it is clearly not manufactured in Rivers. It is manufactured in Abuja. It is a proxy war between the president on one hand and the governor of Rivers on the other. And it has much to do with the perceived impression of the president that Amaechi would be a stumbling block not just to the PDP, but his own ambition to run a second term.
Now what is the genesis of the Rivers state problem? It started with the perceived role of Ameachi in his position as chairman of the Governors Forum as being too confrontational and as if he is behaving as a unionist, but Amaechi’s defense was that he was speaking on behalf of his colleagues as governors. Issues such as the Sovereign Wealth Fund or the excess crude account or issue that border on federalism, Amaechi became the mouthpiece of the governors to advance their position against what they saw as the overbearing influence of the centre. But the presidency and the PDP saw that as being confrontational, so that earned him a bad name in their book.
The unending internal crisis in the PDP which has pitched the governors against the chairman of the party is again a sore point in the presidency because the governors as a block were unhappy when former governor Olagunsoye Oyinlola was removed as the secretary of the PDP; they were unhappy also with the treatment Governor Muritala Nyako of Adamawa state was getting. So they asked Amaechi to speak out their minds which he did. That again, in was counted against him.
The disputed oil wells between Bayelsa and Rivers states, when Amaechi suddenly discovered that the funds accruing from this disputed well which was put in suspense account, had now been credited to the Bayelsa state government. Of course, he naturally got upset it and he led the delegation of the elite in the state to go and complain to the president. Again, didn’t endear him to the president. Overall, there is the issue of no love-lost between Amaechi and the president’s wife, who also happens to be from Rivers state.
On many occasions, there have been reports of his being snubbed by the first Lady. Matters came to a head during the Governors Forum elections. The presidency was very unhappy and uncomfortable and mounted a campaign against Amaechi’s second coming. Despite the shared numbers of the PDP controlling 23 governors, when elections were held, Amaechi came top and the president did not behave statesmanly.
If the president had immediately issued a letter of congratulations to Amaechi, that would have probably given the image of a statesman, but he went the other way by recognizing the Jang’s faction; that means he does believe in majority rule, he does not believe in the rule of law.
I think the humiliation that the president suffered from the governors forum that is now spiraling into what is happening in Rivers. We must be honest the role the police has played in this matter is condemnable. When you have a police commissioner who says the problem in my state is the governor, then you know that he must have had some assurances from somewhere else. When we in the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) said put all the problems on the doorsteps on the president, this is what we were saying.
Source: Leadership
No comments:
Post a Comment