You Can’t Intimidate Us – G-7 Govs Tell Jonathan as PDP crisis worsens

The October 7 peace meeting between President Goodluck Jonathan and seven aggrieved governors of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) appears threatened following the eruption of renewed hostilities.

In a veiled reaction to comments made by both the presidency and the leadership of the PDP that the seven aggrieved governors, otherwise known as G-7, did not have genuine demands and that they faced possible sanctions, Jigawa State governor Sule Lamido said he and his colleagues in the group cannot be intimidated by anyone, even as he said the nation’s democracy has been dramatized.

But the presidency described the demands of the G-7 as senseless and selfish. This is just as the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has warned politicians not to overheat the polity.

A major demand of the governors that Jonathan should not contest the 2015 presidential election has divided the new PDP to which the G-7 governors, former governors as well as aspirants on the platform of the PDP belong.

There have been reports that the PDP was mulling punitive measures against the seven governors, just as the national chairman of the party, Alhaji Bamanga Tukur, chided the governors for harbouring selfish demands that were capable of undermining the PDP.

But Lamido, who spoke in Sokoto yesterday at the commissioning of a water project initiated by his Sokoto State counterpart, Aliyu Wamakko, said what the G-7 governors have advocated since the inception of the crisis were genuine and democratic: “You have to understand that the G-7 governors run governments owned by the people; our combination is made up of leaders with genuine, sincere and honest intentions to deliver credible leadership to their people. Our demands are democratic and genuine.

“Democracy cannot be dramatized. It has to be real and when it is real, you will see it demonstrated in the people. The government we run is owned by the people. We the G-7 governors are genuine, sincere and honest leaders. No matter the level of intimidation, we will stand by the truth.”

Noting that Wamakko has delivered on the mandate given to him by the people of the state, Lamido maintained that he is a pride to the north, Nigeria and the entire nation’s democracy.

“In the G-7, no amount of intimidation would deter us from actualizing the cause of ensuring that the right thing is done in the polity,” he said.