There was a surge of excitement
yesterday across the states whose governors defected from the Peoples
Democratic Party (PDP) to the All Progressives Congress (APC).
Supporters of the governors in Rivers, Kwara and Adamawa hailed the decision.
Governors Rotimi Amaechi (Rivers) and his Adamawa State counterpart Murtala Nyako also spoke on why they took the decision.
gress (APC) to protect
Rivers’ interests.
Nyako hinged his decision on the
“injustice” suffered by the PDP in the state under the party’s National
Chairman, Bamanga Tukur. He said all efforts to reverse the injustice
failed.
Apart from Amaechi and Nyako, Sokoto
State Governor Aliyu Wamakko, Kano State Governor Rabiu Kwankwaso and
Kwara State Governor Abdulfatah Ahmed also joined the APC in what has
been described as the biggest political cross movement since 1999.
Other leaders of the New PDP, led by Alhaji Kawu Baraje including former Kwara State Governor Dr. Bukola Saraki also signed up.
Amaechi, who is also the Chairman of the
Nigeria Governors’ Forum (NGF), noted that the issues he and the other
aggrieved members of the G-7 raised were not resolved by President
Jonathan and the PDP.
Amaechi, who spoke with reporters on
Tuesday at the Port Harcourt International Airport, Omagwa, shortly on
arrival from Abuja, said: “Yes; we have joined the APC, after the
meeting we had with (Gen) Muhammadu Buhari, (Asiwaju Bola) Tinubu and
the interim Chairman of the APC (Chief Bisi Akande).
“The governors met on Monday and decided
that we must meet with the APC leadership and when we met with the APC
leadership, it was important we took a position and the position we took
is for the good of our democracy and to ensure that Nigeria moves
forward.
“We cannot continue the way we are,
where we are. The picture painted by the PDP was as if we were begging
to come back to the PDP and issues were not being looked into; issues
were not being resolved and it is important that we resolve it one way
or the other.”
Giving an insight into the development,
the NGF chairman said the new PDP decided that it was important that the
members move into the APC and position themselves for the next
elections.
His words: “Rivers State must know that
for me to have taken that decision, I had looked at the general
interests of Rivers people. I was not elected to lead Nigeria; I was
elected to lead Rivers State and I had looked at the interests of Rivers
people and have seen that these interests were not protected in PDP.
“I have seen the fact that we are losing
our oil wells in Etche, in the Kalabari areas and that the more they
continue to pilfer these oil wells, the more we will continue to lose
our wealth.”
In spite of quitting the ruling PDP, the
NGF chairman maintained that he still held President Jonathan in high
esteem and had no personal quarrel with him.
Amaechi said: “The President (Jonathan)
and I have no personal quarrel. It is important we put that in
perspective. All the issues were issues that affect Rivers people, were
issues that affect Nigerians and I am a Nigerian. I have to address
those issues.
“He is my President and I respect him. I
respect his office, respect him as a person, respect the fact that he
is older, but then as elected governor of Rivers State, I have the
responsibility to lead Rivers State.
“If you look at what is going on, the
Federal Government is not able to fund the states anymore. They say oil
theft, but oil theft is not enough reason for which we cannot fund
ourselves.”
On the state’s development, the NGF
chairman said his administration was about to inaugurate about 300
primary schools, another 70 health centres to add to the 60 earlier
inaugurated.
He noted that his administration was
about inaugurating the Kelsey Harrison Hospital, Emenike Street, Port
Harcourt. Besides, there is a new hospital inside the Rivers State
University of Science and Technology (RSUST) in the state capital.
The new hospital is a partnership between the Rivers government and the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC).
Amaechi mentioned also the Mother and
Child Hospital at the old site of the University of Port Harcourt
Teaching Hospital (UPTH) in the old Port Harcourt Township, popularly
called Town, for which his administration had paid the NDDC about N960
million.
The governor pointed out that for the
mother and child hospital, the NDDC was expected to contribute about
N900 million – to make it N1.8 billion.
The NGF chairman said: “The new stadium
(on Port Harcourt-Owerri Expressway, near the Port Harcourt
International Airport) is about to be completed. So, development is
actually going on. We are working.”
It was jubilation galore yesterday in
Ilorin. Former – PDP members, loyalists, supporters and sympathisers
across the 16 local government areas thronged the GRA secretariat of the
former PDP.
It was all drumming, dancing and
shouting as the people came to solidarise with their leaders for joining
the APC. The atmosphere was hilarious as they continually chanted APC.
The chairman of the former New PDP,
Alhaji Ishola Balogun-Fulani, told reporters that the merger spelt the
death knell of PDP in the state.
Said he: “Our leaders have spoken the
mind of everybody in Kwara State, especially those of us in PDP. That is
the end of PDP in Kwara state. We believe in what our leaders have done
and we are now bona fide members of the APC. The PDP is dead in Kwara
State.
“We are going to carry everybody with
the people we met on ground in the new APC in the state. What we know is
that putting up the APC structure, there must be convention or
congress. All that will be done and everybody will be carried along.
“We in Kwara State have leaders and they
are Senator Bukola Saraki and Governor Abdulfatah Ahmed. According to
tradition, we don’t have any particular party in Kwara State as a must.
It is where our leaders pitch tent with that we go. We are Sarakites and
we have our structure; anywhere we move to we do that en masse. All the
executives of the wards, local councils and of the state will move en
masse to the party our leaders said they have merged with.
To a chieftain of the APC in the state, Alhaji Bashir O. Bolarinwa, merger “is a welcome development.”
Nyako said with the high level of impunity under the Tukur leadership no decent man could remain with the PDP.
The governor spoke at the Yola
International Airport on arrival from Abuja. He warned that unless
Nigerians rose to checkmate the excesses of the PDP leadership, which in
his view had become more hardened than the worst military despotism,
the country may be plunged into ethnic and religious war.
“The current PDP leaders have hijacked
the party and they seem to have no clue about what it is supposed to be
doing at all. It has reduced politics to personal quarrels, blackmail
and cheating and no decent man can remain in the party as its antics may
lead the country to civil war,” he said.
Nyako said the crises in the state
chapter of PDP was a fallout of the unjust dissolution of the state
executive by Tukur for selfish reasons, adding that all efforts to get
the issue regularised proved abortive as the national chairman refused
to heed the clarion call of well-meaning Nigerians to rescind his
decision. Tukur hails from the state.
Said the governor: “Many well meaning
individuals have called on the national chairman to rescind his action
and reinstate the state exco, but he vehemently refused to do so, and
the President did not see anything wrong with that, despite the
recommendation of many committees set up by the party that the exco be
reinstated. We have written letters and articles to get the injustice
redressed to no avail as the national chairman was hell-bent on
achieving his odious aim.”
He added that the country is in turmoil
as a result of the failure of the leadership to uphold equity and
fairness which, to him, has affected development.
When he was asked whether they felt
betrayed by the actions of the governors of Jigawa and Niger states who
backed out from the defection to the APC, Nyako said the two governors
said they were not yet ready to join the merger, “one of them said by
the grace of God I shall join you in January.”
Nyako will brief his supporters tomorrow on his discussion with the APC leadership.
“I will convene a meeting with my supporters and inform them about our pact with the APC and the agreement reached,” he said
According to the governor, part of the
agreement reached with the APC leadership is that it is the governors
that will oversee the affairs of the party in their states.
The expected political activities and
fanfare that should have characterised the defection of the Kano State
Governor Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso from the New PDP to the APC appeared
lukewarm yesterday.
At the Government House, nothing had really changed as the PDP flag is still hoisted.
On arrival in Kano yesterday, the governor settled for the day’s business by proceeding to the weekly council meeting.
His supporters were seen at the Government House discussing the political development in hushed tones.
The Director of Press to the Governor
Mallam Halilu Baba Dantiye simply said: ‘’When things are clearer,
everything will start kicking off.
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