The Presidency on
Thursday accused the five northern governors currently on consultation
visits to elder statesmen across the country of harbouring a secret
agenda.
It said the agenda of the governors – Aliyu
Babangida (Niger); Rabiu Kwakwanso (Kano); Aliyu Wamakko (Sokoto); Sule
Lamido (Jigawa); and Murtala Nyako (Adamawa) – was beyond the professed
desire to resolve the crisis in the Rivers State chapter of the People
Democratic Party.
“These governors have their own agenda. They
have already set the agenda long before now. They are just using the
Rivers State scenario as an excuse. Whatever the agenda is, they know
and God knows, but this continued move and perambulation show that there
are things they are not telling us,” Special Assistant to the President
on Public Affairs, Dr. Doyin Okupe, told journalists in Abuja.
Okupe
said it would be wrong for Nigerians to assume that Aliyu and his
brother governors from the north were concerned with the happenings in
Rivers State.
He said the governors would have ended their
consultations after they met with President Goodluck Jonathan last week
if indeed the issue of the crisis in Rivers and the desire to restore
peace to the PDP were the governors’ aim.
The President’s aide
said the governors were merely interested in the 2015 elections though
he said the odds still favoured Jonathan.
The governors had had a
series of meetings with ex-dictators Ibrahim Babangida and Abdulsalami
Abubakar; and ex-Presidents Shehu Shagari and Olusegun Obasanjo.
They
also met with Jonathan and reportedly demanded from the President the
removal of the National Chairman of the PDP, Alhaji Bamanga Tukur, as a
precondition for peace in the party.
They were said to be
planning to meet other leaders like Gen. Yakubu Gowon, Chief Ernest
Shonekan and Lt.-Gen. T.Y. Danjuma (retd.)
Tukur had on Wednesday
disowned a statement by his media aide, Oliver Okpala, in which the PDP
chairman castigated Aliyu and the other governors for asking for his
removal.
In the denied statement, Tukur had reportedly described
the governors’ demand as unguarded and asked them to desist from acts
which he said were capable of truncating the nation’s democracy.
Though
The PUNCH learnt that the PDP boss had ratified the Okpala’s statement
before jetting out of the country on Tuesday, a denial by another of his
aide, Ahmed Gara Gombe, said Tukur did not approve the statement.
Gombe’s
statement read in part, “As a matter of fact, the National Chairman is
happy that the governors are indeed helping his reconciliation efforts,
particularly their meeting with the President (Jonathan) which (Rivers
State Governor Rotimi) Amaechi’s face-off with the President was the
main issue and substantial progress was made by the governors and the
President in fence- mending.”
But Okupe insisted that the
governors were not truthful in their words, adding that what they had in
mind was not what they were “telling the Nigerian public.”
He
said, “There is no unrest in Rivers State; nobody is burning any house
in Rivers State. Commuters, traders and businessmen are going about
their business in Rivers State. the governor is junketing abroad or
rather having a good time. All this talk is just in the imagination of
those who want to stoke the fire that does not exist. There is no
problem in Rivers State.
“It does not really matter; it is a free
country, you can move around, you can consult around, you can do
whatever you want, provided you stay within the law. What you are seeing
is politics. Like the President said, ‘this is 2015 live.’”
He
said none of the governors had the courage to leave the PDP though he
said there were enough reasons for many of them to leave the party.
Okupe
said, “It is becoming obvious to dissidents within the PDP that there
is nowhere else to go, that is why you hear everybody saying we are not
leaving the PDP.
“There is nowhere else to go. So, it is better
to fight and fight inside; it is better to present your case and let it
be sorted inside. What you are seeing is clear-cut announcements by
those who are ….I don’t want to call them dissidents, but those who are
not very happy with the way situations in the party are.
“They
are telling the world; they are telling the people who care to listen
that ‘yes our party may have its problems, may have its faults, may have
its inadequacies, but there is no alternative than to be inside’.
“There
are more than enough reasons for people to leave, but you know, you
don’t leave a winning platform politically; it is politically suicidal
to do so. None of these governors, as you can see for yourself, is
prepared to move.
“What they are trying to do is to move around
and ensure that they are heard and at least maybe some of their demands
are met, but nobody is going anywhere, because the PDP is still the real
party to beat.”
The governors’ anger notwithstanding, Okupe said
the President would still win the 2015 presidential election if he
decided to run.
He said, “President Jonathan has not decided and
has not told anybody that he is running, that is the truth. If he
decides to run, nobody can beat him, it’s not possible.
“The
calculations are in his favour, the odds are in his favour, the national
supports are in his favour, the performance index is in his favour.”
On
the registration of the All Progressives Congress by the Independent
National Electoral Commission, Okupe said it was a good omen and
commended the President for being a statesman. READ MORE: http://news.naij.com/42229.html
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