SULE LAMIDO ... You see, the PDP after coming to power again is not being careful as per the stipulations of the party’s constitution, the party’s traditions and the party’s conventions of the way of doing things and you can see it. You sack a governor for failing to pick your phone call! In Adamawa, Bamanga went to deconstruct the party and to reconstruct it. Thereafter see what he did in RiversState, see what he did to Oyinlola and no pretext. They are very, very dangerous signals in the party and we felt that things were not normal and we went round to our leaders to say that there are some things happening in the party which we all slaved for, which we all made sacrifices for and we felt that if you destroy the vehicle which will keep giving Nigeria the kind of peace we need, the kind of hope we look up to, unless we do things right as a party and as a government, we will keep on having problems. However, those in the Tukur led PDP are saying that those of you in the nPDP have not exhausted the internal party mechanism to lay out your grievances and they also accuse you of trying to destroy the old PDP for you to move over to a new party? The claim that we have not exhausted internal party mechanism is an after thought. It arose after the action. Few months ago, we started going around the country, we met our leaders. We went to Obasanjo and we said “sir, the very party that we all built is about to be ruined by Bamanga Tukur, the abrasions, the high handedness, the insensitivity is bringing us into some serious problems. We went and met Abdulsalam, we briefed Babangida, we met Alex Ekwueme and we have met virtually everybody that could intervene. After having gone round, Obasanjo called a meeting of PDP governors and for two days we met and these grievances were identified and itemised. He went and met the President and told him the problems. Now, after that, whatever you call us, either aggrieved governors or whatever, we went again and met the President and explained to him and said “sir, we have been going around in the last few months and these are the issues and we feel that there are some problems, so do something about that.” After seeing the President, we also went and met Bamanga Tukur and told him the same thing, “sir, tell the party that there are some problems” and we told him what we told President Jonathan and what we told all the other former leaders. After that nothing was done. On the day of the convention, around 12:30, myself, governor of Kano, governor of Niger, governor of Sokoto went to the President in the State Box and said “sir, there are some problems, do something; Do something please because right now Governor Nyako has been denied entry into the convention arena and all his delegates have also been denied, and the Rivers delegates who are statutory delegates being members of the National Assembly, have been changed at the venue of the convention.” And nothing was done. So, when you say that we failed to exhaust all avenues, I don’t know what you mean. And you would see that every time the so-called praise singers and drum beaters would say “don’t mind them, they can’t do anything, who are they? The power of the presidency is this or that, they can’t do anything.” We are not challenging the power of the Nigerian President because we know what the power of the Nigerian President is like. You may be powerful but your duty is to understand me as your citizen, as your party man and know my grievances. When we are taken for granted and told that the heavens will not fall, “who are they?”. And who are those saying this, these are people who had no idea how PDP was formed in 1998, these are people who had no idea how Jonathan was elected in 2011. Because to them they see the industry in the presidency, they don’t want anything that will bring the system to normalcy or they will lose the filth that they are eating. Are you then moving to another party? It will be very, very sad if that is how we are being perceived because it is part of the blackmail. I went to prison under Abacha for challenging him. I stuck my neck for democracy in Nigeria. I was one of the nine pioneer members of the PDP who formed G9, I am part of G18, I am part of G34. So, when you say I am moving out, moving out to where? You are not being fair to us. It is part of the blackmail. Moving out to leave the party to who? To who? For these scavengers? Who are these scavengers? Those who are saying that we are moving out. Those are the scavengers.
Posted on: Sat, 21 Sep 2013 08:46:40 +0000
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