As the crisis in the All Progressives Congress (APC) over the leadership crisis in the National Assembly rages, former Vice-President Atiku Abubakar has warned against allowing people with dangerous agenda of hijacking the administration of President Muhammadu Buhari. He said the recent outcomes of the National Assembly elections, contrary to insinuations, were products of interplay of politics, which was itself in constant motion, urging the party to put the crisis behind it and move on. Atiku, in a statement yesterday, urged members of the APC to emulate the unity of all the presidential contestants after the party’s Lagos primaries and support the president to form his government and get to work.
“In politics, it is a mistake to expect fixed outcomes. As the president has done, let’s all come to terms with what has happened in the interest of the system and move on. “Suffice it to say that the new administration should be allowed a smooth take-off and be allowed the atmosphere to deliver.
On this, I stand with President Buhari,” Atiku said. Atiku, in the statement by his Media Office, debunked claims that he masterminded the rebellion against the party that led to the defeat of its consensus candidates in the two chambers of the legislature. Besides, he dismissed claims of his purported plot to hijack the party and the National Assembly towards actualising his presidential ambition in 2019. He described the claim as a product of the imagination of those promoting it and asked Nigerians to ignore such an insinuation.
He spoke against the backdrop of the defeat of APC’s candidates, Senator Ahmed Lawan and Hon. Femi Gbajabiamila for the Senate presidency and House of Representatives speakership. The duo was defeated by Senator Bukola Saraki and Hon. Yakubu Dogara who had defied the party to vie for the posts. The victory of Saraki and Dogara has plunged APC in crisis as the party battled to contain the fallout. He denounced the increasing determination of some people to draw a wedge between him and the president over the matter.
“It has become crystal clear even to the blind that the motives of these hatchet men who are desperate to take every available newspaper space are to insult, vilify and calumniate the former vice-president. “We cannot allow liars, denigrators and blackmailers and their sponsors to use Atiku as platform to ingratiate themselves with President Buhari and hijack his presidency under the pretext of loving him more than anyone else. These political ventriloquists are hiding behind the cover of anonymity to achieve their sinister agenda of making Atiku the fall guy in the unfolding political developments,” he added.
Atiku also warned the party leaders against constituting themselves into opposition to Buhari. He told party chieftains to bury their differences and support the Buhari administration. According to the former vice-president in the statement signed by Head of his Media Office, Mr. Paul Ibe, it will be dangerous for any individual or group in the governing party to constitute themselves into an opposition even before the constitution and take-off of Buhari’s government. He described the developments in the polity as interplay of forces and interests that are dynamic, adding that they must, however, not be promoted to the point of threatening democracy and the new administration.
While acknowledging that it is legitimate and desirable for individuals or groups to seek to pursue their interests, Atiku said it must be done with the benefit of sustaining democracy and promoting equity, fair play and justice in mind. “Anything to the contrary may jeopardise our hard-earned democracy and constitute a clog in the wheel of the new administration,” Atiku stated.
According to him, because of the historic nature of the mandate of Buhari and the arduous challenges ahead to deliver on making Nigeria work, it is important, especially for APC members to rally behind him in the quest to enthrone good governance that will spur security, stability, economic and social development, job creation, as well as infrastructure renewal to engender a better life for Nigerians. Atiku, while restating his unalloyed commitment to the Buhari administration, pledged to back this commitment with all assets at his disposal.
“Not only did Atiku Abubakar congratulate Buhari after his emergence as the presidential candidate of the APC at the party’s national convention in Lagos, he also handed over his best assets to the Buhari Presidential Campaign. The former vice-president enthusiastically handled the diplomatic assignment of seeking endorsement for Dr. (Akinwunmi) Adesina as the President of the African Development Bank on behalf of President Buhari and would be available for any other assignments as the president pleases.
“Make no mistake about it, Atiku Abubakar holds Buhari in the highest esteem, and would always remain loyal to him, and support him in every endeavour to succeed as president. “We, the members of the president’s own family, need to lead in this direction for others to follow for the good of our nation and its peoples,” he added. Meanwhile, the secrecy surrounding the president’s ministerial list has continued to cause anxiety among APC leaders. New Telegraph gathered that Buhari’s ‘guarded attitude’ regarding the ministerial list angers party chiefs who believe that it negates an earlier agreement that the party would play a major role in the choice of ministers before the cabinet list is sent to the Senate for confirmation.
An APC senator confided in our correspondent that the ‘guarded attitude’ of the president over the ministerial list has caused disappointment among leaders of the party The senator, who made allusions to the outcome of the June 9 elections at the National Assembly where persons other than the party’s choices emerged as presiding officers, regretted that “not much appears ready to change under President Buhari.”
“From the way we are going, not much appears ready to change under this man (Buhari). How do we preach change and change our commitments almost immediately? “We promised to do things differently whereby the party will take charge and give direction rather than a few elements who form a cabal around the president taking charge like it was done under the 16 years of PDP. But the signs and signals are to the effect that a few persons have escaped with our collective victory. “Before the election, the leadership of the APC outlined a governance policy framework; how to pick ministers, the criteria to be adopted and the role the party will play. “It was agreed among them that whoever wants to serve as a minister under the APC government must be made to pass through an integrity test as it was integrity that ushered us to power.
“But what are we seeing today? I can tell you that no party leader has an idea of how the ministerial list looks; all party leaders without exception do not have an idea of who the president wants to bring on board in a government people staked their lives to put in place. “This is troubling because if the party will have no role to play in this circumstance, it then means that like what a colleague of mine said last week, we have entered a ‘one chance bus’. I hope the sealed-lip attitude that disgraced the party on June 9 will not repeat itself again”, he said. It was gathered that each time leaders of the APC asked Buhari about the ministerial list, ‘his response has been casual and non-committal.’ A prominent northern leader of the party, who pleaded for anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue, said the APC was working to avoid the pitfalls, which led to the collapse of the PDP.
“We are looking at a situation where the party will direct the affairs of government in line with our manifesto. Recall that this was largely the case during the Second Republic. “But since 1999, what we have seen is the rise of individuals whose personal interests took precedence over the general interest of the party and the people.
“The APC cannot afford to let this happen because we have a social contract with the Nigerian people who voted for the party based on the promise to bring about change in the polity,” he said. A leading member of the party and former governor of old Abia State, Dr. Ogbonnaya Onu, also said as a party, the APC would be guided by the constitution. While responding to a question as to how members of the cabinet would emerge, Onu said the APC was a party, which was determined to do things differently to ensure that Nigerians get value from government. He said: “In forming government, you have to make consultations with the party.
We are a party of change; we are a party that is looking forward to building a Nigeria that many of the problems we have today will be solved and we can’t do things the way they were done before; knowing that the way they were done before didn’t give the results that were desired.” APC National Publicity Secretary, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, was not forthcoming when asked to comment on the issue of the delayed ministerial list and whether or not the party was still expecting Buhari to present the list to party leaders for ratification. “Please why not ask the president? Direct your questions to the president on this; end of story,” he said.
Buhari’s Senior Special Assistant on Media and Publicity, Mallam Garba Shehu was also evasive on the matter. “The president had earlier told the world how he intends to pick his ministers in an interview; I think that settles the matter; no more comments my brother,” he said. The president had, in an interview with a national daily, stated that he was not going to accept ministerial nominations from governors as was the case in the past administration.
No comments:
Post a Comment