Warns APC lawmakers not to let PDP return
President fails to broker truce in House leadership crisis
President Muhammadu Buhari yesterday listed qualities he would consider in choosing his ministers. He said nobody of questionable character would make the list. Buhari, while featuring on breakfast programme on the Nigerian Television Authority (NTA), ‘Good Morning Nigeria,’ also reiterated his position that he would not interfere in the leadership crisis that has forced the National Assembly to adjourn twice since its inauguration on June 9. Buhari, who in an opinion article published in Washington Post last week revealed that his cabinet would not be ready before September, said he would take time to appoint persons with proven integrity as ministers.
“From what I have seen so far, we need very patriotic Nigerians, Nigerians that can work very hard with knowledgeable experience, committed Nigerians to be in charge of ministries. A lot of institutions in Nigeria are compromised, everybody for himself and God for all of us. It is most unfortunate. “We have people, educated and experienced people, but everybody seems to be working for himself on how much they could get away with as soon as possible. “We have to look for technocrats and politicians. We have to look out for decent people in this class to give them the responsibility of being in charge of ministries and important parastatals,” the president added. The president warned feuding members of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in the National Assembly against the dire consequences of the festering leadership crisis rocking the federal legislature.
The president told them that they should set aside their differences and close ranks so as not to give room for the return of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) that was ousted in the last general elections after 16 years in power. According to the president, rather than putting personal ambitions at the fore front, the lawmakers should consider the interest of the party and Nigerians and resolve the leadership crisis while supporting his administration to succeed. He said he was not interested in interfering in the leadership crisis since the National Assembly was an independent arm of government. He said: “I have to be very sensitive to the constitution of the country. I do not like to be told by anybody, especially the legislators, that I am interfering in their matter.
There are three arms of government: executive, legislature and the judiciary. Over the last 16 years, they have developed the system of choosing their leaders. “There is no way I can directly interfere. All I can do through the party is to appeal to their conscience that what I already observed, we should go over it as soon as possible. When I say we, I mean the APC. “We cannot win the battle and lose the war. We must not allow individual personal ambitions to succeed in dividing us and allow PDP to deal with us.
“This is what the National Assembly has allowed so far, the APC is giving the PDP the allowance to take over the government again. This is extremely disheartening, I am very worried.” The president also expressed concern that crude oil theft was still going on in the Niger Delta. According to him, the relevant shipping documents are being compiled for onward submission to countries of destination of stolen Nigerian crude oil. “The search continues; up to the third of this month, our crude was still being illegally lifted by people who are in government. “We are trying to get these documents. We are getting the cooperation of the international community. “We are going to make sure that those who perpetrated this theft against Nigeria are faced with facts very soon and are taken to our courts.
“We’ve got the cooperation of some of the countries of the destinations of our crude and we are discussing with them. “We have to maintain high confidentiality so that we don’t risk some of the loyal Nigerians that are helping us to trace the destinations of this stolen crude and then the accounts into which the monies are being paid instead of the Federal Government account,” the president said. He described his recent trip to the United States as successful as he was able to extract the commitment of Washington to assist and support Nigeria toward tackling the economic and security challenges it was facing.
He said that the US and other European countries had also pledged to assist Nigeria by putting in place necessary security mechanism in the Gulf of Guinea to help check the theft of the country’s crude. Meanwhile, the PDP has said the resort to insult and abuse by the APC whenever issues of governance are raised is due to its lack of experience and direction. In a statement yesterday by its National Publicity Secretary, Mr. Olisa Metuh, PDP said insults and abuse could not be the solution but a confirmation of the insincerity and emptiness of the APC as a ruling party.
It said APC failed to provide answers to burning national issues that bordered on the government’s lack of transparency, abuse of power, dwindling economy, escalating insecurity and apparent failure of governance since it assumed power. “Furthermore, the nation is still waiting for the APC and the presidency to address the issue of the divisive and tendentious statement by President Buhari who declared to the world that he would run a discriminatory government based on voting pattern in the last general elections, in clear violation of his oath of office and the provisions of the constitution,” the statement added. It said the APC failed to address the issue of the recent harassment of former First Lady, Mrs. Patience Jonathan, at the Port Harcourt Airport.
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