The current challenges facing the country are a result of the ruling All Progressives Congress’ [APC] incompetence and its inability “to transform from an opposition party to a party in government three years after it got power,” former Jigawa State governor Alhaji Sule Lamido said in Abuja yesterday. Speaking at the 15th Daily Trust Dialogue, Lamido, who was a guest speaker, said after three years in office, APC has carved a niche for itself in propaganda and blame game coloured with glossy lies. He said the party is being led by “hate heroes.”
Lamido was also Nigeria’s Minister of Foreign Affairs in 1999-2003. He was a member of the House of Representatives under the platform of the defunct Peoples Redemption Party [PRP] in the Second Republic. He said despite blackmailing PDP and associating it with everything evil, the ruling APC is now grappling with the same issues it accused PDP of doing. He said, “They called PDP with anything evil. It’s called Boko Haram, corruption, fuel subsidy and so on. But today and after three years in power, APC has brought back fuel subsidy, Boko Haram is still there. Kidnapping is now an enterprise. Corruption is everywhere.”
The PDP presidential hopeful also jeered at President Muhammadu Buhari, who was represented at the event by Secretary to the Government of the Federation Boss Mustapha, over the fuel scarcity across the country as well as the Buhari administration’s anti-graft crusade. Lamido alleged that Tinubu, who was represented by Chief Wale Edun, could not attend the event “because his car is there on fuel queue in Lagos. He could not get fuel to come to this event.” The former governor also questioned the integrity of the ruling party’s anti-corruption fight. he said the APC administration is retrieving looted funds stashed abroad by the former head of state General Sani Abacha, even though Buhari had once said Abacha never stolen any money.
He said, “The attorney general has only recently signed an agreement for the return of another money stolen by Abacha, and someone said he did not steal anything.” In another indirect reference to Buhari, he said while he and some other Nigerians stood against Abacha’s draconian rule and corruption, some people “were busily involved in the same government while the looting took place. They never raised a voice against it. And now they are talking of fighting corruption.”
Lamido said the situation in Nigeria is very dicey with insecurity, despair and frustration reaching their peaks across the country. He said despite the myriad of problems associated with PDP, the party had helped in stabilizing the country and uniting its people. He said in 1999, while the country was still grappling with uncertainty and despair after the annulment of June 12 elections purportedly won by Chief MKO Abiola, the party decided to heal the political wounds of the country by picking its candidate from the Southwest where Abiola hailed from. He said PDP earlier considered Chief Bola Ige, Chief Abraham Adesanya and Chief Olu Falae as its presidential candidate “but having analysed their ethnic appeal and national acceptance, the party went for Chief Olusegun Obasanjo.”
He said two years after it took over, PDP was able to restore the confidence of the people and fully reconciled them. In another indirect reference to Buhari, Lamido said thereafter, people who couldn’t have taken part in politics in 1999 joined politics in 2003. He said, “By 2003, people who hitherto couldn’t contemplate seeking to lead the country in 1999, joined politics in 2003. This is because they know that in 1999, Nigeria needed political actors with political sagacity and national interest to lead the country.”
Speaking on political tolerance, Alhaji Sule Lamido said in the run-up to the 2011 and 2015 elections there was so much hate speech to the extent that “I was called a pastor and Christian simply because I hold a political opinion. My house in Kano was burnt down. My factory and offices were also burnt simply for holding a political opinion.” On 2019 elections, the former governor said, “There will be two pages for 2019 elections. One page for PDP and another page for APC. Nigerians are now aware of what APC is all about. There is enough to judge the APC government by 2019.”
He said with the current despair and uncertainty in the country, the 2019 elections will be determined by borderless parties. “Well-meaning Nigerians will come together irrespective of their parties to salvage the country,” he said. Speaking on the crisis in APC, he said right from 2015 he knew that the coalition of Buhari, Tinubu and former Vice President Atiku Abubakar won’t last. “How on earth can you put Buhari, Atiku and Tinubu in the same pot and cook them? That is not possible. They can’t blend because they have different chemistry,” Lamido said.
He said like President Goodluck Jonathan conceded defeat to Buhari in 2015, Buhari should equally be magnanimous enough to concede to PDP if he loses the election in 2019.
