Former Kaduna State Governor, Alhaji Balarabe Musa, the first Nigerian to have been impeached as a Governor.
The elder statesman who was in office for almost a year without Commissioners has remained consistent as a lefty, powerful and a crusader for a just and egalitarian society.
The controversial party man has once again roared from his abode, saying that President Goodluck Jonathan’s under performance since he assumed office and his alleged plans with ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) governors to serve a term of only four years have closed the gate against his purported ambition to run for the 2015 presidential election.
Musa, who is also the national chairman of the Conference of Nigerian Political Parties (CNPP), told President Jonathan to bury his dream and ambition for 2015 presidential race irrespective of whether the raging controversy over the agreement he allegedly signed with the PDP governors is resolved in his favour or not.
According to him, “no matter how PDP decides to resolve the issue is even not much of a good news to Nigerians. The ultimate is the Nigerian voters, who will have to stop Jonathan in 2015. If Jonathan decides to contest for the presidency in 2015 against his so-called agreement with the PDP governors and his previous promises, the ultimate judge will be the Nigerian voters, who will reject him because he is a failure. In essence, if PDP decides to resolve the controversy in favour of Jonathan, Nigerians will reject him at the polls. They should, therefore, not use the controversy to divert attention from their poor performance and total collapse of governance now.”
The former governor added: “No performance qualifies Jonathan to seek re-election in 2015. He has no scorecard to justify his continued stay in office; so he can’t seek another term in 2015.”
An Ijaw leader and four-time Minister in Nigeria, Alabo Tonye Graham-Douglas has, however, countered the stand of the former governor, stating that no amount of “political conspiracy” can stop President Jonathan from contesting the next presidential election.
Reacting to the claim, Graham-Douglas said nobody could stop Jonathan from seeking a second term of four years, irrespective of the agreement already entered into by the president.
The Ijaw leader declared: “President Jonathan has the inalienable right to have a second tenure. The question, therefore, of a contract limiting him to one term is not acceptable to the peoples of the South-South in particular and majority of the good people of Nigeria.”
Douglas maintained that: “The structure of PDP encompasses the Board of Trustees, National Working Committee and the National Executive Committee. These bodies together, I believe, are the only competent group to take political decisions that will involve every member of the party.”
He asked all stakeholders in the nation’s political arena to respect “the principle of equity and justice, peace and progress depicted on the coat of arms.”
Balarabe Musa, while reacting to this, said the words of Graham-Douglas and another Ijaw leader, Chief Edwin Clark, should be ignored on any national discourse bordering on the administration of President Jonathan.
He said: “Nigerians should ignore the like of E.K Clark and Alabo Graham-Douglas campaigning for the return of Jonathan in 2015 under the negative state of the nation the president has put everyone. Our best response to them is to ignore them.”
Speaking on the controversy between President Jonathan and PDP governors over the purported agreement not to run for a second term in office if supported to contest the 2011 election, Musa said the president’s poor performance so far is enough reason to bar him from coming out for the race.
In his words: “In the first place, the agreement is strictly a PDP affair. But since Jonathan became president by whatever means and he is now Nigeria’s president, the issue has, therefore, become a national matter, no longer a purely PDP affair because it is something that affects everybody in the country. Importantly, the performance of Jonathan in office so far does not make the controversy being generated by the single term agreement really relevant. I am saying this because Jonathan has failed to deal with the negative state of the nation. So, why should Nigerians be involved in the controversy. It should be left for the PDP to solve its own problem. But because of its implication on the polity, we can tell the PDP which is in control of the presidency and the Federal Government to solve this problem, which should not be allowed to heat up the polity unduly.
“No matter how PDP decides to resolve the issue, it’s even not much of a good news to Nigerians. The ultimate is the Nigerian voters who will have to stop Jonathan in 2015. If Jonathan decides to contest for the presidency in 2015 against his so-called agreement with the PDP governors and his previous promises, the ultimate judge will be the Nigerian voters, who will reject him because he is a failure. In essence, if PDP decides to resolve the controversy in favour of Jonathan, Nigerians will reject him at the polls. They should, therefore, not use the controversy to divert attention from their poor performance and total collapse of governance now.”
According to him, “Nigerians’ attention should be drawn to why until 1999, it’s been possible for credible leaders to contest for elections and win but since after the Obasanjo’s election in 1999, it’s been impossible to get credible Nigerians come out to contest elections and win. This is the negative state of Nigeria which should be of concern to all of us.”
He argued: “What is important now is to use the Nigerian system as inefficient as it is to stop Jonathan and bring up someone from any part of the country who can help solve the problem of the negative state of the nation, to achieve meaningful progress, peace and unity, otherwise we will end up with another succession of thieves.”
Speaking on the current bid by some opposition political parties to dissolve into the All Progressives Congress (APC), Musa commended the effort and called on other well meaning Nigerians to support the process.
“The current effort by opposition parties led by the ACN is in the right direction and all well meaning Nigerians should support it. The attempt to merge the opposition parties into APC is good and we should support it. But all those involved should be careful, tolerant and committed so that the same mistakes made in the past are not repeated. We have to accept the fact that ACN is the only truly opposition party we have in our democracy today. So, if we want PDP off our neck and resolve the negative state of the nation, we just have to rally behind ACN whether in a merger which has started or democratic electoral alliance with other parties in the next election so that for once the nation can have an alternative to PDP’s misgovernance. ACN should also not make the same mistake CPC made in 2007 and 2011. But above all, we should all rally round the party whether in a merger or in electoral alliance to give the nation an alternative government to the failure of PDP administration,” he declared.
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