A former Governor of Adamawa State and chieftain of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), Murtala Nyako has criticised the decision of the party to extend the tenure of its executive committees at the national and other levels as potentially suicidal for the party.
Speaking in Yola last Saturday while addressing a group of APC supporters at his residence shortly after he condoled with the family of a former Governor of the State, Saleh Michika, who died last week, Mr. Nyako warned that the party may die unless its leaders take urgent actions to address alleged illegalities and impunity going on in the party
The former governor said APC has lost the moral ground to speak on due process, rule of law, enforcement of democratic norms and culture.
He contended that the only way out of the controversies surrounding the tenure elongation of the executive committee is for the party to hold a national convention, saying anything outside this would not work.
According to him, the actions of some party leaders will not make APC move forward.
“Even if a mechanic takes APC to court today over the unconstitutional and undemocratic tenure extension of party officials, it is very clear that the court can lock the national secretariat of the party. If there is no convention in APC before the general elections, the party may become a spectator instead of a participant,” he warned.
Stressing that only fairness, legality, justice and rule of law can sustain the APC ahead of the 2019 general elections, Mr. Nyako urged the party to learn from what led to the defeat of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) at the 2015 general elections and retrace its steps before it is too late.
The former governor, a former Chief of Naval Staff, also took a swipe at some political leaders in Nigeria for their utterances.
He said “the quality of remarks made on some important national issues does not reflect reasonable sense.
“Some of our political leaders seem to take ‘Ogogoro’ before taking action or making public statements on important issues, because some of their statements do not reflect or contain any reasonable sense,” he said.
Meanwhile, a former lawmaker, Senator Olurunnimbe Mamora, has rejected his appointment as the Chairman of the Abuja Investment and Infrastructure Centre, The Tide learnt last Saturday.
Mamora, who was the Deputy Director-General of the Muhammadu Buhari Campaign Organisation during the 2015 presidential election, was nominated for the job by the President.
However, it was learnt that during the inauguration of the board of the AIIC a few weeks ago, a governorship aspirant of the All Progressives Congress in the 2016 Ondo State governorship election, Mrs. Jumoke Ajasin-Anifowoshe, was named the chairman.
Ajasin-Anifowose, who is the daughter of the first Governor of the old Ondo State, Adekunle Ajasin, was sworn in by the Minister of the Federal Capital Territory, Alhaji Muhammad Bello.
Investigations by our correspondent showed that the ex-lawmaker rejected the appointment.
A reliable source told our correspondent that Mamora had met with the Secretary to the Government of the Federation, Boss Mustapha, and expressed his displeasure with the appointment.
The source said Mamora, a former Lagos State House of Assembly Speaker and senator who represented Lagos-East senatorial district from 2003 to 2011, felt the appointment, which is the equivalent of a state parastatal, was not befitting.
He argued that people who never participated in the process that brought Buhari to power were occupying the front seats of government.
The source added that Mamora was listed to be the Chairman of the Board of the Nigerian Ports Authority in 2016 but was edged out by some powerful people in the system.
The source added that Mamora was also nominated as an ambassador in late 2016 but his name was suddenly withdrawn for unknown reasons and was not even contacted before his name was dropped.
Attempts to speak with Mamora proved abortive as repeated calls to his phone were not responded to while a text message sent to his mobile was not replied to as of press time.
Similarly, Second Republic Senator, Prof. Banji Akintoye, has urged Nigerians to unite and vote President Muhammadu Buhari out of office in 2019.
He made the call when he appeared as a guest on Channels Television’s Politics Today, last Frieday.
Senator Akintoye also supported the proposition that the Federal Government should declare killer herdsmen across the country as terrorists.
According to him, they appeared to be more dangerous than Boko Haram terrorists and therefore, must be stopped before their activities got out of hand.
He said: “We can’t have a country in which people feel that they are free to move around, killing people at random and at will. We cannot have a country like that, obviously, these are terrorists and the government owes Nigeria the duty of getting them out of Nigeria.”
“In any country in the world, people like the killer herdsmen would be terrorists and the government would be acting strongly against them, taking action against them the way we have taken action against Boko Haram or even worse.
“They are all over Nigeria, there is no state in the middle belt and the south that they have not killed people in so they are more dangerous than Boko Haram,” Akintoye said.
Rating the performance of President Muhammadu Buhari’s administration and what he thinks about a coalition against the government, Akintoye said: “ I think Buhari should not continue to rule us anymore”.
“Well I don’t know how it may work and I don’t really care how, all I want is that Nigerians should unite and get Buhari and his government out of the place of the Federal Government of Nigeria because Buhari is destroying our country.
“Look at what he is doing with people who are going around killing.
“You send your men to those places and the killings are going on there, it’s all kid gloves. There is nothing concrete happening,” he stressed.
When asked if he thinks a political coalition, especially with a major opposition party, might do ‘wonders’ in 2019, he said; “I hope so, I will desire so because I think that Buhari should not continue to rule us anymore.