Posted by By PETER ANOSIKE on
President Umaru Musa Yar'Adua has been asked to step aside and allow fresh presidential election to be conducted.
President Umaru Musa Yar'Adua has been asked to step aside and allow fresh presidential election to be conducted.
The call was made by the National Vice President of the congress, Comrade John Onyenemere at the Annual National Executive Council Meeting (NEC), of the National Union of Food Beverage and Tobacco Employees (NUFBTE) which was held in Lafia, Nasarawa State last Friday.
According to him, Labour warned last year that what the administration then was doing was only going to result in sham election, which would only produce ‘ogbanjes/abikus' as offsprings.
He said that labour has been vindicated by what happened eventually as the courts have overturned many of the elections' results with many more coming.
According to him, the position of labour is that President Umaru Musa Yar'Adua is a good man as he has separated himself from the recklessness of the past but that is not enough.
'He knows and he has acknowledged this that the mandate was not obtained honorably rather it was obtained in a manner that leaves Nigerians gasping for breath. Our position is informed by the fact that he who buys or knowingly benefits from less than holy acts is also unholy. We advise him though he has acknowledged it though with a caveat, to step aside and allow a fresh election to be organized into his office."
Onyenemere said that doing that would lift the moral burden, which the Obasanjo administration had wittingly hoisted upon his shoulders.
According to him, he should not be deceived as this has become a serious albatross for his presidency, thereby putting him in a straight jacket that would make him unable to perform his duties as responsibly as his good nature would have allowed him.
The Labour boss said that if he resigns, that the congress would be in the vanguard of his campaign and would lead the march through out the length and breadth of Nigeria.
He said that what is happening in Kenya at the moment should be a lesson to anybody that came into power with unpopular mandate.
On the removal of Malam Nuhu Ribadu as the chairman of Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, he said: 'On the EFCC chairman's removal through the back door, we say that we do not understand the noise about the whole exercise. Our only grouse is in the way the government has done it. The government should have come out in the open instead of trying to do it clandestinely.
Ribadu has given his best to the commission and Nigerians deserve to commend him but it is important to point out that the commission was not designed for him and no matter how good he might have been, we should avoid making people feel that they have become indispensable.
There are others who capable men and women and if Ribadu reorganized EFCC in such a way that only him can run it, then it casts serious doubt on his administrative ability because a good leader must have to put in place a very good system of succession."
Among the dignitaries that attended the conference was the president of the NLC Comrade Abdul-Waheed Omar.