Posted by By TIMOTHY OLA, Maiduguri on
Former governor of Yobe State, Senator Bukar Abba Ibrahim, has asked ex-head of state, and presidential candidate of All Nigeria Peoples Party (ANPP), Maj-Gen. Mohammadu Buhari to forget being president of the country, having failed twice in his bid to occupy the seat.
Former governor of Yobe State, Senator Bukar Abba Ibrahim, has asked ex-head of state, and presidential candidate of All Nigeria Peoples Party (ANPP), Maj-Gen. Mohammadu Buhari to forget being president of the country, having failed twice in his bid to occupy the seat.
He advised Buhari to, instead, lead the ANPP, with the view to putting it on sound footing.
This is even as he described the National Chairman of ANPP, Chief Edwin Ume-Ezeoke as a scavenger, alleging that the man does not possess leadership qualities required to build a credible opposition party.
Ibrahim, in an exclusive interview with Daily Sun, said Chief Ume-Ezeoke was the worst leader the party ever produced. 'We've never being lucky to have good leadership even right from the period of Mahmud Waziri to Yusuf Ali, but Ezeoke is probably the worst leader. The only thing he knows is to scavenge for money. I hope the party will get over this mediocre leader soon," he declared.
The former presidential aspirant, in the 2007 general elections, said he was disturbed that his party could not provide credible opposition to the ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) even when the party had the opportunity to do so. He maintained that the leadership contributed in killing the party rather than using the available resources to build it.
Reacting to Ume-Ezeoke's claim that the party could not function well because of paucity of funds, Ibrahim challenged the chairman to account for how he spent the money realized by the party during the 2007 primaries.
Said he: 'During the last primaries, the party leadership got well over N100 million from gubernatorial, senatorial, Houses of Representatives and House of Assembly candidates across the country while some individuals equally donated money for the running of the party. What we need now is a party builder who can appease the disgruntled members, a political leader that will go round the country to unite our members, not somebody who is concerned about what he can get from the PDP government."
As a chieftain of the ANPP and a former member of the caretaker committee, which helped in uniting the party in 2002, Ibrahim expressed the belief in Gen Mohammadu Buhari's ability to sanitize the party and bring back all its fleeing members.
'I strongly advise Buhari to forget the presidential seat and lead our party, having been rejected twice at the polls. He is a man of integrity, a builder and he will be of help in putting the party on a sound footing," he added.