Posted by By FEMI BABAFEMI on
Former Kano State governor, Alhaji Abubakar Rimi, has raised an alarm over a looming danger in the country, with a warning that Nigerians should rise up and resist the destructive tendencies of the President Olusegun Obasanjo administration before everyone becomes a victim.
Former Kano State governor, Alhaji Abubakar Rimi, has raised an alarm over a looming danger in the country, with a warning that Nigerians should rise up and resist the destructive tendencies of the President Olusegun Obasanjo administration before everyone becomes a victim.
Rimi, who was also a former Communications Minister, liken President Obasanjo to a bull in a Chinese shop and expressed the fear that the future of the country is no longer certain as long as the president is allowed to continue to destroy the constitutional framework of the nation.
Speaking against the backdrop of the gale of impeachment plots against governors across the country, Rimi said this induced by the Economic and Financial Crime commission (EFCC), signified a bad omen for the nation's democracy, stressing that the whole process was a design for the self-perpetuation agenda of President Obasanjo.
His words: 'It is unconstitutional. Everybody knows that. The media are culpable in this case because they helped in taking this bull into a china shop and now, he is doing the destruction, destroying everything in sight.
'It is obvious that the future is no longer certain. If a president is violating constitution and everybody is watching, then there is no hope for Nigeria," Rimi said.
The former governor, who was one of the founding leaders of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) but defected to the new Action Congress (AC) recently, described President Obasanjo's anti-graft war as hypocritical.
'How can they be fighting corruption when we know that the presidency is the most corrupt institution in Nigeria today? Ribadu and EFCC take away their face from there, by getting too busy destroying lesser evils when the big evil is looming big," he stated.
The Kano-based politician said that danger looms over the country because of the several surreptitious plots of President Obasanjo to stay in office beyond constitutional provisions.
'He (Obasanjo) is not ready to go. He tried to stay longer through a 40-man constitutional conference which failed him. He turned around to organise third term in a fraudulent manner to get the constitution to allow him to continue in office. That also failed.
'Now, in the name of fighting corruption, he is intimidating governors and other elected representatives so that they will be scared of impeaching him. The tragedy of his action or his so-called anti-corruption crusade is that he is using corruption to fight corruption." Rimi stressed.
While warning that the president should forget any ambition to stay a day longer than May 29, 2007, the former governor said that Obasanjo has in several ways, exposed his hidden ambition to perpetuate himself in office.
'We can see all the tactics. Now, he is delaying the release of census results to the last minute. He is holding the local government elections to the last moment so as to create chaos. When confusion is created and intense, there will not be election, and that is why they have flown the ING kite ahead of time," he alleged.
For him, the only way out of the looming crisis in the country is for President Obasanjo to vacate the presidential villa immediately.
'He should resign and leave now, because he is doing a lot of damage to our psyche and constitution. This is the best way to stop his brazen rape of democracy. He shouldn't even wait a day longer or even till 2007. The nation and Nigerains are tired of his corrupt and evil regime," Rimi counseled. Should the president fail to resign as admolished, Rimi said: 'People have to come out to demostrate to show their resistance to unconstitutionality and contradiction of fighting corruption but leaving a corrupt presidency to continue to flow in corruption.
He accused the president of several shady business deals. 'Everybody now knows the president has a hand in many businesses and in the sale of government properties. People know now that he has a hand in Transcorp, Virgin Nigeria and Oando oil," he stated.
The politician further charged Nigerians to defy any crisis that may be imposed on the country and prepare to vote during the 2007 elections, which he said must hold, whether the president desires it or not.