Posted by From John-Abba Ogbodo (Abuja) and Simeon Nwakaudu (Makurdi) on
THE exchange of brickbats between Vice President Atiku Abubakar and the leadership of the ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) continued yesterday with Abubakar accusing President Olusegun Obasanjo of hijacking some juicy ministries for about seven and a half years and using some ministers as robots.
THE exchange of brickbats between Vice President Atiku Abubakar and the leadership of the ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) continued yesterday with Abubakar accusing President Olusegun Obasanjo of hijacking some juicy ministries for about seven and a half years and using some ministers as robots.
Abubakar, the presidential candidate of the Action Congress (AC), levelled the allegation at a campaign rally in Makurdi, Benue State capital. Also, former Minister of Environment and Director-General of the Atiku Campaign Organisation, Dr. Iyorchia Ayu, said he was prepared to go to jail in defence of genuine democracy and the rights of his people.
Addressing the crowd of supporters in Makurdi, Abubakar said that President Obasanjo and the PDP should not be trusted because of the President's alleged greed and inability to fulfil promises. Emphasising the point, the Vice President alleged that immediately after the 1999 elections, the President told him that he (Obasanjo) would be in charge of ministries of Defence, Foreign Affairs and Petroleum and that he would only appoint robots as ministers.
"When you people elected us into office, he called me and said VP, I said Mr. President. He said you know, I am going to be the President, I am going to be the petroleum minister, I am going to be the defence minister, I am going to be the foreign affairs minister. I said ah, all these for you? He said yes, anybody I put there will be a robot. You can now see the reason why a prominent citizen of this country like Gen. T. Y. Danjuma, when he was minister of defence, I want to tell you that he resigned three times because he was frustrated. Now, a president who will be president and three ministers at the same time must be a dictator. He must also be an autocratic leader. He must also be a greedy person. Otherwise, how can you be president and be oil minister, till today, he is the oil minister," he stated.
The Vice President also faulted the allegation of terrorism levelled against Ayu, saying that the former minister was being so branded because he gave some money to the director of youth affairs of the Atiku Campaign Organisation for a rally. Abubakar further asked the government to direct its attention to the Niger Delta where hostage-taking has become a daily occurrence and address the situation and not to harass innocent citizens under the guise of opposition. "This your son whom they now call a terrorist, do you know his offence? Because he allocated to the director, youth affairs, money to convey youths to a rally, the sum of N1.5m and they also arrested the director. Is that an act of terrorism? We have terrorists in the Niger Delta who are kidnapping Europeans and taking money from them. They should go and arrest them, not somebody like Iyorchia Ayu. They cannot go there. And they said Ayu is a terrorist! We will go to court and let the court decide. You know we are law-abiding and we will go to court for everything and you know the court will prove us right," he said.
Appealing to the people of Benue State to vote for AC in the next elections, Abubakar said President Obasanjo made many promises and failed to deliver. The Vice President said the new party stands for change and would redress the situation. He pledged that the problem of electricity in the state as well as water and unemployment would be addressed by the AC government.
He faulted the plan for power generation nationwide, pointing out that it was only based on gas sources and promised that other sources would be explored. The Vice President said he was determined to actualise the promises hence he has assembled the best hands in the country, adding "that is why all the people you see around me are people who have served their states, their communities and they did very well, they have track records. I am not having useless people around me," he said.
Earlier, Ayu had said that despite the harassment he was going through because of the determination to change the government through a democratic means, he would not give up. He stressed that he was prepared to go to jail on account of trying to pull his people out of poverty. 'Let me tell you one thing, as I am standing here, I have been declared by the Obasanjo government as a terrorist. I am a terrorist to Obasanjo because I have joined my colleagues to organise a party that will defeat the PDP. As I am standing here before you, President Obasanjo has taken me to court that I am a terrorist, I will be appearing in court any time from now. I want to make it clear to you that if he arrests me because of the poverty and suffering of my people, I am prepared to go to jail. I am not afraid of jail, I am not afraid of going to court, I am not afraid of dying for my people because he made promises to my people, he told lies, made promises and never fulfilled those promises," Ayu said. He ended his speech by reiterating that without Atiku, there would be no election. "No Atiku, no election," he declared.
The immediate past national chairman of the PDP and now a chieftain of the AC, Ogbeh, faulted the promise made by PDP that Nigeria would be among the best 20 economies in the year 2020, noting that even now, everything was still being imported. He said nothing on the ground now would show that the party had capacity to achieve that. He said the PDP government in the state performed a miracle last week by fixing electricity in the state for the two days that Obasanjo visited Makurdi. He urged the people to vote for Atiku because the Vice President had studied the situation for almost eight years and was now prepared to take the driver's seat.
Former governor of Kano State, Alhaji Abubakar Rimi, said a vote for PDP would mean slavery forever.
Vice President Abubakar, Alhaji Abubakar Rimi and former Internal Affairs Minister and Director-General of the Atiku Campaign Organisation, Ayu, yesterday railed against President Obasanjo and the leadership of the PDP, warning of stiff opposition to any attempt to disqualify the AC presidential candidate.