Governor of Jigawa State, Alhaji Sule Lamido has warned President Goodluck Jonathan that securing the presidential ticket of the ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in the 2015 elections will not guarantee his re-emergence as President.
Speaking with journalists at the Jigawa State Government House, Dutse, Lamido maintained that the president may not win even if he emerges the party’s candidate, and warned the likes of Niger Delta leader, Chief Edwin Clark, and ex-militant Asari Dokubo to mellow on their insistence on fomenting trouble in the event of Jonathan’s defeat at the 2015 polls.
“If you are saying his party must give him the ticket, it is okay. They can say so. But it doesn’t mean he is going to win the election. But when you say he must win the election, then what are you talking about?” he queried.
Lamido had no kind works for Clark, saying, “This old man, in 2011, the name Edwin Clark, was not part of the PDP vocabulary. But look at it today, it has become the main vocabulary. And what is the qualification? Emotion and sentiments.
“When before the election, somebody is saying ‘our son must serve a second term,’ while second term comes after election, what you are saying is a factor of the election. But when you say he must win the election, why then do we have democracy?”
He urged the elder statesman to be more cautious in his public statements on the polity, particularly the 2015 elections.
“It is about politics and about PDP and he had no input in making the president. He met Jonathan as a finished product, not as a raw material. That was why I said Edwin Clark was never part of the PDP vocabulary in 2011. Was he? Absolutely not!” he said.
“It is just like Bola Ige of blessed memory and others in Afenifere and NADECO. When we talk about June 12, they were not anywhere near it on June 11. That is my worry, that people don’t reckon with history, people who take advantage of a national effort and kind of appropriate it. Where were they on June 12?
“It is the same thing we are going through now. Asari Dokubo and Clark, where were they in 2010? Where were they when PDP held its primaries? Nigeria made Clerk grow till 86 and secure. Is he giving the same hopes to younger Nigerians to be 80? Is he giving it to those who are 10 and 20 now by his pronouncements?”
Despite all the expectation surrounding his rumoured presidential ambition, Lamido remained reticent on the subject.
“This country is applying democracy with idiosyncrasies and our own peculiarities,” he said. “That is not the turn of the person yet. It is the Nigerian chemistry you have to look into, which has been hijacked by people who manipulate it with differences.”
In a related development, it has been revealed that former Vice President, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar may not vote at the upcoming special national convention of the PDP to elect NWC members, as his name is missing on the delegates list submitted by the Adamawa chapter of PDP to the Special National Convention Committee chaired by Prof. Jerry Gana.
National Chairman, Alhaji Bamanga Tukur has been involved in a running battle with Governor of the state, Admiral Murtala Nyako, such that factional state chairman, Joel Madaki, who is loyal to Tukur, was the one who vetted the list.
