Governor of Jigawa State, Sule Lamido and four other state governors must shun all temptations to overheat the polity, Political Affairs Assistant, Office of the Political Adviser to the President Goodluck Jonathan, Godwin Akpovie has said.
Responding to Lamido’s criticism of his boss, Barrister Ahmed Gulak, Akpvie urged all five northern governors to internally resolve their differences with the Presidency rather than junketing round the whole country in search of what is not lost and making inciting utterances.
The five governors are Sule Lamido (Jigawa), Rabiu Kwankwaso (Kano), Aliyu Wamakko (Sokoto), Mu’azu Babangida Aliyu (Niger) and Murtala Nyako (Adamawa). Apparently offended by the aide’s statement, Lamido described it as “offensive and disrespectful,” calling Gulak a “boy.”
But in a statement issued on Monday, Akpovie wondered why the governor was in search of respect, asking how much respect any of the five governors had given to President Goodluck Jonathan
“The other day, in company of some other governors led by Governor Rotimi Amaechi of Rivers State, they walked leisurely into a function in which President Jonathan was already seated. Is that not an affront to the office of Mr. President? How many of them will allow their commissioners to walk into a function in which they are already seated?”
“As part of resolving their so-called differences with Mr. President, they are demanding the sack of some key personnel in Mr. President’s administration, including Alhaji Bamanga Tukur, the national chairman of PDP. Again, can anybody, including Mr. President, order them to appoint so and so individuals as commissioners in their respective states?”
Gulak’s recalled that the five governors even kept mute when Interim National Chairman of APC, Chief Bisi Akande branded President Jonathan a kindergarten President.
“If l may ask, are they still members of PDP? If they still are, why are they more critical of the president than even the opposition? Respect is reciprocal; anyone who wants to propagate equity must come with clean hands. You cannot demand respect when you refuse to accord same to a higher office. Besides, what is disrespectful in advising that it is more decent to explore and exhaust all internal mechanisms to resolve any perceived grievances?
“As for Gulak being a ‘boy’, it will be instructive to remind Alhaji Sule Lamido that Barrister Gulak was Speaker of Adamawa State House of Assembly in 1992, the same year Lamido was just a State Coordinator in the Olu Falae Presidential Campaign Organisation. If someone who was Number Three in a state 21 years ago and has risen to become Political Adviser to the President of the country, a position of cabinet rank, can be described as a boy today, then something is wrong somewhere. Yet Lamido wants to be worshipped just because he is a governor, forgetting that those who live in glass house should not throw stone.”
Akpovie added that in line with Barrister Gulak’s utterances, there are no differences that have risen that cannot be resolved amicably since the five governors and the president were elected on the platform of the same party, “unless they have a hidden agenda.”
