Chief Bola Tinubu File

The National Leader of the Action Congress of Nigeria, Chief Bola Tinubu, on Wednesday said his party would “capitalise on the crisis” rocking the Peoples Democratic Party in Bayelsa State.

Tinubu, who spoke to journalists at the Presidential Wing of the Murtala Muhammed Airport, Lagos, said his party had begun plans towards taking over the oil-rich state in the coming governorship election.

He said the state’s ruling party had shown bad example of leadership by refusing to comply with a court order on its primary election.

He said, “We will capitalise on their crisis to win massively. We want more fight and more. The only disappointing thing is that the party could not obey the court order. If you are a ruling party in this country and you are talking of the rule of law, you should be a role model, you should show leadership, you should show degree of compliance with court order. They still have time, what is the desperation? Why should they militarise Bayelsa from the primary? But that is the kind of a party that poverty development party is. So, it’s people destroying people.”

Tinubu, a former Governor of Lagos State, also said ACN “has a bright chance” in Kogi State in the coming election.

He said, “We have good chances if the election is free and fair. If it is devoid of violence and other malpractices. We have faith in Attahiru Jega’s men and we are working really hard because the Kogi people are ready for a change.

“There is nothing like the power of incumbency. Where was the power of incumbency in Ogun, Ekiti and Oyo?”

Tinubu condemned the zoning policy of the PDP, saying such a policy could promote division in the country.

He said the office of the President should be left open for the electorates to decide who occupies it.  

He said, “In our pluralism and the constitutional right of Nigeria, we have demonstrated that the President should be able to come from anywhere. It is the President of Nigeria that we are trying to elect each time, why should it be based on zoning, regional thinking? That is the process of selection and not election. The entire Nigerians must have the right to aspire, including yourself, and contest, be voted for by the people of this country.”

He added, “By the time you discriminate and you leave out one section and say it is zoning or rotation, that is turn by turn syndrome. It’s limited in a way because you are not opening up the position to everybody. We are talking of the constitution here, we are talking about the right of the people to aspire to be or not to be. Leave it open. You see, it divides us further. If you look at it carefully, you will discover that we are dividing Nigeria further and farther.”

-Punch

Posted by admin on Nov 23 2011. Filed under Action Congress of Nigeria, Party Politics, Peoples' Democratic Party (PDP). You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry