All Progressives Congress (APC) leaders yesterday rose in defence of President Muhammadu Buhari, saying he is not a dictator as claimed by Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) governors.
Buhari is only clearing the rot created by the PDP government, especially under former President Godluck Jonathan, APC National Leader Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, former APC Interim National Chairman Chief Bisi Akande and Senator Shehu Sani (APC, Kaduna) said.
Tinubu and Akande were at the Aso Villa, Abuja to confer with the President.
The former Lagos State governor said: “I disagree with that (dictatorial tendency). He (Buhari) was elected on a platform of democracy; he has adhered to the rule of law so far. What is dictatorship about what he has done? He has helped to stimulate the economy in the various states and that is where the people are. So what is dictatorship?
“An institutional paralysis had occurred in the country. It is very important for a steady man like the President to really help the nation recover from the paralysis and that is what he is doing; so I don’t see what is dictatorial about that.”
Tinubu told the PDP: “If they don’t have anything to say, they’d rather be quiet. They created what is wrong here today and we can’t sweep that under the carpet. There must be rule of law.”
On the speculation that he was at the Villa to submit names for ministerial appointments, he said: “What can I do about that? They have the right to speculate; they have the right to their lies and I have the right to debunk.”
Sani in a statement in Abuja, said: “President Buhari is not a dictator but a leader committed to fumigating the political space from the lethargic legacies of the PDP. PDP governors have the constitutional right to play the role of an opposition in our democracy but we must not in anyway forget the menace they represented just yesterday.
”PDP governors should apologise to Nigerians for the paralysis, the tragedy and the human misery their party left behind. Under Jonathan, the security apparatus of the state became an armed wing of the ruling party and an instrument of repression and political witchhunting and persecution.”
He added: “The governors lack the moral right to preach the gospel of freedom and democracy; the very people whom before their very eyes security apparatus of the state under Jonathan was systematically and periodically unleashed against governors and states under the then opposition.
He recalled that the PDP governors kept mute when security forces under Jonathan barred Rivers State Governor Rotimi Amaechi’s and Edo State Governor Adams Oshiomhole planes from taking off and landing; when security agencies raided the APC data offices in Lagos and when they laid siege to the Rivers State Government House.
The lawmaker argued that the PDP governors served the Jonathan administration as pillars of tyranny, lacking the liver and the heart to tell Jonathan the truth and cowardly sang his praises in an obsequies procession until they led their leader and their party over the cliff.
“The PDP governors are debris of a cancerous era; they are remains of our dark, despicable and dingy past. Nigeria is on a recuperation process as we march further away from the era of political decadence and pestilence which symbolized the PDP years.
He described the PDP governors statement as “evil echoes from a dark forest” and urged the President to remain focused in his mission to end the inherited culture of malfeasance of the PDP.
The PDP governors decried what they described as Buhari’s dictatorial tendencies.
In a communiqué after a meeting on Monday at the Bayelsa State Governor’s Office in Yenagoa, they condemned the alleged invasion of the Akwa Ibom State Government House by some operatives of the Department of State Services (DSS), describing it as against the spirit, ethos, values and fundamental tenets of democratic norms and tradition, more so with the existence of a duly elected governor .
The governors said: “We insist that the trend must stop henceforth. No democracy survives without a viable opposition in any part of the world and we must also remember to remind the APC that they are the real beneficiaries of the liberal democratic ethos of the PDP.
“We once more advise the DSS to preoccupy itself with the task of ensuring internal security and desist from daily harassing and intimidating members of the opposition.
“We implore the international community, the civil society organisations and human rights activists to caution the All Progressives Party-led Federal Government and to insist that it respects the well-entrenched democratic tradition.
“We all have a duty to prevent what looks to us like a steady slide of this country into dictatorship.”
It was read by Ondo State Governor Olusegun Mimiko.
Tinubu denied that there was rivalry in the APC, adding that the party is focused on supporting the President to achieve his goal of transforming the nation.
He said: “Don’t listen to rumours; there is no struggle. Our party is not even looking at the direction of power struggle or anything of such.
“The support structure is to encourage and support the President as you have heard from Chief Akande, to help him institutionalise his goal, principle and vision for a new Nigeria.”
On complaints about delay in sending the ministerial list, he said: “There is pitfall in rushing, quick fix, depending upon the depth of the rot. And that rush can cascade into mistakes of unimaginable magnitude. There is equally glory and recovery in slowness, when you have a slow fix of a bad foundation.
“So to me, I would rather take the one that will last the country and endure for a longer period of time than the rush-hour shopping.”
Akande said they were at the Villa to encourage Buhari to change the rot he inherited.
He said: “I understand that President Buhari inherited piles of rot in the Villa and I say let me see him, talk to him and report to my party with a view to knowing how to encourage him to change the rot to good.”
