Abuja , By Chibuzo Ukaibe
— Sep 10, 2015 4:58 pm
Former national chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) Alhaji Bamanga Tukur on Thursday declared that the President Muhammadu Buhari is on track as far as his agenda is concerned.
He however disclosed that if he had remained as PDP chairman, the party would have lost the presidency and other positions.
Tukur, who spoke with newsmen ahead of his 80th birthday ceremony, however decried the influx of ethnicity and religion in the polity noting that it has hampered the growth of the country.
He, however, cautioned Buhari, ahead of his appointment of ministers to appoint those who the job needs and not those who want the job.
When asked about the anti-corruption war and the appointment so far, Tukur said “As far as I am concerned he is going according to his agenda. So you can judge as well as I can judge.”
Making his assessment of Buhari’s
administration in the last 100 days he said “It is not for me to assess. A hundred days became a kind of syndrome. What has been said by Buhari is that he wants to confront corruption, he want to confront insecurity and he wants to confront unemployment and empower, by these he has set the agenda and it is going on.
“So how can you now tell me that you have a land mark to asses NEPA by improvement to know if it is improving. What are you going to use to measure the insecurity? Are they fighting it, are the moving to me they are going the right way he has not deviated from that they said they will do”.
Tukur stated that If he been allowed to remain as chairman of PDP till the 2015 election, the party would have won the election.
He said “Well, when I was there I won elections and in the same vein, if were there also I expect to win the election.”
Reflecting further on his removal as PDP chairman, he said “Well, I thought we were in a system of democracy and my views are such that what I believe in is what I will preach. I want election and people say they want selection. If the majority or the strong people in the PDP did not believe in it then the chioce or the next thing for me to do was to leave.
“It is either I leave or they leave but I did not want them to leave so decided to leave. At that time, people said I am preaching internal democracy instead of imposition. So it will be difficult for me to sit down”
He further noted that zoning within the PDP was never faulted but that the inability of the party to let the people decide on what they want was its undoing.
He however distanced himself from those calling for the sack of PDP’s NWC saying the problem of the party was the loss of the election.
He said “You know to get the solution you have to look at the problem. The problem is that the party did not win election. Therefore the focus should be what should be done what is going
wrong? Is not about sending somebody away For instance if you have malaria, what are the causes of malaria, maybe mosquitoes, then you try to eliminate the mosquitoes from the system so that the malaria can stop.”
He however ruled out any thought of defecting to the All Progressives Congress (APC) noting “at 80 what do you want somebody to do. You want to change somebody character at 80? Is it possible? At 80 you remain because you cannot bend unbendable anymore because it will break.”
Speaking on the way forward for the youths, he said while there are plenty opportunities for them in the country, politics of religion ethnicity must be jettisoned. He also advocated mass education as a panacea to the ills facing the country.
He said “Nigeria should try to conquer the basic reason why what I consider we cannot move as a nation. We must remove religion from politics. We must accept ourselves as Nigerians and not see ourselves as being from A or B state, or local government. We must ensure that anything, culture or ethnicity that we cannot change we don’t bring to the table. What you cannot change we must endure. You cannot change yourself from being an Hausa man to Ibo man or an Ibo man to a Yoruba man, or a Yoruba man to an Ijaw man. You can’t. So forget about that, it is not an issue. So don’t bring it on the table. Ethnicity should be removed from our politics. What we must bring into our politics is equity, justice and for us to be our brothers keeper. We can do it. I have told you, God has given you land, water and us, as people that is what He gave to every nation on earth.
“To Educate our people is the key.
What you will do as people is to work together. We can work together and exploit all the opportunities. We are talking about education and they are talking about power. If you educate the people they will know how to get solar to get power, to mine oil to get power. They will know how to do everything to get power including using water.
“But you can’t educate them if you don’t have peace, or if you are divided. You can’t educate them if there is equity and justice in the way of doing things.”
On his happiest and saddest moments he said “as I am sitting here now, healthy, happy and with you. And to thank God because it has been happiness every time. When one lost his child then you can say that is the saddest moment. But my saddest moment is when I lost my mother.”
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