Rt. Hon Ali Ahmad is the Speaker of the Kwara State House of Assembly. He was a member of the 7th House of Representatives where he served as the Chairman, House Committee on Justice from 2011-2015. In this interview with TEMIDAYO AKINSUYI, he spoke on why he, alongside 22 members of the Assembly, defected from the All Progressives Congress (APC) to the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP). Excerpts:

What is your perspective on the gale of defections going on across political parties in the country?

It is a manifestation of unresolvable issues. Politics is all about give and take in troubles and reconciliations. But when a union becomes irretrievably unsettling, then the only window is for someone to get out and pitch his tent somewhere else and that is what has happened now. It happened in 2014 and it is unfortunate that it’s still happening today. That means we the political class have not learnt much especially from the defection exercise that happened in 2014.

Your statement that you wished you never joined the APC in 2014 was misconstrued in some quarters. Could you shed light on why you said that?

Yes, in 2014 we left PDP very reluctantly because PDP then was home. It was a party properly run according to the rules of the game until it started veering off. So, when we were about leaving, it was like you are in your abode and some invaders came and you have no option to save your life than to leave. That was why we left PDP then but now that we also left APC, some people who are not thoughtful will call our movement political prostitution. To me, that is not political prostitution but political consistency. We left PDP because it was veering off; we said we will not be part of it. We will not want history to record us as members of PDP when it abandoned the core principles of democratic process. The same thing is what is happening in APC now. Any serious analyst will see that APC has veered away from the path it started from when it was formed and that explains our reason for leaving. We have been consistent in our ideology and belief that any party that is not abiding by the rule of democracy, we don’t want to be part of it. It is easier for us to remain in APC today because everybody knows that if it is about winning election, it is easier for Senator Saraki and all of us to remain in APC. We will win the elections very easily but our concern is, where will that take the country? You are now contributing to the decadence and degeneration of Nigeria. So, we took the hard choice that whatever it is, it’s not going to be easy but it is a decision that you have to take to save democracy in Nigeria.

Your decision to leave APC alongside 22 members of the House, is it due to personal conviction or because your leader, Senator Bukola Saraki left?

Far from it! You know that unlike Commissioners who are appointed by the governor, every member was elected by his constituency. So, we sat down and debated the issues for over two weeks. Then we went back home, talked to our constituents, we came back to the House and discussed among ourselves the way the party was handling the Code of Conduct Tribunal (CCT) matter involving the Senate President. We just felt that they don’t like Kwara state. On the CCT matter, the first round, we thought it was a genuine prosecution by people with integrity, so we carried our cross then. We went to CCT and he (Saraki) was set free. We thought that was the end of it. If people were really prosecuting him for that despite being from the same party, we thought now that the court has acquitted him, that was the end of it. But much to our chagrin, they appealed the judgment and we were all taken aback that what is the problem here? Being a lawyer myself, I saw the charges and I saw the prosecutor who was dramatic and does all his points on the pages of the newspapers and not in the process of law. They went to the Court of Appeal and they lost and then they proceeded to the Supreme Court. Thereafter they brought another case and another one. We just felt that because of Saraki, Kwara state is now a blacklisted state. For the whole three years, I don’t think Senator Saraki as the number three man was given one opportunity to nominate a Chief Executive of any parastatal. If because of Saraki, Kwara is suffering, why do we have to now contribute to our own suffering? It doesn’t accord to human nature. So, we just had to leave.


Read more https://independent.ng/why-we-bid-apc-farewell-ahmad/

Lie's

“Some people might try to tell you that it’s a banana. They might scream, ‘Banana, banana, banana,’ over and over and over again. They might put BANANA in all caps. You might even start to believe that this is a banana. But it’s not. This is an apple.”

019 PMB sak

tsephanyah:
Lie's

“Some people might try to tell you that it’s a banana. They might scream, ‘Banana, banana, banana,’ over and over and over again. They might put BANANA in all caps. You might even start to believe that this is a banana. But it’s not. This is an apple.”

019 PMB sak

Enough of all this your banana stuff

very meaningless. Banana koo, Boli nii

Jaguntemmy:

Enough of all this your banana stuff

Jaguntemmy:

Enough of all this your banana stuff

until you believe that banana is not apple,.“Some people might try to tell you that it’s a banana. They might scream, ‘Banana, banana, banana,’ over and over and over again. They might put BANANA in all caps. You might even start to believe that this is a banana. But it’s not. This is an apple.”

tsephanyah:
Lie's

“Some people might try to tell you that it’s a banana. They might scream, ‘Banana, banana, banana,’ over and over and over again. They might put BANANA in all caps. You might even start to believe that this is a banana. But it’s not. This is an apple.”

019 PMB sak

this ugly bitch is not mentally stable

tsephanyah:
Lie's

“Some people might try to tell you that it’s a banana. They might scream, ‘Banana, banana, banana,’ over and over and over again. They might put BANANA in all caps. You might even start to believe that this is a banana. But it’s not. This is an apple.”

019 PMB sak

can u please shut u p the Bleep up.This your habitual penchant for posting asinine comments totally irrevelant to the subject of discourse on ground is very annoying.Your parents should stop giving u their phones.