MD Yusufu: Jonathan’s Ambition is Like Coup
•PDP should not return in 2011, says Shekarau
From Sheriff Balogun in Abeokuta and Ibrahim Shuaibu in Kano, 11.28.2010
Former Inspector-General of Police (IG), Alhaji Mohammed Dikko Yusufu, has said the plan by President Goodluck Jonathan to contest for the office of president in next year’s election and, if he wins, succeed himself in 2011 is akin to planning a coup against his party, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).

Yusufu spoke yesterday in Abeokuta when he gave the second annual lecture in honour of the late Sobo Sowemimo (SAN) entitled: “Crises of Governance in Nigeria”. It was organised by the Abeokuta Club.
Yusufu said: “We have a president who is trying to self-succeed himself through a process which amounts to a political coup in his own political party.”

According to him, “I have not talked much about the zoning system of PDP, which under normal circumstances remains its affair but for the fact that the crisis of the party has become a national problem because of the political dominance of the PDP in Nigerian politics.

“In a democracy, nobody should think that he or she has to be president or there will be no Nigeria. I have to make this point because a minister had warned if Dr. Goodluck Jonathan does not emerge as president, there will be crisis in Nigeria. So, if this is the case, what is the point of conducting elections?”

Yusufu, former presidential candidate of the defunct Grassroots Democratic Movement (GDM), also said Jonathan's determination to contest the 2011 poll might be at variance with his promise to conduct an election where every vote would count when viewed against the backdrop of statements allegedly made by the minister.

“We can illustrate the crises of governance by just looking at our experience since the restoration of civilian rule in 1999. In that year, we elected a president who had experience of governance under the military; he presided over the transition to civil rule after 13 years of military dictatorship and led perhaps the most purposeful and progressive government in Nigeria from 1976 – 1979,” the former IG said.

He added that, “of course, everyone here knows that this person is my good friend, General and now Chief Olusegun Obasanjo. During his administration, 1999 – 2007, the revenue of the federation of Nigeria was a whooping N27.7 trillion. This amount of money is more than 80 per cent of Nigeria’s federally collected revenue from 1970 - 2007 (1999).”

He, however, drew the attention of Nigerians to the parlous state of federal roads across the country and juxtaposed that with the N200 billion the Federal Government under President Obasanjo claimed to have invested on road rehabilitation and construction between 1999 and 2002 and concluded that Nigerians were worst off in terms of having motorable roads.

“I do not need to tell any of you seated here that after this massive public expenditure, the conditions of Nigerian roads remained virtually as they were before 1999, or even worse in some cases. The report of the Auditor – General of the Federation, Mr. P.N. Akubueze, for the year ended 31st December 2001, confirmed this situation for most of the roads, including the Benin – Sagamu carriage way and the dualization of Ile – Ife – Ilesa roads,” he said.

Speaking further, he said there was no aspect of the country’s life where the crises of governance was clearly manifested as in the power sector, which he said had been left prostrate and ineffective by wide scale corruption of all sorts as to warrant the House of Representatives to initiate a probe into power expenditure without result between June 1999 and May 2007.

He said despite the fact that the House Committee on Power and Steel established cases of corruption and avoidable massive spending in the sector with Nigerians not having regular supply of light till date; nothing has been done to sanction the government officials who short-changed the nation over the power project.

“What is most interesting to me about the sordid acts of these government officials with regards to the roads and power sector’s scam between 1999 and 2007 is the fact that they were done despite the due process regime, which was introduced to make the award of contracts transparent, by a government which had established the EFCC supposedly to fight corruption,” he added.

Meanwhile, the All Nigeria Peoples Party (ANPP) presidential aspirant and Kano State Governor Ibrahim Shekarau has said no matter who wins the PDP presidential ticket between President Jonathan and former Vice-President Atiku Abubakar, what should be paramount to Nigerians is that PDP should not return in 2011.

A statement by the Director-General of the Shekarau for Nigeria Campaign team, Alhaji Khaleel Bolaji, in Kano weekend also said the issue of picking a consensus candidate for the North had generated so much heat in the polity but that Nigerians should note that it was an internal affair of PDP.

The statement read: “The effect that former Vice-President Atiku Abubakar shall be the Northern consensus candidate to challenge President Goodluck Jonathan in the PDP primaries for the 2011 Presidential Elections, has continued to generate interest among Nigerians. And we at the Shekarau for Nigeria Campaign Secretariat wish to state clearly that Nigerians must not be confused: the PDP is PDP, whether Jonathan or Atiku.

“Nigerians should recognize that, whether Atiku or President Jonathan ultimately becomes the candidate of the ruling PDP, it will still be PDP, a party that has ruled this country for almost 12 years with nothing to show apart from inconsistency. They started with a National Economic Empowerment and Develop-ment Strategy (NEEDS); then it became Vision 20:2020; and then it was Seven-Point Agenda. Today there is no agenda, but we continue to wallow in darkness, insecurity and poverty.”
As such, Shekarau said PDP should not be returned in 2011.

According to the statement, “Nigeria needs qualitative leaders. Citizens of a given nation cannot manifest a higher degree of discipline than their leaders. We need leaders who are honest, incorruptible, trustworthy, modest, reliable, courageous, competent, fearless and God-conscious and PDP has not provided Nigeria that type of leaders.”

www.thisdayonline.com