Nigeria Needs Leadership To Avert Looming Disaster-PDP Governors
Governors elected on the platform of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has declared that the country is in dire need of leadership at the centre to avert a looming disaster.
This was as the governors expressed deep concern and raised an alarm over what they described as the deteriorating relations between various groups in Nigeria.
These were contained in a communique issued by the PDP Governors’ Forum (PDP-GF), at the end of its meeting, held in Makurdi, Benue State, on Friday, to review the state of affairs in the country and common developments in their various states.
The communique was signed by the Sokoto State governor and the chairman of the PDP-GF, Rt Honourable Aminu Waziri Tambuwal.
The PDP governors noted and condemned the alarming drift of the country which it said, if allowed to continue, will make Nigeria a failed state under the watch of the All Progressives Congress (APC) government.
They called for the decentralisation of the country’s security architecture, devolution of power and restructuring to bring all groups together in order to avert another civil war.
The PDP-GF expressed worries that “indeed, all our fault lines and differences are being stretched to the limit by a government that clearly lacks the capacity to govern.”
The meeting agreed that the lack of capacity to govern has given rise to ethnic and tribal tensions, religious divisions, and various forms of social and political cleavages.
The PDP governors similarly raised the alarm that security of lives and property of Nigerians are no longer guaranteed under the present government “as a result of leadership incompetence and mismanagement of the nation’s affairs.”
Noting that state governors have a role to play in tackling of some of the worsening situations, they said their hands are tied behind their backs because the entire coercive authority in the country is monopolised by the APC-led Federal Government.
“Time has come to take advantage of the ongoing Constitution Amendment process to decentralise the security architecture of Nigeria and involve states and local governments.
“Consequently, the governors reaffirmed their conviction that an urgent devolution of powers and restructuring of the country in a way that brings together various groups and tendencies in the country appears to have become imperative and timely now as Nigeria cannot afford another civil war.
“We call on the Revenue Mobilisation Allocation and Fiscal Commission to send a new revenue allocation formula that allocates more resources to states and local governments to Mr President for National Assembly’s action.
“It is a scandal that, 21 years after the 1999 Constitution came into being, no new revenue formula is in place. Furthermore, the meeting called for a more transparent and accountable running and operation of the NNPC.
“The meeting further condemned the intimidation of sitting governors by the APC administration using all sorts of weapons like security agencies, unequal access to federal resources, promotion of divisions in the opposition political parties with fake promises and falsehoods.
“We significantly condemn the double standards that are applied by the APC-led federal government to intimidate PDP controlled states.
“To this end, we call on Mr. President to lift the so called “No flight Zone” and other intimidating tactics imposed on Zamfara State as similar measures have not been extended to similar states with security challenges like Kaduna, Borno, Katsina, Yobe and others. This is mostly politically motivated to ensure that the governors move over to the APC.”
The meeting noted that the APC has been unable to have a democratically-elected National Executive Committee, as required by the Nigerian Constitution.
“A political party that operates by military fiat with an appointed and unelected Executive Committee at all levels, from ward to national, has no business running the affairs of our country.
“The APC cannot deliver democracy to Nigeria; even to constitute a Board of Trustees has been an impossible task for the party since inception,” the governors said.
They further alleged that the APC is interested in playing politics and jockeying for power in 2023, when they have done an abysmal and terribly poor job of their current questionable mandate.
The PDP governors said they were distressed that Nigeria is now officially the country with the highest unemployment rate in the world at 33 per cent under the leadership of the APC.
“This is following on the heels of yet another feat of being the country with the second highest poverty rate in the world. For the APC, it is indeed a race to the bottom,” the communique stated.
The meeting received briefings from the PDP national chairman, Prince Uche Secondus and chairman PDP Board of Trustees (BoT), Senator Walid Jibrin and assured that the party is primed to offer effective leadership to Nigerians.
It enjoined the people to, once more, place their trust on the former national ruling party, describing it as the only effective vehicle to salvage the country.
The meeting also commended the PDP governors for what it described as their innovative approaches to governance in many fields in their states, especially infrastructure, education, health, women and youth initiatives and timely delivery of developmental projects.
“It is these legacy projects being undertaken in many PDP-governed states that will be presented to Nigerians as our scorecard at the appropriate time,” the communique stated.
