Excuse me, Governor Sule Lamido

Excuse me, Governor Sule Lamido

By Abdulazeez Abdullahi

Governor Sule Lamido of Jigawa State is really an intriguing fellow. While no one may doubt his commitment to transforming the lives of his people - which I hear he is doing very well - he sometimes betrays a sentiment that contradicts and perhaps undermines such disposition. Here is a man who, in the cause of his political career, has been identified as the defender of the talakawa but sees no qualms with subverting the constitution to grant the self serving wishes of former President Olusegun Obasanjo for a third term in office. It beats the imagination how he seems to allow his unflinching loyalty blind him to the demerits of whatever it is he believes in.

President Obasanjo’s eight-year tenure in his second coming cannot by any stretch of the imagination be seen as the best thing that has happened to this country like the Jigawa governor would want Nigerians believe. During those eight years, the country earned so much revenue from oil exports but there was little to show for it. The government was unable to meet the 4,000 megawatts of electricity target it had set for itself despite moving the target forward not a few times. The Obasanjo regime, which Lamido vigorously defends at every opportunity, was also unable to fully bring back on stream our ailing refineries which would have made a success of its deregulation policy despite the huge sums of money budgeted for turn around maintenances regularly. It was also under that administration that the nation witnessed such gross violation of the rule of law and a blatant disregard for court judgements.

 As we all remember, the Obasanjo government made it a habit to pick and choose court rulings to obey and those not to. It apparently did not give a hoot about the doctrine of separation of powers as it constantly meddled in the affairs of the legislature and succeeded in the removal of a number of its principal officers. Even when the then president was junketing all over the world in search of elusive foreign investors, the Jigawa governor, who was part of the junket as foreign minister, could only have kind words for his boss.

It did not of course come as a surprise to many that Governor Lamido is not in support of the candidature of former Vice President Atiku Abubakar who recently emerged the northern consensus candidate and is set to contest the presidential primaries of the Peoples Democratic Party against President Goodluck Jonathan next tomorrow. After all, it was the former vice president who had the audacity to stand up to his boss when it became apparent that his boss [Obasanjo] would stop at nothing to unconstitutionally remove Atiku as vice president. Back then, Lamido never uttered a word of caution to his principal who was running roughshod over the constitution.

Governor Lamido seems to have carried that fight over to the present effort to determine who bears the flag of the PDP in April’s presidential elections. He, alongside the governors of Sokoto and Adamawa States have made it known that they do not recognize the selection of any northern consensus candidate. In a free country and in a democracy, they without doubt have the right to do so. The other two governors have not openly disclosed why they are opposed to Atiku’s selection - even though Governor Nyako’s could be deduced from the bitter battles he fought with the former vice president over the control of the Adamawa PDP. Governor Sule Lamido has however gone about doing exactly that.

His reasons for not backing AtIku Abubakar include the fact that the former vice president had waged war against the PDP in the past and therefore is undeserving of the party’s platform to contest for the presidency. While the governor is within his rights to back the candidate of his choice, I however find the reasons he has put forward in support of President Goodluck Jonathan quite unconvincing and re-enforces my earlier argument about how the governor often does not weigh both sides of the issue in an attempt to push an argument.

The governor was last week quoted in the press as saying that “From any angle one may look at it, there is no way we shall pass a vote of no confidence on a government sponsored by our party. It is against the tenets of democracy and morality especially under the circumstance which is not our own making. I would like to say that Dr. Jonathan is our man< only he we shall support in the forthcoming presidential nomination”. One is at pains to understand how it could be against the tenets of democracy to pass a vote of no confidence on a non performing government. If anything, that would as a matter of fact be upholding such lofty tenet. A leader whose government has failed to secure the lives and property of its citizens surely does not deserve to be voted back into office. Neither does such a leader who has consistently shown an inability to prudently utilize the country’s abundant resources for the good of all. I thought this is the greater good that should form the basis for the governor’s support for any candidate, after all the welfare of the talakawa ought to be accorded priority than any one individual’s desire for power.

The governor went on to say: “it is unacceptable to defeat the president at the party’s convention. If that happens, it will mark the end of PDP and its government”. Nothing can be farther from the truth than this coming from a governor who should know better.

While making a point about zoning after acknowledging that it existed in the party, the governor also said: “It was exclusively our affair to determine and resolve at our level”. I am not sure any body is disputing that zoning  is a PDP affair, what is in dispute is President Jonathan’s determination to vie for the presidency in violation of the party’s constitution which recognizes a two term power rotation agreement between the North and South Now the pro Jonathan camp can conveniently claim that Ya’adua and Jonathan contested on a joint ticket but we all know than on assumption of office, Jonathan did all he could to distance himself and his government from that  so called joint ticket. Governor Lamido also accused northerners of undermining the presidency of late Umaru Yar’dua saying they took him from the lowest courts to the Supreme Court challenging his election. Isn’t challenging elections in courts part of the democratic process especially an election that was widely acclaimed as wrought with enormous irregularities by local and international observers?

Some observers who are just as worried about the governor’s disposition to the Joanthan presidency have speculated that the president may have succeeded in getting to the governor through the EFCC. In September last year, the anti graft agency visited Jigawa and interrogated some commissioners and the governor’s son. Lamido did not take that lying low, he came out fighting declaring that he could not be intimidated by the government’s attempt to silence him afterwards, it is hoped that he was not eventually subdued