Former Vice President, Atiku Abubakar, and Kano State Governor, Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso, both presidential aspirants on the platform of the All Progressives Congress, have canvassed for votes from the party’s delegates in Rivers State ahead of next week’s election.
Abubakar told delegates he is the most experienced in democratic governance amongst his rivals for the presidential ticket of the APC for the 2015 general elections, while Kwankwaso described himself as having the capacity to lead and transform Nigeria if elected president next year.
Addressing the delegates at the Government House in Port Harcourt, the Rivers State capital, over the weekend, Abubakar expressed absolute commitment to support the APC achieve its desired results in 2015, stating that he will ensure the party maintains its internal democracy and promotes due process.
He said: “Rivers State is my home because I have an investment which employs over 20,000 persons and that is why I have come to seek the support of the delegates to win the APC presidential primary election holding next week.
“We are prepared to bring the needed change this nation deserves.
“And among APC presidential aspirants, I think I am better prepared.
“None of them has the experience of democratic governance.
“But I have served as a democratically elected vice president for eight years.
“I have better blueprint for Niger Delta.”
Abubakar urged the Rivers State Governor and APC leader in the state, Chibuike Amaechi, to ensure a level playing field “so we can produce a credible candidate for APC.
“I promise to take APC to greater heights.”
On the other hand, Kwankwaso, who addressed the APC national delegates in Rivers State on Friday, said he would be the best choice to fly the APC’s flag for the 2015 presidential election.
He said: “I am here to see my brother, the leader of APC here in Rivers State and all other delegates so that we can see face to face, we can interact, we can understand ourselves, so that by the 10th of this month, God willing, in Lagos, everybody will go and vote (President Goodluck) Jonathan out of Villa in 2015.
“Let me say that I believe, not because I am Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso, but I very much believe that Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso under the present situation is the best candidate for our party, the APC.
“Many people under this our circumstances, even this bad situation, tend to bring in their personal interests.
“Even the worst critic of Kwanwaso cannot say he is not capable.
“You can say anything, but they will tell you I have the capacity to do it and the commitment.
“And that is what we need now – capacity –-and that is what they lack in Abuja.
“They do not have the capacity.
“They cannot do the job.
“They know Rochas.
“They know Amaechi.
“They know the governor of Sokoto.
“They know all others that were in the PDP and we decided to move to APC, but there are two people that they fear most – the Rotimi of Rivers and the Rotimi of Kano.
“When they mention our names there, they are shivering.
“They know we are very serious people.
“They don’t joke with us and that is why now we have one of the Rotimis in the ring.
“He is the last person they want to see as a candidate of APC.
“We are people with courage.
“We are people with full determination.
“We are people with commitment to move this country forward and I believe that is very important.
“We are the people that will come out and say the truth either in the bedroom or in the sitting room or even in the market.
“We say it as it is and that is why my brother (Amaechi) is respected here and that is why I am also respected not only in Kano but across northern Nigeria.
“I believe this is the time of the Rotimis, if you know what I mean.”
Kwankwaso blasted the current Peoples Democratic Party-led Federal Government for inefficiency and maladministration.
He also blamed the country’s worsening insecurity on the failure of the Jonathan administration to act decisively.
He said: “Every day, we have seen things go from bad to worse, especially the issue of security.
“Everybody is afraid today, including the Commander-in-Chief.
“If you ask him now to go to Chibok, can he go to Chibok?
“Can he go to Maiduguri?
“Commander-in-Chief.
“He cannot go to his own country and that is why everybody, North and South, everybody is yearning for change.”
Kwankwaso, who also bemoaned the country’s economic woes, pledged to re-energize the Nigerian economy if elected president.
He commended Amaechi for the massive transformation in the state and lauded him also for his national leadership drive in pursuit of a better Nigeria.
Responding, Amaechi hailed Kwankwaso for his decision to run for the presidency.
He stated that the government at the centre was rotten and would require new leadership to turn things around in Nigeria.
Recalling his travails, Amaechi said he was politically betrayed by most of those he knew but pointed out Governor Kwankwaso was one of those who stood by him in his trying times.
He said: “I have told you that he (Kwankwaso) is a brother.
“He stood by me during the time when we were fighting this fight for who would be the Chairman of Nigeria Governors’ Forum.
“A lot of my friends betrayed me.
“Those who called themselves my friends, the ones we sit together, eat together, those we sit together in meetings or we plan together what to say in meetings.
“When it was time to express those our feelings, I expressed mine believing that they would come with me, but they didn’t.
“Then I remembered the famous saying of one of our chiefs in Ikwerre who said as a leader, if you hear the footsteps of people who may say ‘go, we are behind you, go, we are with you’, it is important as a leader to always look back.
“It may be the same people that are running away from you.
“And that is exactly what happened to me then.
“All those my friends that we used to see, we made phone calls together, we shared things together, they would visit me, I would visit them, we would sleep in each other’s states all suddenly disappeared, but he (Kwankwaso) was among the governors who stood their ground.”
Amaechi described Kwankwaso as a potential president the country needs to get out of troubled waters, while attesting to the governor’s performance in Kano State and wished him and all the other APC presidential aspirants luck in the party’s upcoming presidential primaries.
On the assertion that President Jonathan could not visit some parts of the country, Amaechi narrated his own case where he acted promptly and even visited areas considered as no-go areas to curtail the excesses of then militants in the state.
He said: “As governor, I visited all those bad areas.
“All those areas they said were bad, I visited them.
“I was just what they call ‘Chief Security Officer’ of the state.
“As Commander-in-Chief, if our president cannot visit those areas, cannot go to Chibok, then there is a problem.
“It means that we have ceded those areas.
“Commander-in-Chief means you are Commander-in-Chief.
“It means that there is no part of Nigerian territory you cannot go to.
“As Commander-in-Chief, you will visit.
“When you visit, you meet people who are hungry, when you cannot provide for them immediately, you become unpopular because they want immediate result to their problems.”
Amaechi lamented that the Federal Government seriously mismanaged the country’s fuel subsidy programme.
He said: “The problem is at the centre.
“It is rotten.
“The issue of oil subsidy is the fact that Federal Government collects our money to fund what they call subsidy for petrol and how many of you are benefitting from that subsidy.
“The answer is zero.
“So, very few individuals are chanting songs everywhere: ‘We want President Goodluck Jonathan’ because they are collecting money.
“You are aware we met in the governors’ forum.
“Under (former President Olusegun) Obasanjo, oil subsidy was N200 billion and rose to N300 billion.
“Under President Yar’Adua, it remained at N300 billion.
“President Yar’Adua died in 2011, six months of President Goodluck Jonathan, oil subsidy rose from N300 billion to N2.3 trillion.
“You can ask him.
“It’s public knowledge.”
Meanwhile, Governor Amaechi has called on delegates and party faithfuls of the APC to leverage strong networks in the internal democracy of the party towards ensuring a desirable change in the 2015 general elections.
While interacting with party delegates form Rivers and Bayelsa States during Abubakar’s visit, Amaechi explained that the democratic process to enthrone the needed change for a new government in 2015 will depend on the ability of the party faithful to present credible candidates as well as mobilize the electorate to vote for the credible candidates of APC in the general elections.
He said: “Things will change only when we desire to take and properly handle things with our hands rightly.
“This is the time for us to come out en masse and support the party.
“We must be ready to force change in 2015.
“But you cannot do that in your house.
“You have to join in the massive mobilization of supporters and admirers to be at polling units to vote credible candidates of APC.
“APC can win if we massively urge party supporters to vote.
“It will be right when our opponents see our supporters or the electorates coming out to the polling units to choose their leaders and by that calculation, we can win the Presidency in 2015.
“We actually want a president that will be ready to deliver dividends of democracy to our people when we win in 2015.
“This is because the current rift between the Rivers State Government and President Jonathan was due to the inability of the Presidency to justify the two million votes from Rivers people.”
Amaechi also indicated the preparedness of party delegates to work in synergy with any of the presidential aspirants that emerges as the flag bearer of the All Progressives Congress in the upcoming primary election.
He said: “Delegates of the party have all agreed to work with any of the presidential aspirants that emerges as the presidential flag bearer of the APC.
“I urge all the party delegates to be watchful and ensure total commitment to support APC to win the 2015 general elections.”