The Lagos State Chapter of the Alliance for Democracy has criticized statements credited to a former Governor of Lagos State, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, on the proposed National Conference.
A statement by the Chairman of the AD in Lagos State, Kola Ajayi, erred by rejecting the proposed conference.
Tinubu had on his return to the country last week Saturday said he was not convinced about the viability of the conference.
But Ajayi faulted this position.
The statement by Ajayi reads in part: “AD’s first reaction is to wonder whether Tinubu was trying to draw attention to his return given the media black-out that characterized his absence. But the party believes that it’s appropriate to point out the fundamentally disingenuous and self-contradictory tactic of Bola Tinubu in rejecting the proposed national conference, especially because he had all along and through the years been an ardent advocate of a national conference. The party further points out that Tinubu has indeed built some of his dubious claims as a progressive politician on his well-known advocacy for such a conference.
“Apart from the self-contradiction of his latest anti-conference claim, AD wonders if the APC leader is not indulging in a kind of delusion of grandeur about the weight of his pronouncement in national affairs. If the President of Nigeria, having soberly considered the long-running demand by various stakeholders and nationalities across the nation for a national conference, has now decided in his capacity as the Chief Executive and Commander-in-Chief of this nation, to propose the convening of such a fundamental and nation-building conversation, who is Bola Tinubu, and where does he derive a legitimate mandate to so categorically pontificate on the rightness or otherwise of the President’s decision? Even the revered Awo, Zik or Ahmadu Bello, who indeed commanded sufficient political gravitas, respect, intellectual power – with public integrity to match, could never have hoped to contradict the majority of Nigerians and the nation’s elected Chief
Executive in such a cavalier manner on such an important nation-building imperative.
“Considering that Tinubu himself confessed, while making his statement, that he had not discussed the President’s conference decision with his APC colleagues and party – some or many of whom may actually support the President on the matter, isn’t it reckless, disrespectful and rather self-centred of him to rush ahead and make such a pronouncement without internal party consultations? That statement smacks of his well-known ‘’god-fatherist’’ instincts, which he has been using to dictate and monopolize decisions in his various, one-man-party summersaults – AC, ACN and now APC – all in six years!!. AD advises Tinubu not to let his dictatorial tendencies of godfather ego be the cause of an implosion in his latest, ideologically-barren political gang-up, which seems to have no deeper rationale than just opposing the PDP and taking over the Presidency.
“Besides, the President’s decision is proving very popular and well-received by the widest possible cross-section of stakeholders across the Nigerian polity. Since the announcement on Independence Day, the National Assembly, all key voices, leaders and commentators in virtually all political parties and geo-political zones have been cheering the President’s decision on this long-demanded confab.
“Apart from any other reasons, an obvious factor that argues for convening a national conference at this point in our nation’s history are the unprecedented centrifugal tensions and pressures in the polity, generated by a deadly, unity-threatening mix of religious and inter-ethnic animosities and violence. What more, with a cacophony of local and international voices confidently predicting the break-up of our country, what better time could there be for Nigerians to sit down together and discuss their suspicions, fears and demands, to jointly explore and set in statute the necessary compromises and accommodations required to guarantee the sustainable continuity and construction of the Nigerian Project?
“Even the fact that all the prominent Nigerians from all geo-political zones nominated by the President to drive the initial modality-setting process have gladly accepted to serve the nation on this critical assignment is an eloquent testimony to the validity of the confab. On the contrary, it is a pity, and indeed a testimony to the political pettiness, election-winning desperation and lack of depth in nation-building matters that the leader of a so-called opposition aspiring to lead Nigeria should see nothing in all this other than imagined and mundane tactics, means and methods for an up-coming election still more than a year away.”
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