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‘You failed to act properly’-Lamido tells
Jega
Newsdiaryonline
Wed April 6,2011
At a time
of deep frustrations with Nigeria’s destiny and the associated
recourse to cynical silence, the views of Alhaji Sule Lamido on
the botched National Assembly elections last Saturday can be
interesting. Speaking today, (06/04/2011) at the signing of the
“last budget of the first leg of our two terms in office”, the
Jigawa State governor declared that although Professor Attahiru
Jega is his brother, a Fulani, fellow Muslim and Northerner, he
would not join others in excusing him from failure in the
weekend fiasco. Although granting that
Nigeria
needs 150 million Jegas if the country must make progress,
Governor Lamido insisted that if his brother was wrong, he must
say he was wrong. He said it could not be otherwise once the
INEC Chairman not only briefed the National Council of States
but also gave a press conference a few days before the
elections, assuring the country that he was ready.
Failure
to condemn this on any grounds will be akin to failing to
condemn ethnic approval for a South-South governor who was
alleged to have stolen public money and the action was described
by his people as “it is our money, his action doesn’t concern
you”.
The
governor said his is that the actions of the INEC Chairman has
occasioned and deepened cynicism and the culture of blackmail in
the country. ‘This morning, I heard someone on BBC, Hausa
Service saying Professor Jega had gone into hiding in an army
barrack because the government wanted to kill him. The talker
forgot that if it were true the government wants to kill him,
the army barrack is the wrongest place for him to run to since
the head of the government is also the Commander-in-Chief of the
armed forces. Such loose talks are products of the political
chemistry of our people today as a result of the feeling that
Nigeria has lost out.’
He said
Professor Jega has, in his view, simply allowed a contractor to
blackmail the country, wondering if any of the European country
which Nigerians quote approvingly would accept the postponement
of its national election because of the action of a contractor,
no matter who he or she is.
As far as Lamido is concerned, the problem may have more
to do with Jega’s conception of the independence status of the
electoral management body, saying, however, that it would be
stretching this to ‘sovereign insubordination’ if he insists
INEC can be independent to the extent of being sovereign. Other
bodies like the National Assembly, the Judiciary, said Lamido,
are theoretically independent but they must work together to
deliver. According to the governor, it is not in all cases that
it amounts to interference for independent bodies to work
together. “It is not interference but facilitation. You need
consultations at all times when you are dealing with issues of
this magnitude, especially when you got the goodwill, the
prayers and the authority you asked for”, he maintained. He said
he has problem understanding why the INEC Chairman could not
approach the President by Friday night when he realized he was
being left high and dry, arguing that there was no body,
agencies or authorities the Nigerian President could not reach
to mobilize and ease a crease in such an emergency.
Lamido
said he had warned Jega during the INEC Chairman’s courtesy call
on him late last year to beware of all those describing him as
epitome of honesty, integrity because “Jega alone cannot do
anything. Above all, Jega is a human being”. The Jigawa governor
lamented that Jega’s personal assurances had made it impossible
for him to insist on an institutional critique of INEC unlike
before, adding that “it has been his recipe, his own cuisine, he
has been the Chief chef, the one who has been in the kitchen and
he should remain and serve the meal”. According to Lamido, every
job comes with its own difficulties and he could not, therefore,
appreciate the idea of the INEC Chair leaving the stage now.
Not one
to conclude such a major intervention without firing verbal
missiles in the predictable direction of opponents of the PDP
whom he accused of playing on emotions just to garner electoral
support, Governor Lamido insisted progress of Nigeria must stand on history. That,
for him, means moving from fixation with PDP to patriotic
perspective of issues, situations and events. It is failure of
this test that people whom he said took
Nigeria
through 1983-1999 have the audacity now to pose as agents of
change today. “We have to have the courage to say, this is what
happened”.
From
walloping opponents, Lamido returned to the subject matter of
the day from which he digressed into the hotbed of Nigerian
politics called INEC Chairmanship, electoral management and
democratisation. While acknowledging that
Nigeria
is in a social crisis, the governor still restated his earlier
assurance that in another four years, Jigawa would be a
reference point in Nigeria. In the
fit of his bragging self, Governor Lamido stated that already,
Jigawa is a phenomenon in Nigerian politics because “there have
been concrete manifestations of improvement in the life of the
average Jigawa citizen. We have been able to address some of the
historical nightmares of the people of Jigawa
State. That is what budget avails”.
He went on to insist that there has been a consistent 90 %
budget implementation in the state every year in the last four
years of his administration. The credit is collective because it
is the result of the patience, support and even tolerance of all
the actors and stakeholders in this state, he said.
“When we
come for the second term which is a sure banker, Jigawa within
the eight years that we would have been here will, inshallahu,
be the reference point in Nigerian politics on all counts”.
With such
categorical or unambiguous declarations, Governor Lamido turned
a routine state ceremony into a platform for a disagreeable but
reasoned discourse of Nigeria. It is probably not for
nothing that they call him the politician’s politician.
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