Earlyface

Party says political should be ready to
make sacrifices
As 2013 comes to a close, governors from
the opposition All Progressives Congress,
APC, have expressed solidarity with
Nigerians and commended the people’s
‘patience, resilience and dogged resistance’
in the face of what the governors called a
federal government that had lost touch with
the dreams and aspirations of its citizens.
Speaking under the Progressives Governors
Forum, PGF, via a statement signed by the
Director General of the PGF secretariat, Salihu
Lukman, on Wednesday in Abuja, the
governors said the year 2013 was one of
the worst years in Nigeria’s history.
They however said few developments
pointed to the fact that a new hope was
emerging on the horizon; notably the
merger of opposition parties and the
growing commitment of progressives and
patriotic political leaders to unite under the
All Progressives Congress, APC.
“There is no doubt that the merger of
opposition parties today represents a major
source of hope for the nation and our
people are full of expectations that our
party, APC, its leadership, elected
representatives and governments will take
the right step and measures to move the
country away from all the multitudes of
crises, halt the current movement towards
collapse, restore the credibility of
institutions of governance at all levels and
respect and recognize the value of the
human person,” the statement said.
The party noted that there was a demand
on all political leaders in the country to be
ready to make sacrifices.
“We therefore wish to acknowledge and
commend our party leadership for
demonstrating high resolve to set aside all
their personal positions and aspirations in
order to provide the needed leadership to
unite all Nigerian progressives. As
Progressive Governors, we are proud of the
achievements of our party and will continue
to support our leaders towards rescuing
our dear nation, Nigeria,” the statement
said.
The PGF said against the background of
today’s federal government that steered the
affairs of the nation based on convenience
rather than constitutionality, Nigerians had
been reduced to helpless observers of a
presidency that was only efficient in
weakening its moral authority, making it
difficult to relate with other levels and tiers
of government in accordance with the
provisions of the 1999 Constitution as
amended.
They said the hard and incomprehensible
reality was that the presidency, federal
government and ruling Peoples Democratic
Party, PDP, had become ‘reckless, dishonest
and completely insensitive to minimum
requirement of protecting the lives and
property of Nigerians.’ The governors said
as far as the conduct of the federal
government showed, governance was all
about the political aspirations of
functionaries of government, notably that of
the President.
“This is unfortunate and the consequence is
the increasing wave of both intra-party and
wider national political crises without any
visible demonstration of capacity by the
federal government and the ruling party to
manage or resolve the crises,” they said.
Advocate an agenda for reconciliation
The PGF added that given the severity and
intensity of the crises facing Nigeria, it was
clear that rescuing the country would have
to commence with a strong commitment to
a national agenda of reconciliation in order
to resolve grievances of citizens and bring
forth a clear road map for nation building
founded on respect for the citizens’
diversities.
Such a commitment, they said, should be
founded on the principles of acknowledging
deep-seated anger of citizens and
recognising that it was in the first place a
product of injustices over years of bad
governance. As a result, governments at all
levels at different times had infringed on the
rights and liberties of citizens; while citizens,
have in turn, been abused and in many
instances, violated.
“It is the view of the PGF that reconciliation,
founded on the principles of forgiveness
with governments demonstrating a strong
commitment to break away from the past
culture of infringements must form the
foundation of a new Nigeria,” they added.
The Governors affirmed their commitment
to move Nigeria forward. The nation, they
argued, could not continue to be run the
way it has since 1999.
“True, the resilience of the Nigerian people
has been tested severally by the antics of a
government that has continually defrauded
the people at the ballot box, continues to
play politics with ethnic and religious
sentiments while proffering no solutions to
tackle insecurity, poverty and
unemployment, yet, it is not the people, but
this government that must give way.
“After fourteen years under democracy, our
electoral system has continued to be a major
source of national disappointment. The
elections in Delta and Anambra have clearly
rolled back the small progress that was
recorded in Edo and Ondo States. With state
of emergency in Adamawa, Borno and Yobe
and the declaration by INEC that it will not be
able to conduct elections in those states,
democratic rule in the country is under
threat and all democrats must rise to the
occasion and save our democracy,” they
said.
They also said the country’s economy had
crashed to a level that was hardly
explainable with reference to all rational
economic theories. According to them, the
common scorecard showed a nation that
was efficient in mismanaging unmatched
resources and wanton profligacy, adding
that reversing this trend was not a mission
that any group could accomplish alone.
“It requires the support of Nigerians,” the
governors said.
“As Progressive Governors, we hereby
restate our commitment to make all our
states models of good governance with
records of rapid human development and
progress founded on the principles of social
democracy in line with provisions of our
party constitution and manifesto. In 2014,
we shall take all the necessary steps to roll
out programmes that will facilitate
development of synergy, experience sharing
and collaboration by all progressive states,”
they said.