...Says they are both driven by personal interests
. Claims Yar'Adua, not Jonathan awarded oil pipeline contracts to ex-militants
. APC: We are interested in politics of issues, not inanities
The Presidency at the weekend accused the All Progressives Congress (APC) leaders, Gen. Muhammadu Buhari and Bola Tinubu of being driven by personal interests on the 2015 presidential election.
Special Assistant to President Goodluck Jonathan on Public Affairs, Dr. Doyin Okupe, said this while speaking on Liberty Radio, Kaduna as guest of the week.
Okupe also explained that President Jonathan did not give oil pipelines contract to ex Niger Delta militant commanders, saying the contracts were awarded by the late President Umaru Musa Yar'Adua. On El-Rufai attack on President Jonathan,Okupe accused him of trying to force APC to adopt Buhari as 2015 presidential candidate.
Okupe said " I have heard so many things about Asari Dokubo, Tompolo and people who had contract on oil pipelines, it is fallacy. It was the late President Yar'Adua as part of his goodwill for the amnesty programme who felt that it was better to use people who are local and know the terrain rather than outsiders to police those terrains. So he gave those guys those contracts.
The contract expires during the time of President Jonathan and up to today, that contract was never ever renewed. "Let El-Rufai tell Nigerians what strategy he is using.
A new party has just been formed and El-Rufai is trying to drive and shove it into the throat of anybody who cares to listen to him without consensus that Buhari must be the Presidential candidate.
Is that a democrat? He is using dictatorial strategy to force APC people to accept an unelectable candidate. "Bola Tinubu has seemingly conquered the South- West, so like Napoleon and others who were on expedition, they want to expand their frontiers. He wants to come to the national stage and expand his business empire."
Okupe added, "Buhari believes that Obasanjo had been a military President and he was later elected civilian President, he believes that he is better than Obasanjo and so will also be able to get power under a democratic set up.
They are united and they have been brought together not because they want to help Nigeria in any form and I can prove that they have come together because they just want power for personal aggrandisement."
On Nigeria Governors' Forum (NGF) crisis, Okupe said, "I am glad that Chief Obasanjo as an elder statesman is trying to mediate, he has mediated in many international conflicts and has recorded success, but in his own country, people cannot listen because the stakes are higher than Obasanjo's intervention. People are looking for power in 2015. So I am not surprised that there is no result.
How would these five governors be at a meeting and they will not rally round Obasanjo and solve the problem? The elite in this country are only after their own interest."
Reacting, the Interim National Publicity Secretary of the APC, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, retorted that the party was interested in "politics of issues and not in that of inanities".
He asked, "Of what benefit is what he (Okupe) said to Nigerians. What will interest Nigerians is why PDP has failed the people in the last 14 years? Why is it that in the last 14 years they have lost the capacity to guarantee safety of lives and property? Why is it that after 14 years they have not been able to provide electricity and they have failed to provide food security for Nigerians? Why has the party failed in the last 14 years and why should anybody vote for them after this failure?
"Why has corruption gone to the level of a monster under their governments? Why is it that 400 million barrels of oil are being stolen daily and they don't have answer to it?" Mohammed said it was the answers to these questions that would interest Nigerians and not what Buhari or Tinubu would do for their personal interests.
"Nigerians will like to know how we will be different from the PDP and they will like to know how we will improve their lives. And these we are going to unfold in our manifestoes very soon. We are not going to engage in any frivolities," he stated
National Mirror
So many politicians are just receiving lots of slamming and it's getting too much I must say. Is no one doing anything right?