National leader of All Progressives Congress, (APC) Asiwaju Bola Tinubu has quashed rumour of political rift between him and the former Vice President, Atiku Abubakar over the party’s Board of Trustees, (BoT) chairmanship position.
The former Lagos State governor declared that relationship between the two party leaders was cordial and that their utmost priority at the moment was to galvanize support for President Muhammadu Buhari to succeed and not power-tussle. “Don’t listen to rumours, there is no struggle. Our party is not even looking at the direction of power struggle or anything of such. The support structure is to encourage and support the President, to help him institutionalize his goal, principle and vision for a new Nigeria,” Tinubu said in Abuja on Wednesday.
He said the party’s top echelon is in support of President Buhari’s meticulous and dispassionate efforts to sanitize the systems and recover stolen common wealth. “There is pitfall in rushing, quick fix, depending upon the depth of the rot. And that rush can cascade into mistakes of unimaginable magnitude. There is equally glory and recovery in slowness, when you have a slow fix of a bad foundation. So to me, I would rather take the one that will last the country and endure for a longer period of time than the rush hour shopping,” he argued.
On the speculation that he submitted list of his loyalists to Buhari for ministerial appointment, Tinubu dismissed it as another phantom lies being peddled by opposition political camp. “What can I do about that, they have the right to speculate, they have the right to their lies and I have the right to debunk.”
Tinubu insisted that President Buhari did not violate any rule by delaying his cabinet formation for more than three months. Hear him: “I disagree with that. He (Buhari) was elected on a platform of democracy, he has adhered to rule of law so far. What is dictatorship about what he has done? He has helped to stimulate the economy in the various states and that is where the people are. So what is dictatorship? And the institutional paralysis had occurred in the country.
“It is very important for a steady man like the President to really help the nation recover from the paralysis and that is what he is doing so I don’t see what is dictatorial about that. If they don’t have anything to say, they rather be quiet. They created what is wrong here today and we can’t sweep that under the carpet. There must be rule of law.”
Former APC national chairman, Chief Bisi Akande also disclosed that the party chieftains were in the Presidential Villa to discuss the rot perpetrated by previous governments. “I understand that President Buhari inherited piles of rot in the Villa and I say let me see him, talk to him and report to my party with a view to knowing how to encourage him to change the rot to good. It is the rot, piles of rots upon rots,” he said.
By Olisemeka Obeche
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