The National Leader of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, said yesterday that Senate President Bukola Saraki and Sokoto State Governor Aminu Waziri Tambuwal among others left the APC because the party could not offer them what they wanted.
Tinubu, said in a statement issued in Lagos that the defectors wanted automatic tickets and sharing of the national wealth which the governing APC could not guarantee.
In the statement which he personally signed and titled “They Go Away Because We Go the Right Way”, the former governor of Lagos State said the defectors “left the party to return to a motley agglomeration that would promise them what true democracy could not: automatic tickets, sharing of the national wealth and other offices and privileges”.
Tinubu, who said issues at hand must go beyond the debate on the numbers in the Senate or House of Representatives, added that “we must pull back from the shallow headlines to recognize that something fundamental is at stake.
“Nigeria is undergoing a historic transition. Sometimes awkwardly, tentatively, yet inexorably, we nurture political and governance reform. We steadily close the door on the old malpractices that have caused a rich nation to reside in the tenement of the global poor”.
On the Sokoto governor’s defection, the APC leader said: “Governor Tambuwal’s exit can be distilled to one cause. He covets the presidency. However, he had not the stomach to challenge President Buhari in a primary. Tambuwal felt further insulted that he would be compelled to face a direct primary just to retain the governorship nomination.
“But for the promise made by PDP headliners like Rivers State Governor Wike that he would have the PDP presidential nomination, Tambuwal would not have left. His exit had nothing to do with governance of the nation. It was about forging a personal ambition predicated on the defeat of progressive reform not the advancement of it”.
On Senate President, he said: “Much the same for Senate President Saraki. Returning to the PDP, he harbors dreams of the presidency but Tambuwal’s ambition will dwarf Saraki’s when the two collide. If Saraki had remained in the APC, he would be unable to reclaim his Senate seat let alone the Senate Presidency. He thus bolted because he lusts for the presidency but was promised by the PDP, at least, a return to his position in the Senate”.
