Jigawa State governor Sule Lamido has taken a swipe at former education minister Prof Jubril Aminu over his comment that members of the breakaway faction of the ruling Peoples Democratic Party, particularly the G-7 governors, were fighting for their personal interests.
The governor told the erstwhile senator to “shut up”, saying the comment of the PDP Board of Trustees (BoT) member was made so he could “remain politically relevant”.
Aminu had last week said at his 75th birthday: “I have nothing against the APC, but I don’t understand what they are doing; they want people to come from another party to join and make them strong. Unfortunately, they are going to the wrong people because, in the state, Nyako has no structures to take to the APC because he was defeated in the recent Nassarawo/Binyere State Assembly polls held in his LGA.
“A lot of these aggrieved governors of the new PDP are trying to find themselves out of the struggle; they are fighting for their personal interests. Why have my brother Sule Lamido, governor of Jigawa State, and others not left the party yet? He can’t, because PDP made him foreign affairs minister of this country and governor and he cannot turn his back to these things. Or is it the Kano State governor or Niger State governor? So what are they waiting for?”
He argued that the low turnout of people to the meeting of APC leaders with Gov. Murtala Nyako of Adamawa State sent a clear message that the Adamawa people were not in support of the governor’s moves.
But Lamido, in a statement issued by his chief press secretary, Umar Kyari, faulted Aminu’s position even as he said the G-7 governors’ stance against the Bamanga Tukur-led PDP was based on principle.
The statement reads: “On Monday, November 11, 2013, a couple of Nigerian dailies carried reports of unwarranted attack on the G-7 governors by Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) Board of Trustees member, Prof. Jibril Aminu. I am not surprised that these attacks are coming from my elder and leader who found a new pastime by picking on G-7 governors and myself in particular to remain politically relevant.
“I had cause to respond to a similar attack over my appointment by Mr President to head a committee to investigate Adamawa PDP crisis with a view to bringing peace to the PDP family in Adamawa State.
“Having been forced to again correct the records, I would like to state that there was nowhere the G-7 governors ever made the claim that we were ‘fighting’ our party to prove our political relevance. It is all on principles and against the impunity of Bamanga Tukur, pure and simple! This basic fact must be recognized by my elder Jubril Aminu.
“Now coming to my person as Sule Lamido, Prof. Aminu knows more than anybody my role in making and sustaining his political relevance in Adamawa and Nigeria. He knew he was politically dead and out in the general election of 2003. His personal testimony to this was his interview over the BBC accepting defeat of his senatorial election to the rival AC/ANPP.
“It pains me to come to this level to demand that my brother shut up! He is devaluing and diminishing himself to desperately remain ‘afloat and relevant’. I feel embarrassed for him! As for me, I can say I don’t need to prove anything to anybody! I think I can certainly modestly lay some claim to political relevance NOT only in my state or the North, but in Nigeria.”
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