The All Progressives Congress (APC) has told Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, national chairman, Alhaji Bamanga Tukur that only Nigerians can decide President Goodluck Jonathan’s political fate in response to his statement that the President will rule beyond 2015.
The opposition party said the statement by Tukur was nothing but an empty boast aimed at ingratiating himself to the President.
The PDP national chairman had while receiving some members of the National Association of Nigerian Students, NANS, Anambra State chapter at his Wuse, Abuja residence earlier this week, told them that President Jonathan will hand over to a younger PDP candidate in 2019 hence the need for Nigerian youths to begin preparations towards taking charge at the national level.
But in a statement issued in Abuja on Wednesday by its Interim National Publicity Secretary, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, APC asked the PDP Chairman to match his words with action by first stepping down from his post to pave way for the younger generation.
It reminded Tukur that one of his predecessors once boasted, in another euphoric moment, that the PDP will rule for 60 years, only for him to leave office shortly thereafter.
“There is nothing on ground to justify Tukur’s empty boast, which is again being oiled in readiness for 2015.
“It is interesting that the Chairman said the future belongs to the youths and that the era of Gerontocracy is gone. The last time we checked; a 78-year-old man does not exactly belong to the generation of youths even if he continues to hold away at the top echelon of the ruling party. The sincerity of that statement is therefore in doubt.
“As for the PDP Chairman’s admonition to the youth to start preparing to take over the mantle of leadership, the question to ask is whether or not the undergraduates in the nation’s public universities, who have been marooned at home for over four months now because the PDP-led federal government repudiated the agreement it signed with ASUU, are not part of the leaders of tomorrow?
“If Tukur believes they are, he should urgently prevail on the government sired by his party to meet its obligation to ASUU and end the strike by the university teachers. Then we will know that he is serious about his postulation. Until then, we say talk is cheap” the statement said.
-VANGUARD
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