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NO NORTHERN GOV CAN SUCCEED YAR’ADUA
Frontline Northern critic and retired Army Major, Abubakar Umar, has declared that none of the serving Northern governors is competent to rule the country. Speaking in an exclusive interview with Daily Sun on Mondayevening in Kaduna, Umar who like Colonel Dangiwa Umar, harbours some misgivings about the Northern establishment, insisted his declaration was premised on the fact that some of the governors were found wanting when their books were cross-checked by the EFCC sometime ago.
Hear him: “I have not seen anybody among the Northern governors competent enough to rule this country. The North cannot eat me raw because I am saying the truth.” On whether or not President Yar’Adua should resign, Umar who said he was ready to lead a protest march ex-President Ibrahim Badamosi Babangida (IBB) should make any attempt at the Presidency, said if the trio of IBB, Buhari and Abdulsalami, had the interest of the North and that of Nigeria at heart, they ought to have since led a delegation to see President Yar’Adua in the hospital in Saudi Arabia to ascertain his true state of health.
He, however, alluded to the fact that until otherwise proven, Yar’Adua could as well administer Nigeria from the hospital for the rest of his tenure. “This is a very interesting development. Unfortunately, the case of Yar’Adua is such that Nigerians should have looked into it before he was sworn in as President.
Nigeria has been bedeviled with unfortunate circumstances with regards to leadership since independence. You remember what happened to Tafawa Balewa, Aguiyi-Ironsi, Murtala Muhammed, Buhari, and how IBB unceremoniously left office, the Shagari coup and what have you. If you look at the trend, we have always moved from one stumbling block to another. But in all of these, the country has remained united.
“What is bothering me most about Yar’Adua was the way he was brought into office. It was such that in the first place it ought to have been contested in the law court.
“But since we did not contest his capability on health grounds before he was sworn in, now that he has been sworn in, then I do not see any sense in the agitation from the political class that he should resign at this point in time.
“We will remember very well what happened to the Gambian President, who was in hospital for over four years, he was never replaced by his deputy, because the Constitution allows him to continue in his office, until he dies, before an election was conducted. So, since we are running a democratic system, the system should be allowed to run its full course.
“The Constitution allows Jonathan to function as acting President, without necessarily asking Yar’Adua to quit.
Yar’Adua has not been declared unfit to rule this country. He has just been admitted in the hospital and this is not the first time he would be admitted in the hospital.
“Unfortunately, there is unnecessary political agitation by some certain people in the country, who were not pleased with the outcome of Yar’Adua’s presidency. To ask him to resign is to create confusion in our nascent democracy. The doctors have not said he can’t rule, so we should wait till that time.
“We should not create a situation of insecurity in this country. For a secure political atmosphere, people like General Buhari should have led a delegation to Katsina to see the mother of Yar’Adua and should have also flown to Saudi Arabia to see the condition of this man. “In his capacity as a former Head of State and somebody from Katsina, a brother and a friend to the President’s elder brother. “But the point is that the Presidency is in the North, and if somebody from the North occupying the position is very sick, the way Yar’Adua is, I think the leadership in the North should have sent a delegation to ascertain the true position of things, that way it would allay the fears of other Nigerians on the true position of things.
“Remember the 10th anniversary of Abacha’s death, IBB, Buhari and Abudulsalmi, all went to Kano and even said the man did not steal a kobo. If they can do that for Abacha, why don’t they go to Saudi Arabia, if they truly have the interest of this country at heart and assure Nigerians that they should wait for 2011, rather than create an uncertain atmosphere for this country.”
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