Governor Nyako of Adamawa State says he joined the APC to salvage Nigeria’s future.
The Adamawa State Governor, Murtala Nyako, on Sunday said his defection, alongside four other ex-Peoples Democratic Party, PDP governors, to the All Progressives Congress, APC, was not driven by the desire to become leaders of the party in their respective states.
He said the defection was a patriotic move to save democracy from tyrannical grip.
The Governor, in a statement signed by his Director of Press and Public Affairs, Ahmad Sajo, said he was spurred by the need to provide a viable opposition platform that will check the current drift in the polity.
“The need to join other patriots to form a Pan-Nigerian National platform that will serve as a veritable vehicle for the enthronement of genuine Unity, Peace and Progress in the Nation and the desire to build a political party that respects the welfare and interest of the Nigerian people was behind our resolve to move to APC,” Mr. Nyako said.
The governor said that contrary to popular opinion, he and the other governors who switched parties, now known as G5 governors, moved from the PDP to pull the “country out of the woods”.
Mr. Nyako said that at the time they pulled out of the PDP, several options were open to them, but moving to APC represented the best option to fight the injustice currently in vogue in Nigeria.
“We could have formed a new political Party; we could have joined a newly registered Party or any of the other existing political parties in Nigeria. But we opted to join APC because it represents a broad based coalition of democratic forces built on the ideals of progress and development,” he said.
The governor said such ideals were the force behind their action not the quest for leadership just as he urged all members of the party to hold on to these ideals and work for the interest of the nation at all times.
“It is imperative for all members of the APC to hold on to these noble ideals at all times. Under such circumstances there should be no reason to disagree on anything least of all leadership of the Party at any level,” he said.
Mr. Nyako said the coming together of “progressive forces” through the APC will save the country from the vice grip of a cabal that has held the presidency captive and has continued to provide excuses for countless failures rather than advance ideas on the provision of dividends of democracy to the people of Nigeria.
“This cabal had unwittingly reduced all arguments about the future of Nigeria to non issues such as Ethnicity and Religious bigotry,” he said.
Mr. Nyako accused the PDP of being unpatriotic and inciting ethnic and religious troubles in its statement which it released on January 5, 2014.
“All they were doing was to describe others in their own mould. They are clannish ethnic chauvinist and religious bigots hence they describe others in the same manner,” he said.
The governor said that while he has no intention of running for office in 2015, he is keen on ensuring that Nigeria is on the path of progress and economic prosperity.
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