The convener, Coalition of Northern Politicians, Academics, Professionals and Businessmen, Dr. Junaid Mohammed, has criticised the Niger State Governor, Babangida Aliyu, for boasting that the Peoples Democratic Party would win presidential and state governorship elections in 2015.
Aliyu had said recently: “PDP shall form the next Federal Government, PDP will win the governorship election in Niger State in 2015, and we will do it by God’s guidance and by our clean minds.”
But Mohammed said Aliyu had no political standing to make such prediction. He added that if the governor had declared his intention to contest, the case would have been different.
He said, “Making the prediction now that the PDP will win election in 2015, in my view, is wrong.”
The medical doctor-turned-politician said the only position Aliyu held that spanned the North was his chairmanship of the Northern Governors’ Forum, which was not an elective one.
The Second Republic joint House Leader insisted that the forum was not a legal body but one based on understanding by its members. He added that they only elected Aliyu as “somebody who will speak on behalf of the governors not on behalf of the North.”
Mohammmed said, “Babangida Aliyu was not speaking for anybody in the entire North. He has no authority or permit to speak the way he did. It should be clear that Aliyu was not even speaking for the people of Niger State.”
He said PDP won only one of the three senatorial districts in the state in the last election while the defunct Congress for Progressive Change won two districts. He noted that the governor could not guarantee that his party would win the next elections, with the way it failed in the last exercise.
“Whether PDP retains Niger or another party takes over, whether somebody from the North or South, becomes the President on the platform of the PDP or any other party, he —Babangida Aliyu — will cease to be of any relevance post-May 29, 2015,” Mohammed stated.
Copyright PUNCH.
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