The People’s Democratic Party in the North West geo-political zone have rebuked Jigawa State Governor Sule Lamido for distancing himself from the resolution taken by the party to support the candidacy of President Goodluck Jonathan.
A statement signed by the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Ambassador Aminu Wali, which was made available to journalists in Kaduna, wondered why the sudden reversal by Lamido, who was adequately represented by his deputy who said gave his consent to the resolution. Wali went further to say that he can show video clips of the meeting showing that Lamido’s deputy took part and agreed to the resolution.
“Our attention has been drawn to a publication widely-circulated in the media purported to have emanated from Lamido, challenging the resolution of our expanded stakeholders’ meeting where he claimed that Jigawa State was not part of the resolution.”
“It is against this backdrop that we deemed it necessary to clear the air on this and other sundry issues raised by the deputy governor in his press briefing at his office in Dutse, the state capital.
“Let me firmly and explicitly state that the decision to hold the expanded stakeholders’ meeting was a culmination of several meetings held between the key stakeholders of the zone and Jigawa State was always represented by the deputy governor in those meetings.”
Wali stated further that “it was also agreed at such fora that each state must first hold its stakeholders’ meeting before the expanded meeting, which we believed was complied with by each state chapter of the party.”
He added that “the outcome of the meetings by the state chapters gave rise to the North-west zonal meeting. The expanded stakeholders resolved to urge President Goodluck Jonathan to contest for the Office of the President in 2015.
“This decision was the position of the majority of the stakeholders present at the meeting. Therefore to concretise it, Wali was directed to read the communique and make it public as prepared and submitted by the party.
“This accounted for the presence of the governors and deputy governors including that of Jigawa State standing behind Wali while he was reading the communiqué, to demonstrate their support and endorsement of the outcome of the meeting.
The statement regretted that “for the deputy governor to return to the state and to summon a press conference dissociating himself and the state governor from the communiqué was an afterthought and rather very unfortunate.
“We have no iota of idea as to the reason for such denial. We therefore find it necessary to put the record straight by confirming that we stand by the contents and outcome of our communiqué.”
