By BASHIR ADEFAKA
Governor of Sokoto State and Peoples Democratic Party Presidential Aspirant, Rt. Hon. Aminu Waziri Tambuwal, has condemned in strong terms report linking him with a comment that he said South South geopolitical zone of Nigeria cannot produce President of the country.
Tambuwal, a former Nigeria’s number four citizen as Speaker of the nation’s House of Representatives and currently Governor of unarguably most peaceful state in the country, has been described in several quarters as a man of many qualities both in words and actions, who is not one that speaks first and talk later.
From the horse’s mouth Tuesday night, the refutation came by the governor while speaking on Channels Television’s Politics Today when he, not only debunked the report but also, challenged those who said he ran imbalance committees of the House of Representatives when he was Speaker were not anywhere near the truth and he backed up his point by listing out how committees were shared under his administration of the Green Chamber during Seventh Assembly.
In the television interview monitored in Lagos by The DEFENDER, the Sokoto State governor had first held the question on balancing of committees aside until he had seized the opportunity to address the fake report about South South ability to produce presidency.
“Before I answer that, I read online, a medium, someone said that I said South South cannot produce the President of Nigeria. I didn’t say that. Rather, in 2011 I supported a Presidential candidate of South South extractions, Goodluck Ebele Jonathan to win the presidency of Nigeria. I have many friends in the South South of Nigeria, who are competent and who qualified to lead Nigeria. I didn’t say that. What I said has nothing to do with that. I didn’t say that,” he said.
On balancing of committee of the House he said: “we ran a very transparent all-inclusive House of Representatives of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. The facts are there in the Seventh House of Reps.
“When you talk about balancing committees, for the first time Committee on upstream was in the South West, Committees on Health and Appropriation were in the South South, Committees on Works, Aviation, Foreign Affairs were in South East, Committee on Water Resources was in the North Central, Committees on Agriculture and Police were in the North East, Committees on Education and Defence were in the North West.
“Even, a new Committee we created on Diaspora was in the South West and we gave it to Abike Dabiri and it was from there that she got active and she became a very good ambassador of the House of Representatives and of that committee.”
The Mutawallen Sokoto had earlier in the interview challenged the idea of PDP zoning the party to the South, stressing that what Nigeria needs as of today is a Nigerian President not regional President and, as such, that competency, not regionalism, should be the main consideration for choosing a presidential candidate.
Noting that PDP needs to focus on winning election and talking about delegation of power sharing later, Tambuwal took a swipe on All Progressives Party (APC) who he said was not talking about zoning whereas when in 2015 it was focusing on winning election, it did not bother where the candidacy of President Muhammadu Buhari was coming from.
President Buhari, according to him, was picked from Katsina, the state a president that died just five years back – Umar Musa Yar’Adua – came from because they needed a candidate that could deliver the votes for them.
He also acknowledged that he was in talks with other presidential aspirants in the PDP with the hopes of reaching a consensus but maintained that he has the strong believe he is the candidate that can deliver the votes defeating whoever APC will bring forward for the 2023 election, adding that demography is key in electioneering politics.
On how long it will take him to tackle insecurity if he becomes President of Nigeria, Tambuwal declined to tell how long but specifically pointed out that he has idea of how to fix the problem, part of which he said is taking security to the community level and addressing the issue of State Police and, essentially, get security closer to the people.
“If it means me, Aminu Waziri Tambuwal, as President of Nigeria taking the bill personally to President of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Reps, I will do so because, I believe it’s one of the interventions that we need as a matter of urgency to nip the issues of security challenges in the bud,” Tambuwal said.
*Watch out for full interview as transcribed as The DEFENDER.
