A founding member of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Farouk Aliyu, has slammed the party’s chairman, Umar Ganduje, over one-party state comment.
Naija News reports that the former Minority Leader of the House of Representatives said Ganduje’s position on one-party state did not represent the position of the party.
Speaking with Arise News on Tuesday, Aliyu defended opposition politicians’ defection to his party.
“Definitely one-party state is not the best for us. In APC, we’re not looking into one-party state. What Ganduje said is his personal opinion. It’s not the opinion of the party, even though he’s our leader but that’s not the position of APC to desire one-party state,” he said.
He stated that it was the responsibility of the opposition parties to keep their houses in order. He, however, said every politician defecting to the APC would not be good for the nation’s democracy.
“However, I want you to note that it’s not our fault if anybody runs to APC. We’ve been in opposition, we stayed in opposition until when we found ourselves in the ruling party. With all the intimidations and so on and so forth. If the members of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) or other parties decide to join us, we won’t stop them.
“But, honestly, having everybody join APC is not good for our democracy. Also, democracy gives people the right to say, since all of you are in APC, we won’t vote for APC, we’ll vote for any other party. So, let this not scare anybody because the people will decide who to vote for. Whether 90 percent of Nigerians decide to join APC in terms of numbers, but when it comes to voting, the people will decide who to go with,” he stated.
The Jigawa State APC’s Chieftain stressed that Nigerians should be the deciders of who wins an election and not party affiliation.
He challenged Nigerians to vote out the politicians who defected to other parties if they are displeased.
“If the Nigerian public doesn’t accept the gale of movement, they have the right to decide when elections come. When the other person spoke about intimidation, can you say the former governor of Kebbi State was intimidated? This was the person who defeated a sitting governor. Our sitting Governor of Kebbi State was contesting to be a senator and he defeated him. Now he has decided to join the APC. So, if you look at all these, what is our fault? The fault is that they’ve accepted what we’re doing as a government,” he said.
The former House of Reps member added that former Governor Nasir El-Rufai defected to the Social Democratic Party (SDP) because he was not made a minister.
“If he were a minister, he wouldn’t be talking like this. We’re yet to see this kind of elite walking away from the largess of office. As far as I’m concerned, I feel that El-Rufai is ranting simply because he lost out,” he added.
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