My Problem With Dame Jonathan - Amaechi

Rivers State governor and chairman of Nigeria Governors Forum, Chibuike Rotimi Amaechi, has said his perceived misunderstanding with the First Lady, Dame Patience Jonathan, arose out of his desire to provide a conducive learning environment for the children of Okrika, hometown of Mrs. Jonathan

Amaechi, who spoke when clergymen of the Niger Delta Bishops Forum visited him in Government House, Port Harcourt on Friday, said he has enormous respect for both President Goodluck Jonathan and his wife, Patience.

 The religious leaders were in Port Harcourt as part of their efforts to mediate in the political crisis in the state, having visited Mrs Jonathan and the minister of state for education, Nyesom Wike, on a similar mission some weeks ago.

 The governor said: “My lords, I don’t know what to say. Believe me, the only thing I want to say to you is that I want it to be on record that the first lady said when my wife came to beg me, I pushed her away. I have never quarrelled with my wife publicly, and I will never quarrel with my wife publicly. So there was no time I ever pushed my wife away, and there is no time I will push my wife away.”

“I hope this mediation will work. Niger Delta monarchs came and it yielded no result. Since you are men of God, I hope that God will bless this one. I hope so because that is the same way I spoke to them (the monarchs) and they said, ‘watch out, it will work’, and they never returned because it never worked. There are so many persons who had come to mediate but it yielded no result.”

 Amaechi added: “If it is peace that everybody wants, I am ready for peace. When you say you are seeking for permission, I am wondering why, because if you did not have the permission you would not have gone to see the wife of the president. The mere fact that you have seen the wife of the president means that you have initiated the peace move. So you don’t require any further approval than the approval of God that you have started with.

Earlier, leader of the delegation, Rt. Rev. James Aye Oruwori, said they came because they needed the governor’s permission to intervene in the prolonged crisis in the state and the dispute between him and the first lady.

Oruwori said they took the challenge to intervene in the crisis without external influence, having also visited Dame Jonathan to restore peace to the state.

Wazirin Kano Dies At 88

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A Kano-based Islamic scholar, Sheikh Isah Waziri, who held the exalted traditional title of “Wazirin Kano”, is dead.

He passed on yesterday during a brief illness at the Aminu Kano Teaching Hospital and was buried according to Islamic rites. The funeral prayer for the octogenarian was held at the Galadanchi Mosque at Kano Emir’s palace ground (Kofar Kudu) and was buried at Gidan Gona cemetery. He is survived by three wives and 22 children.

Until his death, Waziri served as Sharia Court judge, school teacher, imam and “Wazirin Kano”, a senior adviser to Kano emir.

At the funeral prayers, the Imam of Kofar Mata Mosque, Ustaz Muhammad Nasir Adam, described Isa Waziri’s death as painful because “a prominent scholar has gone”.

Another Islamic scholar, Ustaz Tijjani Bala Kalarawi, said that Isa Waziri died at a time the Muslim community needs his teaching for unity in Islam.

A close associate of the deceased, Alhaji Kabiru Usman Sanka, prayed Almighty Allah to give him eternal rest.

The deceased was the Imam of the Murtala Muhammed Jummat Mosque and became the Chief Imam of Kano and Wazirin Kano.

The late Waziri was born in 1925 to the family of Muhammed Gidado and attended the Judicial School, Kano, Kano Law School and Al-Azhar University, Egypt. He also got Arabic and Qur’anic education from his father before he took on tafsir (Qur’anic translation) at Zakirai in Gezawa local government area. He worked in the Kano State judiciary as a clerk and registrar.

After leaving government, he became the Imam of the Murtala Muhammed Mosque.

We Won’t Dump PDP – Aliyu, Kwankwaso, Nyako

Governors Babangida Muazu Aliyu (Niger), Murtala Nyako (Adamawa) and Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso (Kano) yesterday reiterated that they remained members of the ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), saying reports of their plans to dump the party were “speculative and misleading”.

The governors reportedly at a meeting with President Goodluck Jonathan gave him a notice to quit the PDP ahead of the 2015 election on grounds of irreconcilable differences with the leadership of the party.

A national daily (not LEADERSHIP) had reported yesterday that the governors had served the president notice to leave the party.  

But the governors denied that the meeting with the president last week was as a result of their resolve to rescue the PDP and not to dump it.

The governors spoke as President Jonathan said he was unaware of any such notice from the governors that they were leaving PDP.

Governor Muazu who spoke through his director of press, Government House, Danladi Ndayabo, told LEADERSHIP Weekend that any report linking him with the plan to defect to another party was misleading.

Ndayabo said: “The governor uses this medium to clarify and restate that he remains a true member of the PDP and that he has no intention whatsoever to dump the party. In the first place, it should be placed on record that at no time did the governor of Niger State, Dr Muazu Babangida Aliyu, alongside other governors, issue a threat to defect to another party or float another party.

“For record purposes, it must however be stated that the visit of the governor, alongside his colleagues, to the president was not abnormal as it was meant to save the ruling party from suffering further crisis as well as a means to save our democracy.”

Nyako’s chief press secretary, Ahmed Sajoh, in a chat with LEADERSHIP Weekend, said any report that his boss was planning to dump the PDP was not “only misleading but mischievous”.

“The report is absolutely false; it is not just misleading, it is mischievous and I state unequivocally that Governor Nyako has maintained that he will remain in the PDP, that he has no intention to leave the party.

“Let me say that Governor Nyako has a subsisting mandate as governor on the PDP’s platform; hence, I urge you to disregard the report that has linked the Adamawa governor with a move to dump the same party that gave him such a mandate.

“However, it should be noted that Governor Nyako’s meeting with the president, including other governors, was to avail the president an opportunity to know certain things that have gone wrong in the PDP under the current leadership.

“More contradicting in the report is the fact that the governors only went to the president to save the PDP and democracy as the leader of the country and of the PDP; so it is only laughable to read that such governors with that level of passion for the party have issued a notice to quit the PDP.

“The report is absolutely incorrect; however, I will use this opportunity to say that the leadership of the party, particularly President Jonathan who is the leader of the PDP, has a duty to call some members of the Adamawa State chapter of the party to order. I say this because a situation whereby someone will give a 14-day ultimatum to the governor to revalidate his membership of the party calls for concern.

“More worrisome is the fact that the so-called directive did not allow for such re-validation to be done through the wards, but that all such should be done at a particular office; I say this is condemnable,” Sajoh said.  

Governor Kwankwaso’s chief press secretary, Aliyu Dantiye, merely told LEADERSHIP Weekend to ignore the report of the governors’ purported plan to dump PDP. “Ignore the report, there is nothing like that at all,” he said.

The special adviser to the president on political matters, Ali Ahmed Gulak, said his boss was unaware of the governors’ threat to dump PDP.

“Speaking for my principal as his political adviser, there is no iota of truth that Mr President was told by the governors of their plan to dump PDP; it is absolutely untrue and does not represent the true picture of what transpired between the president and the governors when they met,” Gulak said.

The governors are currently on a nationwide tour for what they refer to as “consultations to save democracy and the PDP” on the heels of the crisis rocking the ruling party.

They insist on the recognition of Governor Rotimi Amaechi as chairman of the Nigeria Governors’ Forum (NGF) having secured 19 votes to defeat the Plateau State governor, David Jonah Jang, who scored 16 votes in the May 24, 2013, election of the forum, saying the recognition accorded Jang by the presidency and the PDP could undermine the country’s democracy.

APC To Meet Tuesday On Membership Registration

The Interim National Executive Committee of the newly registered All Progressives Congress (APC) is expected to hold its inaugural meeting on Tuesday in Abuja.

Sources close to the party’s hierarchy told LEADERSHIP Weekend that the main agenda of the meeting would be the modalities to be put in place to ensure mass registration of members into the party across the country.

The sources who pleaded not to be mentioned in a telephone interview stated that the meeting was called by stakeholders in the new party who stated that the move was aimed at sustaining the momentum gained so far in the decision of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to register the party.

Also, the sources stated that the move is as a result of the need to follow up on the visitation of some select members of the new party to some notable Nigerian leaders who were said to have shown soft spot for APC.

“The Interim National Executive of the party is expected to hold its inaugural meeting on Tuesday,” one of the sources told our correspondent in a telephone interview but refrained from divulging information on the agenda.

Another source close to the leadership of the new party however stated that the meeting “would workout modalities for the registration of members into the party and it will it also discuss some other issues that I am not willing to tell you now.”