From Charity Nwakaudu, Abuja
The Former Presidential candidate of the African Democratic Congress, Dumebi Kachikwu, said Nigerians ready to stand behind any president who is truly committed to his oath of office.
Dumebi stated this in a statement shared with journalists in Abuja,on Monday as part of Democracy day message to Nigerians and the president
The message reads in full:”It is with a renewed sense of hope and optimism that many Nigerians received the Democracy Day broadcast from President Bola Ahmed Tinubu. Our nation is pregnant with hope, and we hope this won’t be another still birth.
For too long the Nigerian people have endured. We have kept faith when promises made by successive governments didn’t materialise. We have been asked to be patient until we no longer know what it means to be patient.
Today our president has once again asked us to be patient as cost of living rises astronomically occasioned by the removal of petroleum subsidy. On a day when we should celebrate the essence of democracy, we don’t have much to celebrate.
Our new president is already taking baby stepss unlike President Buhari who crawled throughout his 8 years in office. Nigerians are all in agreement that we want a president who sees his time in office as a 100-metre sprint.
We all yearn for the hope promised us by the man M.K.O Abiola three decades ago. His message resonated with most Nigerians and as such Nigerians from all walks of life trooped out to vote for him in an election adjudged to be free and fair. Desperate men didn’t allow him to take the oath of office but in our hearts and minds he remains the president we know.
Thirty years later his fight for a better Nigeria remains unfinished. It is an unending fight for all true patriots and lovers of democracy. It is a fight not just for yesterday but for today and our tomorrow.
It is a fight our president has promised to sustain, and we take him at his words because never has Nigeria needed a people’s champion like we do today.
He should now go beyond campaign rhetoric and put in place the processes and plans required to rebuild our nation. While we understand the difficulties before him in bringing our nation back from the brink, he must also understand he asked for this job and as such he must deliver all he has promised to the Nigerian people.
The Nigerian people will stand behind any president who is truly committed to his oath of office. We will endure as long as know we are all in this together. Our president made the mistake of not announcing any structured palliative measures to cushion the effect of the subsidy removal.
Promises are not good enough for an overburdened people. He also got it wrong when he said illegal orders used to truncate or abridge democracy will no longer be tolerated. The judiciary remains an equal arm of government and must be treated as such.
Nigerians will no longer tolerate an overbearing and overreaching executive arm of government who pressurises the judiciary to act in their favour.
Our president needs to put forward a competent team free of legal and political encumbrances because there is much to be done. If he doesn’t do this in the next 72 hours there are many who will believe he is as confused as his predecessor.
We need to immediately see his job creation plans. We want to run with his economic blueprint. We want to believe in his promise of law, order and a just and equitable society for all.
While we align with any and all efforts towards bringing to book all those who sabotaged our economy and threatened our way of life, there must be no sacred cows. This means that Godwin Emefiele the Central Bank Governor mustn’t stand alone in the court of justice.
If the president turns a blind eye to the monumental corruption at the NNPCL where subsidy fraud in the trillions of naira is said to have taken place, then he will give credence to the rumours that some of that money was used to fund his elections.
He would also be seen to support the notion that the law discriminates against people of Ibo extraction. All those in the previous administration who abused their offices must be brought to book.
Many Nigerians who voted for the president did so believing that he intends to use this opportunity to rewrite his biography and as such they expect that President Bola Tinubu will be the president who eliminates corruption from our socio-political DNA.
They believe that a business minded President Tinubu knows what it takes to turn around the economy. They pray that our new president will have the honour of presiding over the birth of new Nigerian constitution that truly represents the aspirations of all Nigerians.
Some have said that President Tinubu is running the race of President M.K.O Abiola and to this we say Amen.
Our president should understand that our support comes at a price. It is contingent upon the discharge of his duties as dictated and stipulated by our constitution. He must understand that even though M.K.O didn’t get justice, he gave us justice.
Whereas Abiola lost his freedom, he won us our freedom from the tyranny and oppression of military rule. As such, June 12 will forever symbolize the fight for justice. It will forever crystalise our hopes in the possibility of a better Nigeria that works for everyone.
A nation of meritocracy, free of mediocrity. A nation of brotherhood united in the fight against tribalism, nepotism, discrimination and all forms of extremism.
Those of us in other parties who lost the race must now act honourably by extending a hand of fellowship towards the new administration. This does not in any way undermine those who have sought legal redress. It only shows that Nigeria comes first.
We must begin to redefine the word opposition in the context of our democracy. As we oppose, we must also propose. As we disagree, we must also agree. Service to fatherland is our calling. The Nigerian people remain our common priority.
God bless you all. God bless the Federal Republic of Nigeria.