From Lateef Dada, Osogbo
The National Publicity Secretary of the defunct National Party of Nigeria (NPN), Chief Abiola Ogundokun, has said the call for President Bola Tinubu to resign can never be a solution to the current hardship in the country.
In a statement made available to Daily Sun in Osogbo on Monday, Ogundokun who was a member of the defunct National Constituent Assembly in 1977, warned against allowing the fifth columnists to hide under the disguise of protest to cause mayhem.
The Octogenarian man who is an ally of former President Olusegun Obasanjo, appealed to Atiku Abubakar and Peter Obi to put Nigeria first in these critical times and shun the temptation to elevate personal disagreements at par with national interest.
“The evil machinations masked under rights of expression must be unmasked and called out for what they
truly are. While the right of expression including protests is enshrined in Nigeria’s constitution, the wave of protests without a clear raison d’etre for such venture betrays the sinister intentions of unpatriotic elements who are bent on destabilising the nation for their own gain.
“We must, therefore, be educated to the fact that if we allow fifth columnists to hide under the right to protest and they succeed in destabilising the country, the current situation will rather get worse.
“As I have insisted, this is the time for elder statesmen and women across Nigeria to rise in unison and offer credible and patriotic solutions and advice on how to move the country forward as well as condemn the nefarious calls for the President to resign.
“It is a fact that President Tinubu was elected by the Nigerian people however, he inherited a badly managed economy and some of the challenges Nigeria is facing today have been there for decades.
“The best that can be done, therefore, at this maritime, is to support the president to get Nigeria out of the woods and not support the calls on him to resign. The president has the mandate of the Nigerian people and any call on him to resign will be resisted by the people.
“This is because most of the hues and cries are grossly exaggerated and sponsored by people who go by the theory that if I don’t get it I destroy it whereas most of them are the foundation of some of these challenges.
“Many of these people cannot explain the source of their emergency wealth. However, it should be noted that elections have come and gone and it is time to govern. This therefore is not the time to politicise governance as is being promoted by unpatriotic elements masquerading as rights advocates.
“I appeal to Nigerians to be more aware of these and other issues especially the need to afford the president more time to fix some of the endemic challenges facing Nigeria. Let us move forward and put Nigeria first, bury the hatchet of hatred, failure, and animosity towards one another, and come together to assist the current administration with solutions and recommendations to achieve all that it has outlined in the Renewed Hope agenda because condemnation is not the solution,” Ogundokun said.