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Billy Graham-Abel, Yola
Adamawa State All Progressives Congress (APC) stalwart, Ahmed Lawal, has called on President Muhammadu Buhari and the APC to take the June 12 validation a step further by ensuring that the South West gets the party’s 2023 ticket.
He made this known in an interview with Daily Sun in Yola, the Adamawa State capital recently.
One of the contentious agitations in the past was the validation of the June 12, 1993 presidential election, perceived to have been won by Chief M.K.O Abiola. How do you feel that the date is now marked as Democracy Day?
Thank you for that question. This is a milestone in Nigeria’s political history and anyone who has embraced democracy in Nigeria should be proud of what President Muhammadu Buhari has done. He has displayed so much courage to do that. So many of our leaders had shied away from talking or acting about it because of the controversy arising from the date and fear of being scandalised, but this is what Nigerians want, respect for rule of law and honour for those who fought and bled for democracy and that is what Nigerians should remember as significant for this date.
It was marked not to spite or contradict anyone one but to celebrate the common values we share in the belief in democracy as the best form of government that would serve this country and its people. And Buhari must be praised for declaring June 12 our new democracy day.
There are some people in some who hold the opinion that Buhari deliberately did this to spite Babangida who annulled one of the acclaimed freest and fairest elections so far in Nigeria’s history. Do you agree?
I don’t think it is so. Before now there have been calls that June 12 should be declared democracy day or in one way or the other be marked in remembrance of our struggle for democracy and lives lost in our quest to return to democracy in 1999. And those calls were from all over the country, from the North, from the North and particularly from the South West. You would also agree with me that these calls were both the private views and public reservations of most Nigerians and even the international community. So, the declaration of June 12 as democracy day is in order in the history of our democracy and it would have remained recurring narrative in our democratic discourse if it was not resolved as President Muhammadu Buhari has now done. Let’s thank God it was done. Besides some few reservations, there was no resistance or opposition to it because it was a universal issue.
In 1992 when the Babangida regime set up the transition committee, the defunct Social Democratic Party (SDP) after its primaries nominated MKO Abiola and Babagana Kingibe as their flag bearers, the ticket was welcomed by all Nigerians and it was about how to move the country forward and the best people to do the job. That is what democracy is all about. I hope that with this, we will be able to get to a point where what matters most is to be able to put in power people who are competent and capable to lead, people with merit and credibility.
We want get to a point where it doesn’t matter where you come from or who your parents are, if you are competent, you can be anything and get to the highest position in the country.
Now, this brings us to this point where the South West is already agitating for 2023 presidential ticket, what is your take on it?
I have said it before and I will repeat it again, I believe that 2023 presidential ticket of the APC must go to the South West. Since I made the comment the last time, some members of my party have been hatching a plot to suspend me from the party but I am not moved and I still hold my ground that power must go to the South West. This is federalism for God’s sake and that is how it should be.
Why do you think some of your party members from the North are not comfortable with your position on this?
It is indecent, undemocratic and against the spirit of fair play that anyone from the North should want to seek for 2023 ticket. Nigerians must reflect on the fact that the South West has been the strongest advocates and proponents of democracy and they have always been the pillar of democracy in this country, so Nigerians should return the kindness to the region for standing for this system of government. I have made it my personal task and duty from this June 12 forward to begin to mobilise and engage my fellow northerners on the issue of power returning to the South West.
