Kawu Baraje, a chieftain of the All
Progressives Congress (APC), has issued a note of warning to leaders of the
ruling party, saying the issues that made him leave the Peoples Democratic
Party (PDP) have started arising in APC.
Baraje, a former acting chairman of
PDP, said the ruling party has lived below expectation since it took over
the reins of government nearly one year ago.
Baraje was the one who announced the
formation of a faction of the PDP, leading six governors of the party to
eventually align with the APC in 2013.
“If I have to be grateful to any
political party, I think, it is the PDP and if I can leave that party, then you
will know that the party had gone seriously against my principles of life,” he
told journalists at a press briefing in Ilorin.
“If I can leave the PDP because of
impunity, lack of respect for the rule of law, then do I want to continue in
another party that way? But it has not got to that level. That is why we are
sounding a note of warning that gradually some of these problems are creeping
into the APC.”
The ally of Senate President Bukola
Saraki said most of the problems confronting the APC were self-created.
He said the division in the party has
made it lose most of the rerun elections that have been conducted since it
formed government at the centre.
“Most of the distractions were created
by APC itself. For instance, Senate President Bukola Saraki, who is heading an
important arm of government, is not getting the necessary support from the
party,” he said.
“We have participated in rerun
elections, both at the state and national levels, and the APC has lost majority
of those elections, not because of lack of popularity but because of lack of
enough presence.
“Some of us,with our experience,
expected the national presence of our party much more during reruns, but we do
not see that happening.”
On the current situation of things in
the country, he said: “I belong to the group that is not satisfied with the
performance of the party… we are not happy with the performance of our party.
“I am not a prophet of doom, neither am
I a political prostitute. Are you happy going to queue up for up to two to
three hours? Are you happy that electricity is not functioning well and people
sleep in darkness?
“What we are saying is that majority of Nigerians are not happy
and we need to make them happy.”
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