2015: Jonathan lacks moral right to contest –Kwankwaso

Dr Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso, Governor of Kano State

Kano State Governor and All Progressives Congress (APC) presidential aspirant, Dr. Rabiu Kwankwaso, said at the weekend that President Goodluck Jonathan lacks moral justification to seek re-election next year.

He claimed that the President has failed to address insurgency, general insecurity and corruption, saying these accounted for the nation’s retrogression. Kwankwaso spoke at a fund-raising dinner organized for his presidential ambition by his friends and political associates in Abuja at the weekend.

A total of N1.5 billion was realised. APC presidential primary is scheduled to hold on Wednesday at Teslim Balogun Stadium, Lagos.

Apart from Kwankwaso, other aspirants include former Head of State, Maj-Gen. Muhammadu Buhari, former Vice President Atiku Abubakar, Imo State Governor, Ow­elle Rochas Okorocha and Publisher of Leadership newspapers, Mr Sam Nda-Isaiah. Accusing the Jonathan admin­istration of doing little to check insurgency, Kwankwaso noted that many Nigerians had been killed in his state and in the Northeast.

He said it was an irony that Nige­ria’s military which is respected worldwide for professionalism, was struggling to tackle insurgency. The governor said : “I always feel terribly bad as a member of the ex­tended family of the military in this country that today, we cannot protect ourselves.

I always remember those days when our military was in Libe­ria, Sierria Leone, Dafur and other parts of Africa.

These were soldiers that did extremely well by world standard. Those days, we were not even talking of protecting ourselves, we were protecting others on this continent.

“Many years before then, this country had the capacity to support other African countries to even remove them out of apartheid and other serious international issues, but today, we have seen a situation where countries that were coming to beg for one thing or the other, now we have to go and beg them to help us protect our lives and properties.

I believe that this mess will certainly stop by the Grace of God in 2015 when we have the right commander-in-chief of the Armed Forces. “All of us here are very much aware of what is happening in this country.

Today, as we are sitting, we have thousands of Nigerians in Chad Republic, in Cameroon and in Niger as refugees. We also have about four million people that are being internally displaced.

These are to some extent, the lucky ones because so many innocent people are being killed in this country.

And this is a very sad development for all of us. “Most people normally forget that the North-East is certainly part of us.

Those people are our brothers and sisters.

Of course, not only in the North-east, the crisis is all over the North and even in some parts of the South, especially the issue of kidnapping and armed robbery. The issue of security anywhere in the world is key.

Any government at all levels that cannot protect its people and their properties, that govern­ment has no business even staying talk less of looking for reelection,” Kwankwaso said.

According to him, Nigeria’s next president needs a strong, leader, who has the political will to surmount the insecurity challenges, noting that he was the right man for the job.

He said: “What we are lacking in my opinion is a commander-in-chief who has the capacity and political will to stop what is happening today in this country.

I want to assure you that as somebody who has been very conversant with the security of this country, I have no doubt in my mind that Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso will be the right person to handle the security issues of this country. “Of course,

in any society, any country that has similar security is­sues especially coupled with corrup­tion, nothing would work and that is why today, so many things have gone wrong in this country and as members of APC and even people outside our party, our prayer is that the right candidate should be elected on December 10, 2015 in Lagos, so that they can cross over to vote the right candidates because everybody is sick and tired of what is happen­ing today in Nigeria,” the governor noted Kwankwaso thanked his supporters for organizing the event, assuring them of using the funds for the purpose they were given.

He said: “I was so happy when the Master of Ceremony was an­nouncing the donations. Let me par­ticularly thank the gentleman who donated N100.

Let me also thank all those who donated various amounts of money and assure them that this money that has been donated today by the Grace of God, we will use it judiciously for the purpose for which it was donated.

“Let me also at this point appeal to all of you and through you the good people of this country to support this project not only by donating money, but also praying for the project to succeed during the primary and secondary elections that are coming very soon.

In addition to money, we also want you to identify with as many candidates as possible to talk to them so that when they go to Lagos, they can do the right thing.

That right thing is to vote for Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso.” An ally of the governor, Alhaji Bubu Galadima, had in his goodwill message urged the people to donate generously for Kwankwaso’s presidential ambition to enable him replicate his legacies in Kano State for the country.

He said: “Kwankwaso is one that believes education is power and wealth.

And he has used education effectively to address the issues of poverty and he has used his foresight in making education the backbone of the development of any nation in the world.

“I want to say that today in Kano, you can hardly find any lunatic loitering the streets of Kano.

That has made Kano a unique city that is parallel with any city in Nigeria.

I therefore recommend that we donate generously to make sure that he uses the funds that we generate to win the primaries of our great party so that Nigeria will be developed and run by a man of foresight”.