Meanwhile, Gov. Suswan of Benue blows hot!

BENUE State Governor Gabriel Suswam Wednesday described the call for President Goodluck Jonathan’s resignation by Northern Political Leaders Forum as “arrant nonsense”.

He said former Finance Minister Adamu Ciroma and other leaders of G-15 are out to create confusion.
Suswam, who condemned the G-15 leaders last night in Abuja, warned against returning Nigerian democracy to “ground zero”.

He said: “That (the call for resignation), to me, is arrant nonsense. You know, if there is a security situation, one would expect that people should join hands and address the problem. We are all stakeholders; the President is a stakeholder, just like any other person. The President is not a magician.

“I don’t think most of these people who are talking can even talk on behalf of their own states because we know them. I think we should not as leaders of this country be making statements that will disunite us.

“I think such statements are bent on creating a lot of confusion in this country. If you have a security situation, you should know what to say. For instance, the World Trade Centre was bombed in America and all Americans joined hands to fight that problem.

“We now have a problem here. Instead of the so-called leaders joining hands, they are saying that the President should resign. That is politics and this unnecessary politics would not take us anywhere.

“One would expect, first and foremost, such prominent leaders to visit the President and condemn it and say that in spite of the political differences that we have, this incident is one in which all of us must join hands.

“Instead of them doing that, they are fanning the embers of disunity. And I think that as a young generation politician, I stand totally opposed to such statements.

“Let us be realistic about this situation. These people had opportunities in the past; why haven’t we had constant power supply? Why are our roads what they are? What is the school situation? What is the antecedent that they are leaving behind? They want to create further confusion.

“We must look at the antecedents of people who are talking. You see, some people have taken Nigerians as gullible and so people in the past  who have not done anything for the interest of this country; people in the past who have shown total incompetence are now the ones talking on behalf of  Nigerians and talking in order to create confusion.

“These people have done their own; most of them are in their 70s and 80s; what does it matter if this country collapses.

“Let this G-15 go and visit the President and condemn this act so that people will see that in terms of political ideologies, we defer but in terms of national security, all of us are speaking with one voice. That is what we should be doing, not playing politics with a serious situation like this.”
The governor warned against statements that could derail Nigeria ’s democracy.

“I think that we need to be absolutely careful if we are not to go back to ground zero,” he said adding:

“We are leaving issues and concentrating on character assassination of people. I think that at this stage, we should have gone beyond that. We have done this (democracy) almost getting to 12 years and we are reverting back to the politics of old.”

Suswam said he suspected that the explosions might be part of a desperate bid by some politicians who may have known that they could not win in 2011

“I don’t think that people should be that desperate to the extent that they need to scare people before they run for elections. What I believe should be done is to persuade people. Let people look at our antecedents as people who want to lead others.

“The situation that I am witnessing is that some people believe that if it is a fair and free election, they might not win and so the only thing they can do it is to create confusion,” Suswam said.
Suswam urged Nigerians not to take MEND leader Henry Okah’s statement seriously.

Asked if the President had not made hasty conclusions on those behind the explosions, he said:  “Well, if at the level of the President he had made a statement that he knows the people, then it means that he knows what he was saying because I don’t think he made that statement that day, I think it was the following day.

“So, some pieces of information would have come in from security agents to make him to make that statement. But I am not the President and I wouldn’t be in a position to comment on that.”