Imo State Governor and the Chairman, All Progressive Peoples (APC) Governors Forum, Chief Rochas Okorocha has condemned the claim by the Ekiti state governor, Ayo Fayose, that President Muhammadu Buhari has been on life-support in a London hospital, describing such claim as a statement of hate.
“In our culture and tradition, we do not play politics with people’s lives and anybody can be sick; anybody can be in the hospital, and so making such categorical statement which is unfounded that Mr. President is on life support, is to the best of my knowledge a statement of hate.
“That is a cheap talk and Nigerians should not regard it. What we should do right now is to pray for Mr. President, wish him well; anybody can be sick. Even as he is sick out there, many people have been sick in Nigeria, so we should not politicize this and play politics with people’s lives and try to create hate and confusion in the system.”
Governor Okorocha, who was answering questions from news men covering the Presidency at the Aso Rock Villa in Abuja, said that it had become Fasoye’s style to talk about things that are capable of causing confusion and hate.
“Nigerians must never take that kind of talk serious.”
The Imo chief executives said that though Nigeria has been passing through a very difficult time, but that many great nations of the world have passed through similar circumstances before getting to their point of greatness.
He argued that Nigeria will not be an exemption even as he advised Nigerians to see this time as a trying period for Nigeria which he said, shall overcome.
“So this is the time to preach love; this is the time to love one another. This is the time to embrace one another; this is the time to preach peace, especially on more of the things that unite us as a people and talk not at all about the things that will divide us.”
Part of Governor Okorocha’s interaction is reproduced here:
“The Acting President is doing a beautiful job; he is meeting up the daily duties of Mr. President and there are no vacuums and so there is no cause for alarm. We must at this point give every support to Mr. President and we are hoping that very soon, Mr. President will come back and join us.
So that statement (of Fayose) is a call for concern. I do not know if he is speaking from the point of view of being the chairman of the PDP governor’s forum or he is speaking as a person or as a governor. I do not understand but whatever it is, people must disregard this statement.
We are not in campaign any more. President Muhammadu Buhari suffered a lot of campaign when he was running for president. First his health should be left only for God to decide, it is not for man to decide his fate. President Buhari came into power under an unusual circumstances to defeat an incumbent president which is very uncommon in our political history. So I believe his health is in the hands of God and nobody should play politics with it. This is my advice to Nigerians. Let us focus on majors issues that concern us as a nation.
On that note, I appeal that everyone should disregard that statement. Mr. President will soon be back to commence his daily duties.”
On the issue of Nigeria’s unity.
“Well, we have all agreed that Nigeria remains a united and indissoluble country. But we must never take this unity of Nigeria for granted. We are better off a bigger nation; we are better off as one nation. We are going through problems but these problems do not mean they cannot surmount. We cannot afford to divide ourselves now, it will be an ill wind that will blow anyone no good.
So I support that; the governors’ forum support that, the APC governors support the unity of this country. We have deliberated on it and we are all proud of ourselves. None of us has spoken otherwise asking for division of this country, so Nigeria still remains united.
But one point is clear that we owe our youths, this generation and the future generation, a duty of care and we must bequeath to them legacy of unity to them and not legacy of division. We may have made mistakes as a nation but let us begin to correct them. What is important now is not about ourselves but our children and their children’s children. So we should see Nigeria beyond this period and see Nigeria in view of 100 years to come. Only then will we appreciate the effort and amount of work before us that we must do to get things right and prepare the future for our children.”
Fayose called for the President to resign. What’s your reaction?
“Well, I have just said that even the speculation he is making is wrong; it is unfounded. And if anybody is to speak about the President’s health, Fayose does not have the qualification to speak for the nation on whether Mr. President should resign or stay. It is not in our culture; it is not in our tradition. We sympathize with those who go through pains of ill-health, but we don’t wish them dead. We wish them well. And Mr. President’s office is properly taken care of by Mr. Acting President of Nigeria until Mr. President comes back home and continues his work and finishes his term. But to say he should resign is cheap talk and does not make sense in anyway.”
People say Mr. President is being treated with tax payers’ money and they demand accountability and full disclosure of his health issues. Don’t you believe that this is necessary?
“Well, let’s say to you that if there is an announcement that President Buhari today lacks money to treat himself abroad, believe me, more than 20 million Nigerians will contribute for his health. So this is neither here nor there. You must understand what he represents and who he is. President Buhari naturally does not lack funds. He has never owns funds himself but people support him if the need be. He lives for the people. Buhari must be seen as a great Nigerian who has made most sacrifice in many ramifications. You can see that from his family, you can see that from his children. He is not a man of wealth neither does he discuss it. Anytime he needs money, I’m sure millions of Nigerians will contribute even if is one kobo per head. So it is neither here nor there, talking about using national resources. He is the president of the Federal Republic of Nigeria and we must honour our President. It is that office; that office belongs to all of us.
It is very funny when people try to bring down the office of the President thinking that they are bringing down Buhari. There are two different issue, there is presidency and there is the person of Buhari but when it has to do with Nigeria’s presidency it concerns all of us. And we will take it out on any nation that insults our president but we can forgive anybody that insults Muhammadu Buhari as an individual but the Presidency of Nigeria is sacred and we must protect it.”
On Nnamdi Kanu…
“You must understand the position of a thing and what has created this hullabaloo. Nnamdi Kanu was a breakaway from MOSSOP. So it is agitation upon agitation.
Nnamdi Kanu is a young man seeking relevance, agitating for whatever he believes in, what he stands for must be treated separately from the entire Igbo nation. The question is does Nnamdi Kanu have the capacity to lead Igbos to war? Or lead me and the governors to war? So I will stand now and Nnamdi Kanu will tell me stand up let’s go to war? So sometimes we over dramatize issue just to make a big deal out of it and that has been the big challenge.
Like the gentleman that spoke for the Arewa youths, and these are not more than 17 young men speaking for millions of Arewa youths and it doesn’t make sense because if you ask any Arewa youth now whether he is part of this, he will tell you no. We don’t have that wisdom of narrowing things to the perspective where they belong but we like to enlarge it to create the confusion that we all enjoy and the confusion of not well taken care of will consume Nigeria one day. And that is what some of us are trying to avoid.
So the issue of Nnamdi Kanu should be treated as a young man agitating and seeking for relevance, these are two different issues. And he can ride on the back of supposed Igbo marginalization which has been said is not right, and ride on that sentiments and push his agenda but that does not mean that he is speaking for the entire Igbos.
I was in Chatham House and I remember how I was attacked by the IPOB boys when I was delivering my lecture. They walked up to me and they were shouting and I said calm down and the young man has never visited Nigeria. So it is our duty to call our younger ones to order but I want to assure Nigerians that they should not see that as a break but agitation given what they perceived that the South East has been neglected overtime politically, economically, socially and all that. Their roads are impassable; you cannot pass Port Harcourt road, Enugu road, Aba Road, Bayelsa road and all the roads. You can hardly see federal government presence in the South East. All the things you see are self-made things. So, this is a mix up. So he speaks his own and joins it with our issues and it now looks like a nationwide thing. That is not the issue.
We have called for unity and have agreed that we will remain united. Very soon, some of us have taken it upon ourselves to reach out to this young men and talk to them. We must understand that our young men are being frustrated. If they are as comfortable as we are they will not be able to say those things.
So whether we like it or not, this nation must make provision for the future generation who are now IT compliant, social media compliant, who have now access all the goodies in the world without touching it. They smell it but can’t feel it so they are asking why. So you can understand their frustration and so they no longer want to take the stories from us; they want to show that they are the people right now. Even in families right now, my children want to push me out of the system, when you are talking they say no, we know it better. So we must just accept the realities of times and see what we can do for the youths of the federal republic of Nigeria. I think the ministry of youths must give attention now to engage them productively.” [myad]
