Presidency is about performance, not zoning, says Buhari
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- Category: Politics
- Published on Thursday, 24 June 2010 08:23
- Written by Compass
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The presidential candidate of the All Nigeria Peoples Party (ANPP) in the 2003 and 2007, said in Kaduna that in as much as those Northerners in the PDP advocating for zoning were exercising their rights as enshrined in the constitution, their views should not be taken as that of the entire region.
In a statement entitled: “Northern leaders ganged up against Jonathan,” from the office of public affairs secretary, Ya’u Shehu Darazo, Buhari lamented that 50 years after the country’s independence, the presidency was still being trivialised along sectional divides.
According to him, the presidency should not be viewed as being about the North versus South or Muslims against Christians, but a programme for development.
Reacting to a recent meeting by some political elite in the region, claiming to be opposed to the possible candidature of President Goodluck Jonathan in next year’s election, Buhari said that he had nothing to do with such meeting and insisted that zoning remained a PDP affair.
Buhari further said that the presidency should be “about development programme, performance or non-performance, integrity and accountability.
“It is about the fight against corruption and mismanagement of public funds, and Nigerians under free and fair election should be allowed to make their choice.”
The statement further stated that Buhari and his party, the Congress for Progressive Change (CPC) would have nothing to do with the meeting as “it is diversionary, its principles inconsistent with the tenets of the constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. The meetings were largely PDP affairs and General Buhari cannot be a party to it.”
