Fayose To Ex-PDP Members : ‘Come Back Home, Buhari’s Govt Is Settlement Administration’
The Oasis Reporters
Friday, November 3, 2017
President Muhammadu Buhari’s promise to members of the All Progressives Congress (APC) that the Federal Executive Council (FEC) will be expanded to bring in more supporters of the APC as appointees has been described as a sad reminder that Nigeria is now under a “chop-I-chop” government of settlement, says Ayodele Fayose, the southwest state of Ekiti governor and a leading opposition figure in the country.
The governor, who also called on those who left the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) for the APC to return to the party, pointed out that the statement made by the Comptroller General of the Nigerian Customs Service, Colonel Hameed Ali (rtd) that “the ruling APC could not fulfill its promises because more than fifty percent of the positions in Buhari’s government are being held by members of the PDP who fought against the actualisation of a Buhari Presidency” was a direct and clear way of telling those who left PDP for the APC that they were sojourning in a land where they are seen as strangers.
In a statement issued in Ado Ekiti on Thursday, by his Special Assistant on Public Communications and New Media, Lere Olayinka, Governor Fayose said “since those who manipulated votes for President Buhari, especially in the north had already been settled, with our collective wealth, it appears that it is now the turn of those they believed will assist them to retain power in 2019.”
Governor Fayose said it was sad that while our people were still facing the heat of the economic recession brought about by President Buhari’s cluelessness, with foodstuffs and drugs out of the reach of ordinary Nigerians, the President was only concerned with settling his party members.
“If the President could acknowledge that he had been working with a trimmed cabinet to avoid waste, one wonders the improvement that he has brought to bear on the country’s economy to warrant his new decision to expand the Federal Executive Council to bring in more supporters of the APC and settle the party members with other federal appointments,” the governor said.
On Col. Hameed Ali’s comment that PDP members were holding 50 percent in Buhari’s government, Governor Fayose said; “Even though the PDP is already emerging stronger from its 2015 electoral misfortune, we won’t mind having our members who left for the APC back in our party.
“Going by Col. Ali’s comment, those who do not belong to President Buhari’s original platform, the Congress for Progressive Change (CPC) are seen as strangers in the Buhari-led government.
“Buhari’s men do not want anyone else, apart from those with whom they ran CPC and that has been reiterated by Col Ali, a close ally of the President. What remains to be done by those Col. Ali referred to as reasons the APC government of Buhari has failed is for them to summon courage and return to where they were before they moved to the APC.”
Governor Fayose is concluding his final tenure as governor of Ekiti State next year, according to his speech at the convocation ceremony of the Afe Babalola University, Ekiti and political watchers in the state say he seems set to run for Nigeria’s presidency in 2019 when Muhammadu Buhari concludes his four year tenure as president of the country.
