Edwin Clark, convener of
Pan-Niger Delta Forum, has taken a swipe at those who said he and other
south-south group collected money to endorse Atiku Abubakar, presidential
candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).
Ohanaeze Ndigbo, an apex Igbo
socio-cultural group; Afenifere, a socio-cultural organization of the Yoruba,
Middle Belt Forum (MBF) are among the five groups which endorsed Atiku last
week.
Festus Keyamo, spokesman of
President Muhammadu Buhari campaign, had described the endorsement as a fraud
while some of the president’s supporters said it was based on financial
inducement.
But speaking at a meeting with
some south-south leaders who paid him a visit at his Abuja residence at the
weekend, Clark said he could feed the family of those claiming he was bought
over.
“Our message is that if you want
to restructure Nigeria you are our man, if you don’t want to restructure then
you not a man. Those who said we have taken money from Atiku to take this
position, fail to realise I can feed them and their households,” he said.
“Our salvation is with the
restructuring of this country. President Buhari said if we don’t kill
corruption, corruption will kill us but I am saying If we don’t restructure
this country, this country will not survive
“Without restructuring, we are
endangered species, we are dying out. This country belongs to all of us and the
moment we begin to feel we are not important in this country, it means we are
slaves.”
The Ijaw leader said the former
vice-president was sincere about pursuing the restructuring course.
Clark said the report of the
committee on restructuring chaired by Aminu Tambuwal, Sokoto governor, and the
one of the All Progressives Congress (APC) chaired by Nasir el-Rufai, governor
of Kaduna, are similar to report of the 2014 national conference.
He said nothing fruitful came out
of the reports because of the president’s stance on restructuring.
“We also noted that the APC, the
political party at the centre equally set up a similar powerful committee on
restructuring under the chairmanship of the governor of Kaduna state, mallam
Nasir el-Rufai at the end, the committee submitted its report,” he said.
“As a matter of fact, the reports
of both committees were similar to that of the 2014 constitutional conference.
“The APC committee was hailed and
congratulated by some of us, but the report died a natural death because Mr.
President, Muhammadu Buhari, does not believe in the restructuring of this
country.”
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