ABUJA, Federal Republic of Nigeria. The Chairman of Inter-Party Advisory Council (IPAC) and National Conscience Party (NCP), Dr Yunusa Tanko, on Wednesday said that both President Muhammadu Buhari and his party; the All Progressives Congress (APC) were being careful of appointing individuals into the federal cabinet or making other key appointments for now, due to internal interest among the four parties and defectors which merged to form the APC.
Speaking with newsmen on Wednesday in Abuja, shortly after he received the Outstanding Leadership/Excellence Award from the National President of National Association of Polytechnic Students (NAPS), Salaudeen Lukman, on behalf of the union, Tanko pleaded with Nigerians to give the new government more time to avoid making mistakes in appointing individuals into key positions.
According to him, “I think they are taking the issue of appointment too slow. They ought to have made up their minds long before now, but the truth about it is that there are three or four political parties and defectors from the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) that joined to form one. You will appreciate the fact that there will be internal interest and this internal interest could lead to this delay.”
“To be sincere, I think the President and the leaders of the APC should be careful in every step they are taking so that their union will not fall apart in the overall interest of the country because all the stakeholders irrespective of political affiliation worked hard to earn the nation’s democracy, there are many challenges facing us as a nation which cannot be addressed overnight,” he declared.
“What we need to do as a people is giving them a little time to be able to put their house together and we encourage them to do the right thing. I am in the opposition; I will be looking for all the mistakes of this particular government to attack. Yes, I will be, but at the moment, I am giving them time to study whatever mistakes they are making because we only criticise based on facts and things that are inimical to Nigerians.
“At the moment, I don’t think they have done anything wrong; they are still within the time we will only encourage them to keep their promises to Nigerians or all of us in the opposition will come out with our sword and our dagger and continue to attack. At the moment I don’t think they have done anything wrong and we don’t need that kind of situation in our country,” he said.
This came just as Dr Tanko disclosed that IPAC would take up the issue of Electoral Acts with the incoming 8th National Assembly and President Buhari to ensure that its amended, saying that the 2010 Electoral Act (as amended) provided a lot of lacuna especially on issues of cross-carpeting, lack of funding for political parties among others.
While ruling out the possibility of the NCP merging with any Political party now or in the future, he however stated that the Party would ready to embrace an alliance with any Political party with the same ideology with in ensuring good governance in the country for Nigerians to enjoy the dividends of democracy
He assured that the NPC as an opposition party would provide constructive criticism to the present administration if it failed to deliver on its mandate and promises to Nigerians, saying “for now, the new government has just been inaugurated and has not gone wrong to be criticised.
Credit: Tribune (Nigeria)
