Bishops, Eminent Clerics From Niger Delta Team Up With Nyanko, Amaech, others
Oladunjoye Opeyemi
The Niger Delta chapter of the Bishops and Eminent Clerics Forum of Nigeria has sought to team up with Governor Murtala Nyako in his fight against the culture of impunity and high handedness in the country.
Speaking when they visited Governor Nyako in Yola yesterday, the leader of the group, His Eminence, Jones Ode Erue said the clerics would not sit back and watch unscrupulous politicians destroy the country.
He commended Nyako for his resolve to stand against injustice and misuse of power. The bishop decried the misuse of police and other federal security apparatus to inflict violence as a way of intimidating citizens who held contrary opinion, saying Nigerians should support the cause of leaders who risk their lives to checkmate the undemocratic act of those in power.
He berated traditional rulers in the country for failing to stand with their people and call politicians to order in the face of growing injustice and corruption, adding that the clerics were poised to ensure the reversal of the trend.
Erue further lamented the bad image the present crop of political leaders had earned the country, criticizing the crude way the presidency and the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) handled crises in the country.
“I was in Ghana for a seminar, a man stood up and said in Nigeria, mathematics has changed because 16 is greater than 19 and 5 is greater than 25. We are here to meet with you and meet with Islamic clerics to find ways of moving Nigeria forward so that wherever a Nigerian goes, people will respect him”, he asserted.
In his response, Governor Nyako said the state PDP under his leadership had contributed to the success of President Jonathan at the PDP primaries in 2011 by securing him 80% of the votes cast by Adamawa delegates against former Vice President Atiku Abubakar.
He said voters were also mobilized to give him 60% of the Adamawa votes which was the highest the president got in any Hausa-Fulani speaking area.
He explained that the friction between him and the PDP national leadership started when the national chairman, Alhaji Bamanga Tukur dissolved Adamawa State Executive Committee without recourse to due process and sought to impose his cousin as candidate for the Nassarawo-Binyeri Assembly bye-election.
He expressed his resolve to distance himself from the national leadership of the PDP, saying “we cannot and shall not “walk together” with the evil few of Adamawa indigenes with their cohorts residing in Abuja who wish us ill, calamity and destruction.
These are the same fellows who must have brought about the declaration of state of emergency on Adamawa six months ago and the renewal of the emergency a few days ago”.