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Mind your utterances,
Okogie cautions PDP, Yar’Adua
From BASHIR UMAR Abuja
Wednesday, April 8, 2009
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Photo:
Sun News Publishing
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President Umaru Yar’Adua and the Peoples Democratic
Party (PDP), have been cautioned to beware of their political
utterances so as not to over-heat the polity and drag this
nation to the precipice.
Anthony Cardinal Okogie who gave the caution in a press statement
made available by Very Rev. Monsignor Gabriel Osu, director,
Social Communications, Lagos Archdiocese, said the nation
has been recently inundated by political utterances of some
top PDP leaders, which when weighed against good democratic
practices in civilized societies, run foul of decent political
pronouncements.
According to him, the Appeal Court’s declarations upturning
some PDP election results would normally be upsetting, “but
that is not the way things should go; to throw political decency
to the winds in the name of political patronage is a very
bad example.”
To him, the court’s declarations seem to set the nation
on turmoil already. “It is scandalous for the president
of a big nation like Nigeria to be engaged in political wrangling
and intrigues. The nation is still lamenting the poor performance
of our last “so-called” election. One would have
thought that we have learnt our lessons, but we are far from
it.”
As he put it, the recent pronouncements coming from the PDP-led
administration has fuelled allegations of election rigging
in Ekiti State. Cardinal Okogie then asked: “Are we
to expect free and fair election in Ekiti State where there
will be no rigging?”
He declared: “What President Yar’Adua said in
Ekiti that Mr Segun Oni has four more years to rule is tantamount
to former president Olusegun Obasanjo’s election statement
that it will be “do or die battle.” And the nation
saw what he really meant.”
The Cardinal Archbishop of Lagos stated: “While we are
praying for peace and tranquility to reign in the country,
others are praying for war, which is an ill-wind that blows
anyone no good.”
Cardinal Okogie earnestly called on President Umaru Yar’Adua
to forget his political leaning and face the work of leading
the nation Allah has called him to do, adding that “he
is the father of over 140 million Nigerians and not PDP alone.”
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