From: BillyGraham, Abel-Yola
A former chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Alhaji Bamanga Tukur, has called on Nigerians to stand up and challenge government to keep to its promises to the people.
He said this, on Friday, in an interactive session with journalist at his residence in Yola, the Adamawa state capital. Ba
According to him, “There is always a difference between the menu and
the meal. The menu consist of every imaginable thing that could get
make a good food but the meal is what you get at the end of the day on
the dining table.
“When someone says I will give you rice, fish, this and that, but if
they are not bought and prepared, they will only on the wish list of a
menu not in the meal served.
“we have a responsibility to start asking questions, you have this on
the menu, that on your menu but the meal you are serving us does
reflect what is on your menu,” he said.
Speaking on the unity Nigeria, Bamanga Tukur cotinued, “Nigeria is still a country not a nation since we still see each other as Igbo, Yoruba,
and Hausa, not as Nigerians.
“When you go to Europe no one really cares which language you speak or where you come from, you are just a member of the black continent, an African.
“So we must fight tribalism, ethnicity and religious divides. It is
unfortunate that some people have employed religion, tribalism and
ethnicity as a weapon to divide us. We must not allow our country to
be divided along ethnic and religious lines. I grew up in this house
with people of different ethnic backgrounds and religion. I won
elections as the governor of the then Gongola state elected with
pastors from supporting me and imams supporting me. Because, I was
able to convince the people of what I was going to do for them if they
elected me. You need to convince people of your competence from your
party manifesto and not cause ethnic and religious divides.
“I have always been a pan-African, God create the Caucasians and made
them whites, the Mongolians and made them yellow, the Indians and made
them brown and the black man. We are black people and that is more
important than anything.”
On the incessant Fulani-herdsman conflict the elder statesman said,
“Nigerians must ask serious questions and stop looking at this at the
surface. To the Fulani man, his cattle is life’s worth, so he will
never drives his cattle into someone’s farm because that will breed
trouble and it would cost him his cows. There are people dressing up
like Fulani going about killing, maiming and wreacking havoc on the
Nigerian people.