Romanus Ugwu, Abuja
The Governor of Jigawa State, Muhammad Badaru Abubakar, has revealed that only President Muhammadu Buhari will decide the future of the embattled All Progressives Congress (APC) National Chairman, Adams Oshiomhole.
Badaru said this during the first quarterly meeting of the Progressives Governors Forum (PGF) Governance Programme Steering Committee Press Briefing while reacting to the leadership crisis rocking the party and the future of the ruling party’s boss.
Asked his take on APC crisis and the claim by the governor of Ekiti State, Kayode Fayemi that APC will go extinct after Buhari, he said: “What I will say of the party is that the leadership of APC, Progressives Governors Forum is working day and night to ensure that the issue is resolved.
“I am assured that Mr President is also looking into the issue to make sure that the leadership crisis is resolved and it will be resolved in no time. We are working on it and God’s willing it will be over soon.
“On the survival of APC after President Buhari, President Buhari made a commitment to the governors that he will support us in any way to make sure that the party survives and waxes stronger even after him,” he said.
He equally spoke on the South-West security outfit, Amotekun, noting: “I believe the Federal Government and the regions are finding some solutions and I think they will resolve the issues on how they will do it and also I think security is peculiar to each state. It depends on each state to know what they believe will work for them. Some will want Amotekun, some will want dialogue, but we don’t need any in Jigawa.
“We can not say it’s a policy that all APC states will take. It depends on your peculiarities – what will work for you to protect lives and properties,” he noted.
On the recent rating of Nigeria in the corruption index by the Transparency International, Badaru, who spoke to reporters in Abuja, said: “We have to look at the index carefully not the general ranking.”
“In some of the index, the corruption is coming down, in some it is going up, so you have to look at the index. When you say corruption everybody looks at the government. There is corruption in the market place. We have to have a clear understanding of the indices where we win and where we lose.
“You will also agree with me that the APC government has done so well in bringing up so many cases and prosecutions. APC as a government is not doing badly on corruption,” he argued.