…Speaks on 2019 general elections
The National Chairman of the New Nigeria People’s Party (NNPP), Dr. Boniface Aniebonam has said that he is on his way to quit the party which according to him will mark the end of his career in partisan politics in Nigeria.
Aniebonam who made this disclosure in an interview with our correspondent in Lagos said having done his bit in NNPP as its founding National Chairman and having carried the burden of superintending over the affairs of the party with like minds, it was time to call it quit so that the younger ones could move the party to the greater heights.
He however said that he felt fulfilled having won a State House of Assembly seat in Bauchi after many years of hard work and labour even as he expressed the hope that the party would soon reclaim the senatorial seat won by the party in Bauchi but was stolen by the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) from the tribunal.
According to him, “I am on my way out of the party. The party came on stream in 2001 and since 2001; I have been carrying the burden with some like minds. I am happy that despite the odds, what has just happened to us but I am happy that I have been able to at least have one members of the State House of Assembly in Bauchi and by the grace of God; we will pick up the senatorial seat.
“I feel happy and I need to stay off politics, honestly, I have done my bit, of course you know my background, I founded NAGAFF, I have already gone also. All of them came almost the same time. I have paid my dues. The younger ones can take it from there”.
While expressing his dissatisfaction with the just concluded general elections, Aniebonam who is also the founder of the National Association of Government Approved Freight Forwarders (NAGAFF) however said that there was nothing left for him to do other than to follow the laid down procedure to seek redress.
He said,” I am a Chairman of a political party and it is in the public domain what happened in Bauchi North where we won a senatorial seat and somebody who did not campaign even for one day, that particular person was not even the candidate of APC because as at the time the same person was imposed on APC, somebody challenged it and they are in court. If you check the website of INEC, you will see that APC has no candidate. So, the person who won the election is APC not an individual and of course, it is an individual that will occupy the seat.
“Mr. President on his own, the electoral bill which he refused to accent to, there are things that are very nice there, there are things that can be tinkered upon, he now has another four years to look at that bill and see the next election that might be coming up, he will no longer be there because he will be going out. So, if things are not done properly, it might be catastrophic”.
While admitting that no law was perfect, he harped on the need for government to implement the ones already in existence while the National Assembly continues to do the needful and provide the nation with good law for the good governance of the country.
“But for Mr. President, he needs to be decisive. He is healthy now from every indication, anybody that is not doing well as an agent of the government should go away from the government and use institutional arrangement to administer the country. Our problem is that we don’t apply institutional procedures and we keep on creating ad-hoc committees one way or the other.
“All the lapses noticed in the ongoing elections particularly the roles played by the security forces in these elections have to do with the leadership of this country. I want to believe that Mr. President in this coming four years should be decisive for posterity to judge him because his name is very important now. The Section 5 of the Constitution, the Executive Powers of the President of the country, he is the commander-in-chief of the armed forces and he has the responsibility to protect lives and properties of Nigerians.
“Yes, the army might be charged with the primary responsibility of external aggression to ensure that Nigerians are really protected from the boundaries, the police are for internal issues, we all know but everybody is under Mr. President. So, this is the time he needs to be decisive”, he added.
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