Ciroma breaks silence, says a northerner shoud have completed Yar'Adua's term

Former Finance Minister and respected Northern politician, Mallam Adamu Ciroma, has explained his apparent disinterest in the politics of the land since 2011..

Ciroma, who was one of the arrowheads of the efforts to ensure that President Goodluck Jonathan never emerged as the president of the country in 2011, said in Kaduna on Saturday that he lost interest in Nigerian politics because of the insincerity of the leadersof the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) on rotational Presidency.

Ciroma led the effort of trying to coalesce the northern political persuasions around a candidate to contest against Jonathan in the 2010 convention of the PDP.

Ciroma, who spoke on the Liberty FM , Kaduna as monitored by THE PUNCH, is at pain that rather than abiding by the agreement on rotational presidency, the party leadership scuttled it as soon as former President Umaru Yar-Adua died in 2010.

He still maintains that somebody from the North should have completed Yar'Adua's tenure and not President Goodluck Jonathan.

He was quoted to have said, “I was there when the party was moving the Presidency between the North and the south. And this President was there when General (Olusegun) Obasanjo presided over the agreement in the PDP, which agreed that the movement of the Presidency from North to South should be based on two terms.

“President Obasanjo did his two terms on behalf of the South, and Yar'Adua was doing his first term on behalf of the North but unfortunately, he died. And the PDP leaders, instead of agreeing on somebody from the North to complete Yar'Adua's term, they all went to ensure that the Vice President became the President; and since the leaders we made agreement with departed from this agreement, I lost interest in Nigerian political affairs.

“Because if you cannot trust people you form a party with, you win power with, you work hard with, whether it is Tony Annenih or any other of the party, I lost interest in the party itself.”

Ciroma is also worried about the current security challenge in the land and urges Nigerians especially politicians to be careful.

He said, “The biggest of the worries facing the country is that of insecurity and the issue of Boko Haram, people who steal and the issue of bombing. These are problems and they become even bigger sources of worry as we look forward to 2015 general elections.

“No matter what you do, politicians will always tend to get their affairs in line with the elections and a lot of people are worried, whether the 2015 elections will take place as we expect. Everybody is hopeful that the election will be well conducted and the result should be generally acceptable.”