GUSAU PROMISES TO RUN ISSUE-BASED CAMPAIGN

By NBF News

The campaign organisation of former national security adviser (NSA) and Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) presidential aspirant, General Aliyu Gusau has said his campaign for the presidency would be issue-based and devoid of name-calling associated with politics in this clime.

The Director-General of the General Gusau Presidential Campaign Organisation, Senator Ben Obi stated this at the formal opening of its campaign headquarters in Abuja yesterday.

Obi said the former NSA's presidential campaign would be a straightforward political campaign devoid of acrimony and name-calling associated with political campaigns in Nigeria. He said the presidential hopeful was not interested in diversionary and damning campaign that was not in tandem with the aspiration of Nigerians. 'Ours is to present an achievable and modest programme that will at once appeal to the understandably elevated expectation of Nigerians,' he stated.

The campaign DG said prime issues like power, energy, security, justice and evenly distributed prosperity could no longer be explained away. ' We have carefully taken our time to draw up cogent and achievable programme within the ambit of our party and which the candidate will soon unfold,' he stated.

Furthermore, he said ' as you are all aware, General Gusau has always comported himself in a descent and self effacing manner with utmost regard for the sensitivities of others, admirers and non-admirers alike. He does not intend to, in any way, jettison this time honoured credential with which he has been associated over the past 40 years.'

Obi said General Gusau would formally declare his intention to contest for the presidency to Nigerians within the next two weeks. Obi said already the former NSA had concluded an extensive and exhaustive consultation with eminent Nigerians on his ambition to govern the country from May 29, 2011. The former senator added that before the formal declaration, Gusau would visit the various geo-political zones in the country to brief PDP delegates on his aspiration preparatory to the primary election. He said their campaign plans were without prejudice to the effort by the northern leaders of the party to produce a consensus candidate from the North.

His words: ' Let me also state very clearly that our activities as a presidential campaign organisation are without prejudice to the efforts being made to produce a consensus candidate for the North.'Obi stated that as talks for a consensus candidate were going on, his group was pursuing objectives that would culminate in Gusau picking the PDP presidential ticket.

The campaign DG described the former NSA as a 'rare Nigerian who has managed to build bridges across manifold frontiers in the Nigerian political landscape.'He added: 'The fact that there is no debilitating baggage associated with him over the 40 years of untainted service speaks volume about the moral and intellectual force of the candidate as a person and as a presidential aspirant.'He advised his campaigners in the field to respect the rules of the contest as stated by the party. He said they should ensure that they did not indulge in vexatious practices as it concerned other contestants.