2011: JONATHAN WON'T QUIT PDP IF HE DECIDES TO RUN – YERIMA
Ambassador Yahaya Kwande of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), has been taken to task for saying that President Goodluck Jonathan would have to quit the ruling party if he finally decides to run for the 2011 general elections.
Leader of the Northern Friends of the South-South (NFSS), Alhaji Suleiman Yerima, said such a position and suggestion was unacceptable to the organization.
Yerima debunked claims made by the diplomat that he was a founding father of the PDP, contending that that was of no importance and relevance to the situation concerning the future of the president.
'I make bold to say that Kwande does not have the best interest of Nigeria at heart, in connection with his suggestion that the president should quit the party for another political party, if he chooses to run for President. The President is a bona fide member of the PDP and he has been on ground right from the beginning of our democratic dispensation in 1999.
'He and his political associates, who left the PDP during the Obasanjo administration are like those who cannot stand the heat and left the kitchen, while those of us who love our party and country stood on and saw to the end of tyranny.
'For the likes of Yahaya and his protégée Alhaji Atiku, I see them as toothless bulldogs that are only barking behind a fenced cage… I say this because they left the party and found out that they were not relevant where they went and only decided to come back when the coast was clear.'
Yerima said those who brought former President Obasanjo to power in the PDP were no longer relevant, suggesting that Kwande's claim to Daily Sun that he was a founding father was of no relevance.
'In 1999, people like former Head of State, Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida, General Aliyu Gasau and others helped bring Obasanjo into power and in our very own eyes, they were not relevant during Obasanjo's Presidency and even now. The party has changed a lot since then and the younger generation has taken over,' he said.