HOW ACF'S COMMUNIQUE WAS SEXED UP -NEC MEMBER

Friday, January 28, 2011
The last, it appears, has not been heard on the crisis of confidence brewing within the foremost North's socio-political group, Arewa Consultative Forum (ACF). In spite of the claims by the group's Publicity Secretary, Anthony Sani, that the group stood by its now controversial communiqué, especially with its regards to its stand on President Goodluck Jonathan's candidature, one of its prominent chieftains and a member of the National Executive Committee (NEC), Alhaji Abdulrahman Mohammed, yesterday gave graphic details of how the contentious communiqué was sexed up.

This is even as he said inviting President Jonathan for dialogue, as relayed by the group's spokesman, Sani on Wednesday in an interview with newsmen, smacks of corruption, insisting that ACF should not arrogate to itself the power it lacks.

Addressing journalists in Kaduna yesterday, in reaction to Sani's claim, Mohammed said 'the ACF NEC meeting I attended did not reject PDP primaries, various personal opinions were canvassed and somebody got up to say so; (that the PDP primaries be rejected) and most of us said no. That somebody said it is not in contention.

'But is it everything that was said there by everybody that formed the communiqué? It should not have been in the communiqué because it was not designed to be there because we are not a political party. You must understand that all actions of ACF must be held up to as what we are about to do. Individuals cannot just come with mandate from a few people. The communiqué did not actually reflect the views of some of us.

Rejecting the primaries was the view of one person. It is not everything that was said on the floor that is meant for a communiqué and they should not now use the communiqué to promote their personal views or agenda. ACF is not a vehicle for that and we will not let the ACF go down the drain. We must protect the ACF and have a body that can stand with other regional groupings. We cannot say that everybody should be in the same party. We must toe the line of being able to sit at a roundtable with other Nigerians. My concern is to allow everybody to participate in the process. PDP issues are PDP issues and when Nigerians are going to vote in an election, it is Nigerians'.

'What I am saying is that the communiqué was put up by seven people and it was not read on the floor. You know, as a meeting progresses, many things come up and they always say let us come up with some points that reflect what have been discussed. The communiqué did not say that they wanted to remove IBM Haruna and what highly respected Nigerians were saying there that I had to put them in their shoes. But this also transpired at the meeting. Why was it not there?'

Reacting to Mohammed's outburst, Sani, the group's publicity secretary in a terse text message to Daily Sun said; 'I have received similar calls that one Alhaji Abdulrahman Mohammed has complained that the communiqué did not reflect the resolution of the said meeting and the political committee was directed to look into the issues of party primaries and report back to the Forum.