Godwin Akpovie, a Political Affairs Assistant, office of the Political Adviser to the President Goodluck Jonathan, has criticized Governor Sule Lamido of Jigawa for attacking his boss, Barrister Ahmed Gulak.
Gulak, who is the Jonathan’s Adviser on Political Affairs, had called on the five northern governors touring the country to desist from heating up the polity by their utterances and actions in recent weeks.
The five governors are Sule Lamido (Jigawa), Rabiu Kwankwaso (Kano), Aliyu Wamakko (Sokoto), Mu’azu Babangida Aliyu (Niger) and Murtala Nyako (Adamawa).
According to Gulak, as members of the same political family, it will be better for everybody to resolve whatever so-called differences exist between them and the Presidency within, instead of junketing round the whole country in search of what is not lost.
Apparently offended by the aide’s statement, Lamido described it as “offensive and disrespectful”, calling Gulak a “boy.”
But Akpovie in a statement in a statement on Monday, wondered why the governor was in search of respect, asking “how much respect has any of the five Governors given to President Goodluck Jonathan?
According to him, “The other day, in company of some other Governors led by Governor Rotimi Amaechi of Rivers State, they walked leisurely into a function in which President Jonathan was already seated. Is that not an affront to the office of Mr. President? How many of them will allow their Commissioners to walk into a function in which they are already seated? he quipped.
“As part of resolving their so-called differences with Mr. President, they are demanding the sacking of some key personnel in Mr. President’s administration including Alhaji Bamanga Tukur, the National Chairman of PDP. Again, can anybody, including Mr. President order them to appoint so and so individuals as Commissioners in their respective States?
Gulak’s aide said the five Governors kept mute when the interim chairman of APC Chairman, Chief Bisi Akande, called President Jonathan a kindergarten President.
“If l may ask, are they still members of PDP? If they still are, why are they more critical of the President than even the opposition? Respect is reciprocal, anyone who wants to propagate equity must come with clean hands. You cannot demand respect when you refuse to accord same to a higher office. Besides, what is disrespectful in advising that it is more decent to explore and exhaust all internal mechanisms to resolve any perceived grievances?
Akpovie added that “As for Gulak being a ‘boy’, it will be instructive to remind Alhaji Sule Lamido that Barrister Gulak was the Speaker of Adamawa State House of Assembly in 1992, the same year Lamido was just a State Coordinator in the Olu Falae Presidential Campaign Organization. If someone who was number 3 in a State, 21 years ago and has risen to become the Political Adviser to the President of the country, a position of cabinet rank, can be described as a boy today, then something is wrong somewhere. Yet Lamido wants to be worshipped just because he is a Governor, forgetting that those who live in glass house should not throw stone.
“In line with what Barrister Gulak said, there are no differences that have risen that cannot be resolved amicably since the five Governors and the President were elected on the platform of the same party, unless they have a hidden agenda,” the statement concluded.
