Stop politicking, Ekweremadu tells APC

Firstclass newsline gathered that the Deputy Senate President, Ike
Ekweremadu, on Wednesday asked the All Progressives Congress
government to provide good governance and stop playing politics after
elections.
Ekweremade said what Nigerians had been expecting after the elections
was the dividend of democracy, asking the APC government to formulate
policies and programmes that would benefit the majority of Nigerians,
irrespective of political affiliations.
Apparently referring to a recent statement credited to President
Muhammadu Buhari, where he was quoted to have said that the election
of Ekweremadu as the deputy senate president was unacceptable, he said
the sanctity of the ballot must be respected.
He said, "We are about to form legislative agenda for the 8th Senate.
This will include electoral reforms.
"As I said in the beginning, we have finished with politics, what is
remaining now is governance and this country belongs to all of us and
the constituents are not interested in whether you are APC or PDP.
"What they want is good governance and we must unite as a people to
give Nigeria good governance. The issue of bickering and differences
does not have any place in the minds of our people. What they want is
performance, what they want to see is good governance and we must
unite."
The deputy senate president spoke when he hosted members of the
Coalition of Election Observers, who visited his office in Abuja.
He cited the case of President Goodluck Jonathan, who he said conceded
defeat in the 2015 general elections to the opposition party.
He also advised the political leaders across the African continent to
borrow a leaf from Jonathan, pointing out that the former President
had saved Nigeria from a crisis by refusing to bow to pressure to
challenge the sanctity of the ballot.
Ekweremadu stated that the 8th National Assembly would further amend
the Electoral Act to make the 2019 elections more credible and
acceptable than that of 2015, adding that the alterations made on the
2010 Act had yielded important results.
The convener of the coalition, Dr. Nwambu Gabriel, condemned the
Amnesty International's report on civil rights abuses by the Nigerian
military.
He urged the Senate to also condemn what it described as Amnesty's
"blatant act of irresponsibility" as well as defend the military.
Gabrirl said, "As a coalition representing more than 100 local and
international civil society organisations, we are concerned by the
manner certain individuals and organisations seek to denigrate the
efforts of the Nigerian military in its determined bid to stamp out
the scourge of insurgency, which has ravaged the North-East of our
country in the last six years.
"We refer specifically to the latest report of the global human rights
group, the Amnesty International.
"The report titled, "Stars on their shoulders, blood on their hands,"
we believe that the Amnesty report, in addition to being a distraction
of the Nigerian Armed Forces from its determination to extricate the
insurgents from Nigerian soil is equally an attempt to denigrate the
efforts of our gallant officers and men, who daily lay down their
lives for our collective security.
"That this report is coming at a time the Nigerian military is
inexorably routing the terrorists, surely speaks of a conspiracy
somewhere."
The group, therefore, called on the Senate not only to condemn the act
of irresponsibility but to also rise up in the defence of the Nigerian
soldiers.
He added, "We are mindful of the fact that the Nigerian military is
one of the best military in the world. We are also mindful of the fact
that the Nigerian military brought in a lot of both domestic and
foreign civil society organisations and other reputable organisations
to come to see what is obtainable at the detention camps of terror
suspects.
"Even the International Red Cross absolved the Nigerian military of
any wrongdoing. But we were surprised that the Amnesty International
that is so respected could come up with such report."
The National Publicity Secretary of the APC, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, on
Wednesday said the party would not respond to Ekweremadu's charge to
the party to shun politics and face governance.
"We won't dignify him (Ekweremadu) with a response," Mohammed said
when our correspondent asked him for a reaction.
Firstclassnewsline.net