The group emphasised that Buhari’s refusal to provide his certificates for public scrutiny, has cast a doubt on his qualification for the February 14 presidential election, aside eroding the trust Nigerians reposed in him.
Addressing journalists in Ado Ekiti yesterday, the Group’s South-west zonal secretary, Chief Bola Olu-Ojo, said the measure became imperative to protect the provisions of the constitution, which stipulates a minimum requirement of school certificate for all contestants to vie for political posts from being breached.
The Minister of State for Works, Prince Adedayo Adeyeye, described Buhari as the number one enemy of the Yoruba people of South-west Nigeria, saying;
“Buhari must be rejected by all true sons and daughters of Oduduwa.”
The Minister said Buhari did incalculable damage to Lagos State and the entire Yorubaland with the cancellation of the Lagos Metroline Project and the late Chief Obafemi Awolowo’s Free Education Programme, in which pupils only needed to buy school uniform to go to school.
Olu-Ojo, who branded President Goodluck Jonathan as the best for the presidency for now, assured Nigerians that the scourge of Boko Haram would die naturally, immediately PDP’s presidential candidate gets the second term nod from Nigerians.
He alleged that the APC has been responsible for the escalation of insurgency in the North-east purposely to blackmail President Jonathan for the 2015 election, boasting that Buhari losing the election would take the steam off the insurgents.
“I hereby call on the legal officer of the PDP or any civil society organisations that does not condone illegality to commence a case of perjury against Buhari because the constitution must be protected.
He must provide his certificates as he claimed in INEC’s form.”
Speaking further on the festering Boko Haram malady, Olu-Ojo said: “If Gen Buhari has not been connected with the Islamic sects, why was he the only person they mentioned as their negotiator? Why has the APC been using it as campaign strategy? Because they never accused Jonathan of non-performance in other sectors aside security,” he said.
The ex-PDP Chairman in Ekiti State urged Nigerians to vote en masse for Jonathan, whom he said has a better mien for political and
ethno-religious tolerance, rather than a person that would become a civilian dictator.
Reminding Nigerians of the Decree 4 of 1984, where the Freedom of the press was suspended under Buhari, the group said Nigerians cannot afford to vote for a president that would re-introduce civilian dictatorship 16 years after the entrenchment of democracy in the country.
“In the present democracy, we have tried three presidents-Obasanjo , Yar’Adua and Jonathan.”
One of these had military background and the other two are of purely civilian background. A critical evaluation of the two periods showed that military behaviour reigned supreme during the era of Obasanjo, the president with military background.
“A close and critical look at Gen Buhari show that he is a military man in and out of uniform. We don’t want a repeat of our experience in the recent past. So, President Jonathan remains the best option,” Olu-Ojo stated.
The former Works Minister challenged Buhari to mention one single project that he did in the South-west when he was Head of State and Chairman of the Petroleum Trust (PTF).
Adeyeye said: “Buhari did not only cancel the Metroline Project, he went ahead to pay what was enough to complete the project as compensation to the French Company that was to handle the project.
“The idea of developing rapid transit in Lagos dated from the 1980s with the Lagos Metroline network conceived by Alhaji Lateef Jakande during the Second Republic. The Metroline project was scrapped in 1985 by Buhari at a loss of over $78 million to the Lagos taxpayers. Information on the Metroline Project is on Wikipedia for everyone to see”.
