Our dialogues with Jonathan were fruitless – Gov Nyako

What necessitated your defection from the ruling party on which platform you won elections to become governors?PDP has failed its members and the entire people of Nigeria by failing to move the country forward. Today, developing countries like Malaysia, Indonesia and even India and South Korea are ahead of us.  South Korea is manufacturing vehicles […]

What necessitated your defection from the ruling party on which platform you won elections to become governors?
PDP has failed its members and the entire people of Nigeria by failing to move the country forward. Today, developing countries like Malaysia, Indonesia and even India and South Korea are ahead of us.  South Korea is manufacturing vehicles and computers, India has gone very far indeed, they have gone very far and we seem to be going poorer and our institutions have been collapsing.
Now, political parties must have a roadmap of where the party should be going. Parties should show the way. In fact, they are the beacon for political office holders, people who want to go in to party politics should take bearing from which party they want to go and what they want to emphasize. They say somebody is on the right, somebody is on the left or somebody is center-right because they have policies and programmes the fellow will like to pursue when he is elected by the electorate.
But the PDP has no clue of what it is supposed to be doing at all! The PDP is not doing what it is supposed to do; instead they have reduced politics to personal quarrels and blackmail and cheating. It is therefore not possible for decent people to remain in that party. Any decent man cannot remain there once you are level headed and you think about the suffering of our masses, the suffering of our children, poor education, poor infrastructure, poor virtually everything. I know it did not start in the last four years, but every generation has to do something to see where it can improve the society. So this is why we are concerned, and when we complained we found ourselves being victimised, our houses being closed.
Could you imagine a situation where there was gap between the new PDP and Bamanga Tukur and we were sitting down to discuss how to deal with the matter and then a Divisional Police Officer (DPO) was sent to tell us to close the meeting. This is the highest level of arrogance; it is not acceptable at all in our democracy.

Why have you decided to leave when the party is saying there is still hope for reconciliation?
We have been negotiating for long, we have been holding meetings, and do you see any move for reconciliation from their own part? You mean I should wait for a year for a simple decision after everybody has clearly stated that the dissolution of Adamawa State Executive Committee of the party by a single person should be rescinded?
We in Adamawa wrote to tell them in clear terms that the dissolution of Adamawa exco was totally unjustified and every committee established by the PDP and the president recommended that the decision be rescinded; but it has not been rescinded. For how long do you want us to wait, until we go back to our graves?
 
The presidency reacted that your exit is a relief because it will afford the president the opportunity to concentrate on governance and perform better. How would you respond to such an assertion?
If they can get relief now and start moving the country forward, it is a good idea. Now we are out of the place, let them stabilise. If we have become personal threat to them, frightening them to the degree they cannot be clear-headed, we have left and they can be clear-headed now.

Have you defected to the opposition APC along with your supporters?
We are meeting our supporters tomorrow to discuss the detail of our agreement with the APC. Part of our agreement with the APC leadership is that the governors will oversee the affairs of the party in their states after the merger and that the governors shall assist party candidates for state assemblies and the National Assembly to realise their ambitions without any discrimination among APC members. We are determined to give equal opportunities to all APC members.

Is your deputy defecting with you?  
This is what the white man calls personal choice. The truth is that in Adamawa we have decided that there is no way we remain in the PDP because we understand the party has the tendency to cause civil war. We look at our own set up and diversity and realise that if a political issue is not handled with utmost sincerity, it can explode into religious, ethnic and settler- indigene crises.

Two of the G7 Governors have not joined you in the merger with the APC, why did they back out?
They are not yet ready to join us in the APC, but when the time comes they will join us. The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has given all the political parties a deadline for submission of names of candidates who want to contest for elections, so if you want to contest for an elective office under the APC, you must join the party before the date. If I don’t join now that means I am not interested in any office. Those who have not yet joined us may not be contesting for any elective position.

Do you see their reluctance as sabotage?
No, no, they are still with us. In fact, one of them told us that by the grace of God he shall join us in January 2014.
 
Akwa Ibom governor, Godswill Akpabio said there would be rebellion against the G7 governors in their respective states, how serious do you take this?
What kind of rebellion is he talking about; will the governor be asked to leave? I don’t know what he is saying. We will carry everybody along irrespective of where he comes from and we will create opportunities for politicians and the electorate. We have nothing to do with Abuja politicians who take gin and all sorts of intoxicants and take wrong decisions under the influence of such intoxicants.