ANPP faction, AD chieftain fault govt's panel on national dialogue
From Tsokar Karls, Abuja
THE Jeremiah Useni-led faction of the All Nigeria Peoples Party (ANPP) has rejected President Olusegun Obasanjo's recently empanelled eight-man committee on national dialogue, saying it is questionable and uncalled for.
According to the National Publicity Secretary of the faction, Alhaji Ismaila Sani, the sudden and "whimsical manner in which the whole thing was dropped on unsuspecting Nigerians" indicates that there is no commitment and seriousness about the whole thing.
According to him, the terms of reference of the committee was not helpful, adding that the job of the committee appears to be shrouded in mystery and unwarranted haziness, he said.
He pointed out that, besides, the composition of the committee is too unrepresentative as it is made up of "exclusively PDP stalwarts and known faces within the corridors of power."
This he said conveys the impression that the dialogue envisaged is a Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) dialogue. Emphasising that the whole thing smacks of a grand deception aimed at diverting attention from the sufferings and deprivation ravaging the country.
"We in the ANPP reject any talkshop of whatever description and convened under whatever guise, which does not take cognisance of the plurality and variegated interests and views in the nation," Sani said.
Advising that the PDP-led government should tread cautiously and not plunge the country into unnecessary controversy or conflagration, he said every Nigerian was aware of the centrifugal forces, extremist and nihilist groups lurking around the polity to bare their fangs and cause trouble in the name of one agitation or the other.
In a separate reaction, an Alliance for Democracy (AD), chieftain has faulted the national dialogue, saying it falls short of the expectations of Nigerians. A statement signed by the Ekiti State Secretary of the party, Chief Biodun Akin-Fasae, said it was wrong for President Obasanjo to have constituted a committee to map out plans for the take-off of the national dialogue without any consultation with the agitators of national conference, alleging that the President has a hidden agenda with the proposed national dialogue.
The party wondered why President Obasanjo who had all along opposed a national conference as proposed by eminent Nigerians, suddenly agreed that Nigerians should dialogue. If not for a hidden agenda which would soon be exposed.
Akin-Fasae faulted the composition of the committee on the proposed national dialogue saying they are made up of "see no evil, speak no evil" acolytes of the president.
Nigerians, he warned, should not expect anything other than reforms that would promote one-party system which the president and his party believe is best for the country, alleging that the PDP has been doing everything to promote crisis in other parties.
Meanwhile, the party also congratulate Lagos State Governor, Ahmed Bola Tinubu over his victory at the Supreme Court over the seizure of allocations to councils in his state by the Federal Government.
