FORMER Jigawa State governor, Sule Lamido, has expressed disappointment at the rumoured possibility of former president Goodluck Jonathan contesting the 2023 presidency on the platform of the All Progressives Congress (APC), saying the move, if true, will amount to self-destruction for the former president.
Lamido, who made this known in an interview with some select newsmen noted that everything the former president achieved politically in Nigeria came through the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and that if he reflected on the past, he would not dare to mingle with the current APC leaders considering how they sabotaged his presidency in the past.
Lamido said: “The issue of Jonathan going to APC to be their standard-bearer, I pray it is not true, because if it is, he is inviting self-destruction. This was somebody who came from a very humble and decent background. All the achievements he made and his political ascendancy were under the PDP platform, which meant PDP gave him his biggest world.
“It is for him to reflect on the love, the family bond of the PDP, the sacrifices made, the humiliation we went through, the vilification of the APC of his own government, the way he was being demonised, the way Wole Soyinka was calling his wife a hippopotamus, and calling him clueless. The entire APC 2013, 2014 literally destroyed him. He should be able to reflect.
“Of course, we had the heartache, the pains, humiliation and persecution the people of the North had in 2014 for supporting Jonathan. There was a man from Katagum, his house was destroyed and burnt down in Azare just because he was supporting Jonathan.
“In Bauchi, our people were persecuted and burnt. In Kano, my office was burnt down. And the mob was heading towards my house to burn down my house and kill my family members alive, only for the army to intervene.
“In Zamfara, people received 50 lashes to be cleaned of the Jonathan dirt. People were going from house to house to give them 50 lashes, because of Jonathan. The same thing happened in Sokoto. The people of the North stood for Jonathan because they were working for Nigeria because they believed in Nigeria,” he said.
Lamido stressed that if Jonathan joins the APC, “it means all they went through, the pain, the humiliation, for supporting him in 2014 was nothing. Even [Professor Attahiru] Jega (then-INEC chairman) was not left out. We went through hell in 2014 all for Jonathan.
“I am taking the pain of this narration that Nigerians suffered a lot for Jonathan. And God has been good to Jonathan. It is for him now to reflect and see those people who demonised him, who called him evil, who said Boko Haram was PDP’s company in 2014. He should take all these into consideration. Is this the way he wants to reward PDP for inventing him?
He added that: “The people courting him now are liars. They lied to get to the government. I urge him in the name of God, the very God that made him from nothing, to think about PDP which made him from nothing. He should please reconsider,” Lamido said in the interview.
