With the Almighty God on our side Adamawa State and indeed Nigeria now belong to the APC.

Let me be honest enough to admit that until a few months ago, Adamawa State was a PDP State. We have over the years scored huge victories in past elections, but suddenly the PDP leadership and the evil few of Adamawa State indigenes residing in Abuja became bent on meting out gross injustice onto us, not just on the Party, but the whole of our good people who have been massively voting our candidates into victory. The impunity and wrong doings against us include:-

(a) The unjust dissolution of the State EXCO,

(b) The illegal replacement of a duly elected Adamawa State House of Assembly candidate with an unknown person,

(c) The imposition of a State of Emergency on the whole State without prior knowledge or justification,

(d) Denial of access to PDP Convention to our legitimate Statutory delegates that should have rendered the Convention invalid.

(e) Heaping insults and injustice upon us in the State from Abuja.

Our proud and intelligent people including all decent politicians in the State have now decided that we could no longer tolerate such behaviour; we could not ‘walk-together’ with these evil few!

We feel that Abuja has become a captive in the hands of the ‘evil-few’ who are bent on destroying this country in pursuit of their narrow selfish interest. For now they have succeeded in stagnating the economy, derailing our democracy and most of all destabilizing our peace and unity. Unfortunately, rather than engage in deep introspection in trying to find solutions to the many problems facing the Nation, they indulge themselves in self-adulation and grand deception. They claim that theirs is the best government ever, and they do so without any tangible proof. It is therefore under such grim circumstances that patriots and progressive minds in the new PDP have come to merge with APC to put Democracy back on its track, restore peace and move the Nation forward.

I wish to caution that we are now confronted with a situation of extreme level of impunity and lawlessness in Nigeria. Just last week we in Adamawa State had a taste of this high level of impunity when the President came visiting. On an occasion that was supposed to bring joy to the people, sorrow and suffering was visited on us by agents of Abuja. The whole of Yola Town was shut down. Businesses were interrupted, banks were closed, markets were shut down, schools were closed, shops were locked, streets were deserted, thus turning our State capital into a “ghost town”. What a contrast to what normally happens on a Presidential Visit!

As a response, some market women expressed their displeasure with the situation by demonstrating half naked. Today we regret to note another act of impunity against our supporters who were being prevented to attend this Rally!! Virtually every citizen of this State is getting more and angry with what is happening. Our people have been patient enough. We advise these self-styled political demigods in Abuja to note that our people are getting angrier by the day and they should better start treating the Nigerian people with compassion rather than arrogance. We in Adamawa State believe that man cannot be God and man cannot be above the Law.

Another act of lawlessness and political brigandage by the Abuja-based overlords is their notion of different laws for different people. While they consider it an offence to decamp from PDP to other political parties, to them decamping to the PDP from other political parties is not an offence; such is welcome with fanfare and a red carpet. Even ordinary speeches attract penalties, depending on who says what and to whom. Alas, the PDP umbrella has been turned into a banner of lawlessness and bad governance.

Let’s face it, the level of impunity and lawlessness within the Party had reached an unprecedented level in the democratic history of our great Nation. It is a situation where both the Party and the Federal Government it controls have become instruments of oppression and incompetent to prevent unwarranted killings of innocent citizens in the hands of paid killers guided by those we call “the evil few”, who surely lack the sense of decency in dealing with fellow Nigerians. Everybody is beginning to see what has been happening; President Abraham Lincoln once stated something to the effect that ‘one can fool a few people most of the time, some of the people some of the time, but you cannot fool all the people all the time’. Members of the APC working with our fellow Nigerians for our good must now resolve to bring these killings to a halt; the killing must be stopped; our Nation must go back to those halcyon years of part of General Yakubu Gowon’s memorable tenure as our Head of State, a decent period in an era of a decent man! I believe that APC has sprung up at the right time; it is God-given to Nigeria by the Almighty.

For us in Adamawa State, the birth of the APC and the new understanding created has been the silver lining we have always prayed for. With 87 ethnic groups and the two religions finely balanced, our only option is justice, fair play and observance of rule of law based on understanding one another and working together for the common good. Anyone churning hate based politics of ethnicity or religion is indeed an enemy of our people and we shall resist with all the means at our disposal.

We in Adamawa State have already decided that we are now stopping all bickerings on ‘who is who’ and ‘what-party-structure’ we should be having in the State; we are now looking for the right Vision and Development programme for our State and what we can contribute to the National aggregate of Development for a greater Nigeria for the next 50 years with the necessary milestones identified for the next 25 years. Our Party must now come up with a sound plan for the true take-off of our State in particular and the Nation in general.

We in APC in Adamawa State shall continue with our struggles until genuine and positive changes come to Adamawa State in particular and Nigeria in general. With God on our side and a broom in our hands, we shall sweep away all forces of impunity, lawlessness and evil-mindedness in our communities, State and the Nation in general.

•Being excerpts of a speech delivered by Governor Murtala H. Nyako of Adamawa State during Monday’s Grand Rally of the All Progressives Congress (APC) held at the Mahmud Ribadu Square in the state capital, Yola. Photo shows Governor Nyako.

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