*Says PDP will be punished for abandoning zoning
Onyebuchi Ezigbo in Abuja
A chieftain of the All Progressives Congress (APC), and Director General of the Voice of Nigeria, Mr. Osita Okechukwu, has pleaded with President Muhammadu Buhari to support the consensus option in choosing its presidential candidate in order to rescue the Naira from dollarized presidential primaries as recently exemplified by the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).
Speaking on the outcome the presidential convention of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), last weekend, Okechukwu also said with the emergence of former Vice-President Atiku Abubakar, PDP has set itself against its members from the south for ignoring zoning.
He noted that a nation’s currency was one of the critical indices of measuring the general health of its economy, stressing that when the currency nose-dives, it leads to hype-inflation, gross unemployment and abject poverty, thereby worsening the nation’s security.
In a statement last night in Abuja, Okechukwu decried the dollar rain during the recent Presidential primary of opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) at the National Stadium Abuja.
He cited the withdrawal comments of Mohammed Hayatu-Deen, a financial guru, saying President Buhari should support the use of consensus method to ensure that the forthcoming APC presidential primary does not follow the PDP’s highest bidder Dollar Rain.
Okechukwu stated: “Albeit, our sister opposition political party has every constitutional right to elect whoever they want as their flag bearer, the Dollar rain is worrisome as noted by Mohammed Hayatu-Deen, who dubbed it obscenely monetised presidential primary.
“Sincerely, I congratulate His Excellency, Atiku Abubakar on his emergence from the opposition party primary. But, as a patriot and stakeholder in the Nigeria project, I am worried by PDP’s induced Dollar Rain, which led to unprecedented depreciation of the Naira.”
Therefore, Okechukwu called on President Buhari to consider the consensus option to be adopted in the APC presidential primary election to save the Naira.
He lamented the monumental harm PDP’s Dollar Rain did to the nation’s economy, saying,“if that could happen in a party with about 731 delegates, imagine what will happen if APC with about 2, 322 delegates is allowed to indulge in Dollar Rain.
“If the Naira is already bleeding because of Dollar Rain on 731 delegates, please, better imagine the degree of depreciation of the Naira if another blitz of Dollar Rain is allowed to be splashed on 2,322 delegates? This is the farming season, as such the Buhari’s Agrarian Revolution would also be at risk if the Naira is allowed to depreciate further. Prices of fertilizer, seedlings and other farm implements will hit roof top.”
Still on consensus as against direct or indirect mode, the DG VON said: “All the three are democratic and are in our law books. Please, is it not paradoxical that the governors, and ex-governors who oppose consensus had adopted same consensus and even outright imposition to select their successors?
“To me they have lost the moral high ground to oppose Mr President from adopting such legal mode of primary election. One’s appeal is that politically correct aspirant should be consensually presented.”
