Victor Ogunje in Ado Ekiti
A former National Assembly member, Senator Ayo Arise, has debunked the rumour ascribed to him asking a presidential hopeful, Ahmed Bola Tinubu, to discontinue with the policies of President Muhammadu Buhari if elected.
Arise said the only advice he had offered as Tinubu’s admirer had been that the All Progressives Congress (APC) candidate would sustain Buhari’s policies already giving Nigerians concern, while those not hitting the right targets will be repackaged in the interest of Nigerians.
The former Senator, who represented Ekiti North senatorial district, gave the clarification in a statement made available to journalists in Ado Ekiti yesterday.
The APC chieftain was reacting to an online report credited to him that he once advised Tinubu to wholesomely reject Buhari’s policies on account of not giving Nigerians the needed succour and gains.
Shedding light on what has been his contributions to APC in the countdown to the 2023 presidential election, Arise posited that his view had always been that Tinubu won’t rubber-stamp all policies being initiated by Buhari to meet the yearnings of Nigerians.
Arise also backed Tinubu’s plan to allow the creation of a state police, saying the policy was long overdue, and would help in tackling the country’s insecurity headlong.
He said: “Well, on Buhari’s legacies, I read a few things that Tinubu said he would do, and the first one, which is in terms of tackling insecurity, is the fact that he would automatically start the process of having state police.
“I don’t think that if he says that he will continue with the legacies of President Buhari, he would just become the president and start rubber-stamping everything that Buhari did.
“In terms of policies of this administration, you would notice that a few things focus on social benefits of the people to ease the burden of the downtrodden. Have those policies achieved what they were set out to achieve?
“We are the ones responsible for the ailments of the country. Even though a leader can come in and begin to change things, the rot is so deep that when you even try, it becomes a problem and when Buhari started fighting corruption, we started hearing the slogan ‘corruption is fighting back’.”
Speaking against the uproar generated by the same faith ticket adopted by the APC, Arise said the motive was not to slight Christians, but to amass votes.
“The Muslim-Muslim ticket is a decision that cannot be said to be perfect as there were situations for the Muslim-Christian ticket which ordinarily could have been ideal if not for the fact that the candidate happens to be a Muslim from the South-west. If the candidate had been a Christian, it would have been easier to pick a Muslim northerner.
“After sitting down very well, you would discover that there are very able, intelligent, technically sound Christians but the question is, how many votes do they control in the North to be able to win the Northern votes? If the reverse had been the case to the South-west, it would have been a suicidal error for any northern candidate to pick a Muslim from the south since people of the Christian faith are more in the South.
“So, when you look at the situations that are emerging, he had very limited choices, and when you consider the fact that there has been a similar situation in the past, and in reality, anybody that wants to rule this country must not make religion his priority. If you make religion your priority, then our chances for development are tending more towards zero.”
Arise added that linking him with a report advising Tinubu to discontinue with Buhari’s policies was outright lie deliberately concocted to pit him against some political interests.
“To set the record straight, at no time did I grant interview to the fictitious online platform, and I have never met any of its reporters. What they published was a figment of their own imaginations,” he stated.
