Frontline PDP presidential hopeful and former Minister of Special Duties and Intergovernmental Affairs, Kabiru Tanimu Turaki, SAN, has assured Nigerians that if he succeeds in getting his party’s mandate and later wins the presidency, his government will make the rule of law sacrosanct and will not select which law or court order to obey in contrast to what obtains under the APC government.
He gave the assurance in Enugu on Thursday when he met separately with the state governor, Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi at the government house, and the state executive committee of the PDP with other leaders and delegates to the party’s national convention at the state secretariat of the party.
While at the Government House, Turaki weighed in on the continued incarceration of over 100 women protesters without trial in Owerri, Imo State since August 17 after a Magistrate’s Court had ruled that it lacked jurisdiction to try their case.
The Senior Advocate of Nigeria noted that even if judges at the High Courts were on vacation there will always be a vacation judge, he said, who could have exercised jurisdiction over their case and their application for bail.
The presidential aspirant who admonished Nigerians to continue to live and work together under God, lamented the rising trend for ethnic self determination and the open discrimination and eventual marginalization of those who did not vote for the APC in the last general elections.
“Every Nigerian,” he explained, “has the right under the law to vote for a candidate of his or her choice and indeed, has the right also not to exercise that right.”
He stressed the need for justice, equity and fairness to guarantee the peace needed for development.
While restating his commitment to the creation of an additional state for the South East as a priority, he acknowledged the valuable contributions made but the Igbo in other parts of the country where many of them are resident.
“The issue of additional state is not a political statement,” he emphasized. “It is about justice and fairness. Do unto others as you would make them do unto you,” he added.
Turaki noted that the issue of restructuring which had fueled agitations for resource control, devolution of power, true federalism, state police and the likes had been addressed by the report of the 2014 National Political Conference of which he was a participant.
Furthermore, he said, the report of a presidential committee which he once chaired had equally recommended holistic solutions to the country’s lingering security challenges, but that the APC government dumped the two reports certainly not for altruistic reason.
The presidential aspirant referred also to the economic recovery brought by past PDP administrations which the APC had reversed through clueless policies, and promised to revitalize the sector with robust policies and competent hands if given the opportunity.
But then, he said there was need for a knowledge-based leadership and governance such as being experienced in Enugu State under governor Ugwuanyi, for Nigeria to compete effectively in the global arena.
While saying that Nigerians are looking up to the PDP like the biblical Noah’s Ark, the country he said, would be better served by a well-educated leader with requisite knowledge and experience, integrity, dynamism and a detribalized disposition. “I represent the best hand for the job,” he emphasized.
Governor Ugwuanyi who stated that Enugu State is wholesale PDP assured Turaki that “we know the stuff you are made of.”
The state PDP chairman, Chief Augustine Nnamani said that Turaki was the type of person Nigerians have been yearning for considering his vision and enviable antecedents.
“Now is the payback time for Turaki,” he stressed, “for being part of the people who struggled to prevent the party from dying.”
