On Sunday, December 28, 2014, the perception that governors within the northern axis are in support of General Muhammadu Buhari turned a ruse when Governor Sule Lamido of Jigawa State accused the presidential candidate of the All Progressives Congress APC) of divisive campaigns in the northern and southern parts of the country.
Lamido said this against Gen. Buhari yesterday at the Malam Aminu Kano Triangle during the official declaration of the gubernatorial candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in the state and a former chief of staff, Malam Aminu Ibrahim Ringim, alongside his running mate, Dr Nurudeen Mohammad. The governor noted that a critical look at the situation on ground exposes people like Buhari as being insincere in both intent and purpose.
Lamido further alleged that when Buhari talks to the electorate in the North, he usually plays up the religious card, but once he is in the South, he plays it down by harping on the unity of Nigeria.
He wondered why Buhari had gone out of his way to select a Christian as his running mate and what this portends, adding: “Why then are our people vilified and maligned because they refuse to vote for a Muslim as their president and have opted for a Christian?
“If not, why is it that he chose a Christian as his running mate and shunned the Muslim community, then he turns round to tell the people in the North that his contest is anchored on promoting and guiding their ideological faith.”
The governor was of the opinion that “so long as we want Nigeria to get out of her present predicament, we must be sincere in the way we practise democracy so as to avoid a bloodbath and the rampant killing of Nigerians because of the interest of a few individuals.”
However, he did not openly support President Goodluck Jonathan of the PDP either.
Though, sources say his anger with the President is because he (Lamido) felt Jigawa State was abandoned by the president after his election victory, as none of the Federal Government projects have been executed in his state despite his support for Jonathan in 2011 election. President Jonathan, it was learnt, had promised to build a cargo airport in Dutse, rebuild broken federal roads abandoned in the state for over 20 years, construct a dam at Auyo and build a major waterworks in the capital, four promises yet to be fulfilled with less than two months to the next polls.
It was also revealed out of the N15 billion spent by state government on the building of the Duste International Airport, which Jonathan commissioned on October 21 this year, the Federal Government had only chipped in less than a billion.
Governor Lamido said Nigeria is at a crossroads and blamed the two personalities (President Jonathan and General Buhari) for the impending danger ahead of the nation.
He warned that after the declaration of the winner of the 2015 presidential election, there could be mayhem if the provocative statements of the supporters of both candidates are anything to go by.
