AS PDP WELCOMES FEMI FANI KAYODE BACK WITH OPEN ARMS. “ I have nothing but the fondest thoughts and memories for the majority of APC leaders including all the governors and most of the Presidential aspirants but today I have an important announcement to make. I wish to inform the general public that as at today, 2nd June 2014, I have left the APC and gone back to the PDP. I wish the APC well in all their endeavours but as at today we have parted ways forever and my spirit has left them. “My reasons for leaving the party are because I consider nation-building as being far more important than party politics, party affiliation or party formations. I am a devout and committed christian and I cannot remain in a party where a handful of people that have sympathies for Boko Haram and that have a clear islamic agenda are playing a leading role. This is made all the more untenable when some of those people are working hard silently and behind the scenes to impose a muslim/muslim ticket on the party for the Presidential elections next year. “I believe that religion ought to play no part in politics but a situation where members of the christian faith are not treated as equals and where the all the substantive positions of the National Executive of the party are made up of almost exclusively muslims is unacceptable to me. “In fairness to the members of the party there are many leaders within it’s ranks who share my views and who are also opposed to the religious agenda that the few have but I am not prepared to stay and fight from within because the very prescence of any closet Haramites on the same political platform as me is something that I find utterly repugnant. “I have raised these issues privately with virtually every key party leader including most of the governors but nothing has changed. I cannot be in a party in which the spokesman. Lai Mohammed, only last year said that it was wrong and ”unconstitutional” for the Federal Government to proscribe Boko Haram. “This is the same Boko Haram that has killed no less than 15,000 Nigerians in the last three years. I cannot be in a party where the leading Presidential candidate, only last year said that Boko Haram ought to be killed but ought to be treated like the Niger Delta militants, granted amnesty without any conditions, pampered and paid and who said, in 2001, that muslims should only vote for people who will protect their faith. “I cannot be in a party where a number of leading people question the secularity of the state and yet those people are not called to order by the so-called party leaders and where such people seem to hold sway. I cannot be in a party which appears to have politicised the whole of the Chibok issue and who are not sincere in trying to get the girls back. I cannot be in a party where a few of it’s leaders are more interested in playing politics with the whole Chibok issue and hurling bricks at our military for not doing a better job. “I cannot be in a party in which the role of one of it’s governors is not clear on the Chibok issue: this is a governor that has not been able to explain to the world why he insisted that the girls should do their exams in that school and remain in Chibok for the night even though WAEC and the Federal Government had warned them about the dangers of doing so. “I cannot be in a party in which dissent and a differing opinion with others on fundamental issues is seen as an offence and something to be frowned upon or to be queried or expelled for. I have been in politics for the last 24 years of my life and all along I have taken monuemental risks and been guided by my princples. “I have also exhibited that I have the courage of my convictions and more often that not I have dared to say what many others are thinking but dare not to say. It is clear to me that such sentiments are not appreciated in the APC under it’s present leadership and consequently I have chosen to move on. “I believe that every religion and every ethnic nationality in this country ought to be treated with the greatest respect even within the context of a political party. I believe that we are all equal before God regardless of our religious differences. A situation whereby, as a christian, I am made to feel that I am a second class citizen in any association or political party which I am part of and for which I have taken risks is unacceptable to me.” .... Femi Fani-Kayode
Posted on: Tue, 03 Jun 2014 03:46:09 +0000
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