Lamido blasts Okupe, Gulak over comments on Northern govs

By Emmanuel Aziken, Political Editor

Governor Sule Lamido of Jigawa State has berated presidential aides, Doyin Okupe and Ahmed Gulak on their recent outbursts against him and four other governors just as he has dismissed the recently registered All Progressive Congress, APC, as a panacea to the nation’s problems.

Governor Lamido, in an interview, said he was in agreement with President Goodluck Jonathan that Nigeria cannot break as he said that members of the elite class in the country were united in preserving their advantages over the masses irrespective of tribe and religion.

Lamido also expressed disappointment with statements credited to former Minister of the Federal Capital Territory, FCT, Mohammed Abba-Gana, that there was no presidential material in the north.

CENTRAL Bank of Nigeria (CBN) Governor, Sanusi Lamido Sanusi

Lamido, who attended the same Barewa College with Abba-Gana, said that the education Abba-Gana had, prepared him for the presidency.

Defending recent visits to some of the country’s elder-statesmen, he said the governors acted in the interest of the nation and in their determination to salvage the country’s democracy.

He said: “A situation where a hired hand like Doyin Okupe, a wage earner that speaks only to justify his pay, will malign me that I am irrelevant.

“He became an aide after the election. These people who are now talking and abusing us are personal aides, who became what they are when the mandate was achieved.

“They were nowhere when the whole thing was being worked out. It means there was an election before they were able to serve as aides.

“There is nothing like honour in that because they are just hired hands. If tomorrow you have another President, they go to him.”

‘Why Nigeria can’t break’

Agreeing with President Jonathan that Nigeria cannot break, he said: “It is too weak to break. Who will break it? The ordinary person in Jigawa or the ordinary person in Sokoto or the ordinary person in Bayelsa?

“Is it the Ibo vulcaniser or the Yoruba woman that is selling kerosene by the roadside or the Okada man in Delta?

“They don’t have the capacity to unite because they are burdened by poverty. We have taken away from them their dignity, their self esteem, their pride and self worth so that they cannot even organise.

“Up there, we (elite) unite, we sing and so we will never allow Nigeria to break because once it breaks, we will lose.

“But the common man loses nothing. What is he losing? He is already living in hell; he cannot lose anything more than this hell.”