By Lawrence Olaoye
Former Political Adviser to President Goodluck Jonathan, Barrister Ahmed Gulak, yesterday said the need to reposition Adamawa state on the pedestal of unity and economic development fired his interest in contesting the state’s governorship bye-election.
Gulak, in an interaction with newsmen yesterday, said Adamawa suffered immense financial and developmental hemorrhage under the leadership of impeached Governor Murtala Nyako and would need a visionary leader, like him, to revamp it and bring it at par with its pears in the region in particular and the nation in general.
According to the former Speaker of the state Assembly, he has made all required consultations with critical stakeholders in the state and they have resolved to back his mission to reunite the people who have been seriously fractionalized by several years of Nyako’s divisive regime.
He said “My motivation is that I have been in this game (politics) for some time and I have made extensive consultations among the people who have given me the go ahead to lead them. I intend to be the uniting factor as Adamawa has been brought to its knees under Nyako’s misrule.”
Responding to the insinuation that the PDP in the state has been mounting pressure on the former Chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), Mallam Nuhu Ribadu, to dump his APC in order to be given the opportunity to contest the state governorship election on its platform, Gulak expressed doubts on whether Ribadu could jettison all he had been professing and dump his party.
He however said that the party would welcome anyone, including Ribadu, who shows interest in joining it ahead of the bye election in the state but insisted that the rumour of being given an automatic ticket could not be true.
The former Presidential aide said “we have been in this game sense the 90s. Ribadu just came into politics after his assignment at the EFCC. He’s welcome into our party if truly he decided to join us. He has the right to join the PDP and contest but it’s the people who will decide who governs them.”
Gulak also clarified that his removal as Jonathan’s political adviser was not based on any demeanor, having worked with the President for seven years, but on some political calculations based on national interest.
He equally carpeted those asking the President not to contest the Presidency in 2015 as enemies of development and democracy insisting that Jonathan has the inalienable right to seek second term in office.
Commenting on the political strength of the PDP in Adamawa state, Gulak affirmed that the party has been growing from strength to strength since Nyako’s impeachment stressing further that the APC was dead in the state.
