TheCable

Sule Lamido, a former governor of Jigawa state, says it is a common thing for politicians made by the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) to betray the party. 

Lamido said this in an interview with The Sun while commenting on the outcome of the November 16 governorship election in Bayelsa state.

Reacting to calls for the suspension of ex-president Goodluck Jonathan over his perceived support for David Lyon, candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in the election, Lamido said he is not in support of the move.

“People have done worse than Jonathan… betrayal is the hallmark of the PDP,” he said.

“To me Jonathan is a creation of an accident hoisted by Obasanjo on Nigeria. I really don’t talk about him as somebody who should be punished for what he did. It doesn’t make sense.

“What I am saying is that people have done worse than Jonathan. People who are senior to him, people who are more elderly than Jonathan and who offer bigger option than Jonathan. Naturally, it is his home state, otherwise he is simply copying from his political elders and leaders.

“To me, when you say PDP, 80 per cent of the stronghold of APC is PDP; you know it. Anybody who was anything in the National Assembly between 1999 to 2015 was PDP. Anybody who was anything today in Government House was PDP.

“So, to me, betrayal is part of the hallmark of the party. Tell me anybody who has not betrayed PDP? Anybody you can think who PDP had honoured and dignified and made, who PDP invented that has not come to hurt PDP.”

Lamido alleged that Jonathan betrayed the PDP in Bayelsa because the federal government is “blackmailing him”.

“Because I can’t imagine a former president selling his own state to the opposition – to the very party which called him names, which demonized him…” he said.

“They are holding him by the balls. Because he (Jonathan) sure knows his problem with Buhari and with this government. And the issue of Malabo, I think,  played a key role, I said so. So, the election were won and lost by PDP. PDP history, PDP tradition and Jonathan were behind him. That I can say anywhere because the issue of Malabo is an issue I know very well. I had cause to discuss it with him.

“While he was the president and I was in office, I went and told him about it. I told him and I also gave a radio interview to an FM in Abuja, which Daily Triumph picked, where they said a minister under Jonathan got almost 150 million dollars Malabo scan – Governor Lamido. And when Reuben Abati came to debunk it or to abuse me, I went to Reuben Abati, I know what I am saying, can we go to the Villa, I discussed this with Jonathan. I told him about it. Let us go.

“What I am saying is that obviously because the leadership of the APC and the government are blackmailing Jonathan and I think I can say it anywhere that he traded this for his own freedom.”

Commenting on the hate speech bill, Lamido said the ruling party invented hate speech and “are now bequeathing it to Nigeria”.

He said if the bill is passed, it will come back to haunt those propagating it.

“When you say that there is a bill about hate speech, whatever punishment you are calling for, let it have a retroactive effect, like the very decree Buhari made in 1983 about that issue of drugs which was given a retroactive effect or which roped in previous offenders on drugs and they were killed,” he said.

“You remember that. So, if this bill comes into force, it should be with retroactive effect so that those who introduced hate speech in Nigeria should also be punished for the same thing.

“It is because they are now being consumed by their own conduct, by their own style, by their own character of politics, that is why they are now thinking of punishment.”