A Chieftain of the All Progressive Congress (APC) and national coordinator, Disciplines of Jagaban (DOJ), Abdulhakeem Adegoke Alawuje has advised those former governors who are eyeing the ministerial appointment to go home and rest, and allow the younger ones whom they might have mentored to go for the ministerial slots.
Alawuje noted that if Bola Tinubu could stay out of political office for 16 years before bouncing back, he wondered why former governors could not emulate him.
In a statement on Saturday, the APC chieftain said, “If Tinubu, our dear President could stay out of political office for good 16 years for other people coming behind to feature prominently, what stops all our former governors to do the same? I stand to be corrected though.
“I, therefore, earnestly plead with our erstwhile state governors to allow other shinning lights from their various states to be given the ministerial slots while they rest a little, after a glorious service.
“No doubt, truth is always bitter. If we all choose not to speak the truth, however, there will be no positive change in our polity.
“Come to think of it. If yesterday leaders refused to leave the stage, definitely those of you also will not be able to move to where you are today. Imagine, some of the former governors’ children are already in the system and the fathers are still lobbying for positions in the Tinubu led administration.
“Even if there are no other competent and qualified hands in your immediate families, why don’t you extend your search to your local governments, senatorial Districts or your states. What kind of people are those at the corridor of power in this generation of ours? I don’t even know why we need to be afraid of calling you to order after all you are our leaders.
“Incidentally, the new faces, the so-called unknown young men and women contributed more than enough towards our success in the elections. Can you do it all alone? Are your family members only those who toiled and sacrificed?
It was the structure those new faces formed that 90 percent of you guys relied on and I can say it without qualms.
“Imagine if all of them were nowhere to be found at the initial stage when uncertainty hovered over the political atmosphere, when there was almost a consensus among the elites to constitute a huge clog in wheel of Asiwaju’s ambition. Where would you people that joined the train, two, three weeks to the primaries would have started from?
“Situating the scramble to secure ministerial appointments by our immediate past state governors with the true patriotic zeal to serve our dear nation selflessly, one would not hesitate to query their desperate bids. Didn’t they groom and mentor younger people, who they can now push forward for such positions within their eight years rule in their various states?”.