Yemi Adedeji, Abuja
FOLLOWING allegations made by the Governor of Rivers State, Nyesom Wike that some presidential aspirants on the platform of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) are moles planted by both the presidency and the ruling All Progressive Congress (APC), a former governor of Plateau State, Jonah Jang has denied being one of the moles within the party.
“In politics, every governor supports the party. Most leaders support the party. Those who are complaining about me are those who are afraid because they are the agents of APC. We know those PDP presidential aspirants who are agents of PDP. We know them. The presidency and the APC have planted people within our party, and we know it… I know some of our presidential aspirants who are running on the sponsorship of the APC and the presidency,” Wike had said in an interview with Premium Times newspaper.
However, Jang after submitting his nomination and expression of interest forms at the PDP headquarters in Abuja, said that God will not allow such moles to scuttle the plans of the opposition party to take over power in 2019.
“It will bother me a lot if we start having moles within us, but by the grace of God PDP’s quest to take over power and God will not allow any such whoever they are or whoever he is or she is to scuttle what God has promised foe PDP to do for this nation. But I want to assure you that Jonah Jang is not one of them,” Jang said
Jang stressed that he decided to vie for presidency having seeing what Nigeria is going through, adding that under the APC government, Nigeria was gradually becoming a pariah ‘s nation- a nation that would wake up every morning with stories of killings of innocent citizens.
According to him, as an accomplished former military personnel who had transited to a democratic life, he noted that he had gathered enough experience in security matters to solve the security problems the country is facing.
He stated: “Our people have been suffering in the North-east unabatedly. We have been told that Boko Haram have been defeated at one stage, the moment they make such announcement , you will get to know that Boko Haram has either taken over a military unit or has ambushed our soldiers.
“In Zamfara, again this problem is unabated there. Any government that can not ensure the security of its people, it has no legitimacy any longer to remain in power.”
Jang stressed that he believed that Nigeria requires restructuring because there is total imbalance in the federation, saying that the federal system must be a system that all the units of the federation must established in such a way that there would be proper power sharing.
He said; “I will therefore make priority to the restructuring of this country. We cannot decree restructuring, restructuring has to come from constitutional amendments as we cannot throw away the constitution completely.
“I intend to get the Goodluck Jonathan’s conference report and get the stakeholders again to look at it, so that whatever areas that is need to be negotiated will be negotiated so that we can now send a bill to the National Assembly for the amendment of the constitution so that we can now bring in restructuring.”
Jang added that as part of his restructuring agenda, state police would be created to take care of localities in every state to ensure peaceful coexistence.
He said that the porous nature of the country’s boarders has made it mandatory for the ECOWAS protocol of movement to be reviewed, saying it was unheard of in any democracy that people would work into the country with weapons to come and start killing Nigerians.
He decried the rate at which the APC government was borrowing, saying it would leave unborn generations with problem, saying enough of borrowing.
He said that, “Fighting corruption will be his priority but not the way the present administration is fighting it. EFCC and ICPC are not established to just follow a political opponent. These organisations must be properly organised so that they can work according to the international standard?.”