Malawi poll result inspire Nigerians
Governor of Kano State in Nigeria, Rabiu Kwankwaso, has stated that the opposition All Progressives Congress (APC) will ensure that President Goodluck Jonathan loses the 2015 presidential election just the way former Malawi president Joyce Banda lost to incumbent Peter Mutharika in the May 20 Tripartite Elections.
Kwankwaso’s remarks were published in the July 20 edition of a Nigerian newspaper, the Premium Times, and emanated from an interview he had with the publication’s managing editor, Musikilu Mojeed, and its head of Northern Operations, Sani Tukur, tracing the genesis of the existing problem between State governors belonging to opposition parties and Jonathan to the outcome of the Nigeria Governors’ Forum election.
“In the 19 States, I don’t see any State where under free and fair election; people will go and vote for the status quo… They will be shocked. Nigerians will do to them what the Malawians did to their government. We will teach them in 2015,” the governor is quoted as saying.
Added Kwankwaso, according to the newspaper: “Jonathan will be number three like Joyce Banda in Malawi. If we can get a good presidential candidate, he will be number three.”
Banda is among few incumbent heads of State in Africa to lose elections in recent memory. She trailed a distant third to the ultimate winner, current President Peter Mutharika.
She became President by constitutional arrangement that a Vice-President should take over once a vacancy occurs in the office of the President after her political mentor turned nemesis Bingu wa Mutharika died in office following a cardiac arrest in April 2012.
Premium Times is published by the Premium Times Services Limited, a media organisation based in the Nigerian capital, Abuja.
It says it’s an organisation that has a vision to help strengthen Nigeria’s democracy, advance the socio-economic wellbeing and the rights of the people, promote and enrich their cultural practices, and advocate for best practices, good governance, transparency and human rights, in line with the values expected of a modern democratic State.
“The status quo is not good for anybody because they have failed to provide the basic services to justify why the people voted for this government,” the opposition governor told the publication.
President Jonathan is facing serious divisions in the governing People’s Democratic Party (PDP) with several State governors in Nigeria recently defecting to a newly formed opposition party, APC.
