Tinubu Unperturbed By Political Parties’ Coalition – Abdul’Aziz
By Abdullahi Yusuf
Abdul’Aziz Abdul’Aziz,Senior Special Assistant Media to President Bola Tinubu,has said that the President is not disturbed by the formation and activities of the coalition of political parties in the country.
Abdul’Aziz,who made the remark while fielding questions from members of the Correspondents’ chapel of the Nigeria Union of Journalists(NUJ),Kano State Council,on Tuesday, said President Tinubu remained unperturbed by the coalition.
“I can tell you that the president is unperturbed. He is completely not disturbed. He is not in any way jittery about whether it is coalition or any political formation.
“Because, one, the people that are championing these things, most of them are politically expired. They are people with no political weight or relevance,they cannot jitter the government or the president. We have had serial contesters who had thrown their hats into the ring on many occasions,and they fully lost. And nothing much has changed.
“In fact, their star is dimming.And in that kind of situation, what they did not do or they did not get when their stars were shining, I don’t see them getting it now,” he said.
Abdul’Aziz, a former member of the chapel,described the coalition as a group of bitter individuals, people driven by personal vendetta and a sense of personal loss.
According to him,their concern is not the the ordinary Nigerians “but their concern is that they are not on the table. And Nigerians have sufficiently understood this.And that is why the coalition is not catching fire as they thought it would.”
“Because if you just cast your mind back not long ago, you will know that what they wanted to achieve was grand. Like, some three, four, five months ago when they started, they were thinking that it is going to be like a snowball of fire that will just come and consume the government.And it has not happened.So, why should anybody get jittery.They have failed in that attempt already.
“As I said, Nigerians, see them for what they are.They are disgruntled elements that are only talking about themselves. Listen to their interviews,hardly do they talk about the people.Even if they do, it’s just a smokescreen to use to advance their own agenda and interests,” the presidential aide said.
He then dismissed claims that the president does not like the North, describing them as baseless.
He said the president, indeed, loves the North,citing many development projects which he had been executing in the region including the continuation of the Ajakuta-Kaduna-Kano(AKK) gas pipeline and the Kolmani oil prospecting.
“When President Tinubu came, there were so many projects in the northern part of Nigeria. A lot of them at a very early stage.I tell people, if this man is wicked or doesn’t like the north, he could leave these projects to be abandoned. He can withhold financing. If there is no financing, these projects will stagnate or will even naturally die.
‘But none of these projects that he inherited, which are massive, are actually stopped. And these are projects that are in billions of dollars. If you look at the very important energy projects for northern Nigeria,the Ajakuta-Kaduna-Kano gas pipeline, the AKK, was something that when we came was not up to 50%. It has been continued. It is nearing completion.
“If you look at the Kolmani oil prospecting, it’s ongoing.It’s something that was at an infancy level when this government came, but it’s continued. If you look at the Abuja-Kaduna-Kano road, this project, the government devoted over 400 billion to complete it,” he added.