The former Minister of Sports in Nigeria, Barrister Solomon Dalung has said that President Muhammadu Buhari has failed to write his name in the golden book of record for failing to sign the 2021 Electoral Act Amendment Bill into law.
The former Sports Minister stated this in Oyo on Saturday.
Dalung was in the company of Barrister Oluwole Adebayo to the Palace of the Alaafin of Oyo, Oba Lamidi Olayiwola Adeyemi III to grace the 51st coronation anniversary of the monarch.
He said that President Muhammadu Buhari was a beneficiary of mass support from Nigerians, citing that his election was funded by the common people who believed that his election would end the era of ‘urban gorilla politics’.
According to Dalung, “the day the bill was rejected was one of the dark days of my life, because the president has lost the chance of inscribing his name in the golden book of records, he is a beneficiary of mass support of Nigerians, his election was funded by common people, Achaba, Bridals, Garri sellers, market women all contributed in funding his election because they believed that his election was going to end the era of urban gorilla politics and he had this golden opportunity but he was misled by a group of over ambitious advisers who have interest in 2023.”
The former Minister, speaking with ooduabulletin.com, alleged that President Buhari was misled by those he called ambitious advisers and governors who he said have turned themselves into demigods and taken over the party structure in their various states.
“The worst adviser you can have is a man who is interested in what you are doing. He will never advise you right. We needed the issue of direct primary’s legislated, this is because governors in Nigeria have taken over the democratic space, they have chased everybody out, there is no prominent politician in Nigeria today that can assert his authority in his immediate environment, in the PDP, the governors have gone to write names of their family members as executive structure, it is worse in the APC, because it was done in Government Houses, that is why in every state, there are cases all over the country over the last congresses. So, the only thing that could have cured this was for the president to return democracy to the owners. The people should determine who will fly the ticket of any political party since the political parties have refused to conduct themselves within the parameters of law. Therefore, all those arguments that the law doesn’t provide an alternative for the political parties are baseless; do the political parties provide an alternative for the people?
Mr. Dalung, a lawyer, therefore, advised the National Assembly to return the bill to the President the way it is, saying that failure of Mr. President to give assent to it is described as the worst contribution he has made to the people who made him what he is today.
“Should the President stand with the people or the political parties that have destroyed internal democracy? The president is the custodian of the moral rights of this country and he has failed to exercise that. If this bill is returned to him the way it is which I expect the National Assembly to do, he should assent to it, failure to do this, will be the worst contribution he has ever made because the people made him king and he abandoned the people,” the former Sports Minister said.
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