The Minister of State for Labour and Employment, Mr Festus Keyamo (SAN) has owned up to the current reality of hunger ravaging the country, saying Nigerians are unworried by the APC Muslim-Muslim ticket for the 2023 poll but are eagerly looking for to a president that would change the situation.
“Nigerians are hungry, they want to see how that hunger will be addressed, not how their Christian or Muslim faiths will be addressed,’’ Keyamo, a spokesman for the All Progressives Congress (APC) Presidential Campaign Council, said.
Pointing out that Nigerians are hungry, he said they are not bothered about the party’s Muslim-Muslim presidential ticket of Asiwaju Bola Tinubu and Alhaji Kashim Shettima for the 2023 polls.
Speaking on Channels TV, the Lagos lawyer declared: “They want to see our policies on agriculture and what Asiwaju has done before as governor of Lagos State; how he improved Lagos and how he will bring that kind of dexterity to Nigeria as a whole.
Persecondnews recalls that a groundswell of criticism had trailed trailed the Muslim-Muslim ticket of the APC since it held its presidential primary that produced Bola Tinubu, a Muslim from the South as presidential candidate and Kashim Shettima, a Muslim from the North as running mate.
Well-meaning Nigerians, including a former Secretary to the Government of the Federation, Mr Babacha Lawal, a former Speaker of the House of the Representatives, Mr Yakubu Dogara, both from the North, as well as the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) and Pentecostal Fellowship of Nigeria (PFN) have roundly and consistently spewed vitriol on the development.
But taking on the Christian religious bodies for opposing the same faith ticket, Keyamo said CAN and PFN are not members of the APC and therefore should not criticize the party publicly.
On what campaign issues have been listed for the 2023 elections, the minister said highlighting the past performance of Tinubu as Lagos governor would form the kernel of their campaigns.
“The party will inform Nigerians how Tinubu will improve the country based on how his track record on the management of Lagos.
“These are the kind of questions we want to see, the issues will want to remain on not Muslim-Muslim ticket. We have issues upon issues we want to talk about,” the APC campaign council spokesman said.
Keyamo added: “That is what they want to see. How do we want to run the country? What do we want to tell Nigerians?
“They are two crucial things we want to tell Nigerians. One, the person of Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu and what he has done before in the territory that is set to be the microcosm of Nigeria. There is nowhere within the Federal Republic of Nigeria that has the character and the shape of the entire country as much as Lagos.
“Lagos is a melting pot for the entire tribe, tongues and faiths in Nigeria. Asiwaju Bola Tinubu either as governor first till 2007 and as leader of the party since 2007 till now, he has managed all the multi-faceted problem in Lagos state either tribe, religion, ethnicity in such a way that there have been peace in Lagos state. The peace that we take for granted.”
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