Nigeria
will hail thee! A former minister of Information, Chief Edwin Clark, who was
one of General Buhari's passionate and negative critics has pledged to work
with the President -elect, Maj. Gen. Muhammadu Buhari (retd.).
In
what looks like eating one's word, the elderstatesman said he would support him
the way he supported the late President, Alhaji Umaru Yar’Adua.
Clark
stated this in a congratulatory message he sent to Buhari, who defeated
President Goodluck Jonathan in the March 28 presidential election.
President
Jonathan, who Clark supported passionately, was the presidential candidate of
the ruling Peoples Democratic Party in the election.
He
said, “I congratulate you and reassure you that as you get to
commence the process of peaceful transition and government, you will have my
full support, as a man who strongly believes in the unity of Nigeria. Just as I
supported our most respected late President, Umaru Yar’Adua
and his successor, President Jonathan as long as you will at all times uphold
the dignity of Nigeria and those things that bind us together as one united
country.
“Remember that part of
our old National Anthem which says ‘Though tribe and
tongue may differ, in brotherhood we stand.’
“This was exactly what
the late Nelson Mandela of South Africa stood for, and the late Martin Luther
King Jnr. of the United States of America fought and died for.”
He
said he was happy that the President conceded defeat, an action he said
disappointed the nation’s detractors both within and outside the country.
These
unnamed enemies, he said, had thought that the result of the elections would
not be accepted by any of the two major contestants and thereby create crisis
for the country.
If
this had been done, he said the action would have satisfied those prophets of
doom who he said felt there would be no more Nigeria after the 2015 general
elections.
Clark
however insisted that every Nigerian must be treated equally and respected.
He
said the minorities of the South-South region had supported and worked with
every government in Nigeria, and that they waited for 50 years before it
pleased God to make one of them the ruler of the country.
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