Gaidam, Nyako blast Clark for ‘provocative’ statement

Yobe and Adamawa State governors have come down hard on Edwin Clark, elder statesman and politician, for calling on President Goodluck Jonathan to declare a total state of emergency in the three north-east states presently under the insurgency.

Referring to the call as unconstitutional, the governors through their spokesperson issued a statement claiming such comment were veil attempt at sabotaging Nigeria’s democracy.

“Their Excellences, Governors (ibrahim) Gaidam and (Murtala) Nyako, and indeed all right thinking Nigerians consider these comments as unthoughtful, provocative, diversionary, totally out of sync with democratic norms and values,” the statement said.

“The phrase ‘sole administrator’, is a ‘constitutional aberration which cannot be found, even impliedly, in any of the 320 sections of the 1999 Constitution.”
They maintained that such call should be resisted by all and sundry because the governors were democratically elected.

The governors also took a swipe at their Akwa Ibom counterpart, Godswill Akpabio, for taking a similar stance and asking the present government to approach the issue the same way former president Obasanjo did in Ekiti State.

“Curiously, both Clark and Akpabio are beneficiaries of constitutionalism and democracy in Nigeria. It is therefore mind boggling that the two would seek to put both constitutionalism and democracy in jeopardy on the altar of their personal interests.

“Mr. Clark made a very serious analytical faux pas when he tried to liken the security situation in Yobe, Borno and Adamawa States with the situation in Ekiti state when an emergency rule was declared in that state during a previous administration. The situation between now and then could not be more different,” they said in the statement signed by Abdullahi Bego, Special Adviser on Press Affairs to Gaidam and Ahmad Sajoh, Director of Press Affairs to Nyako.

They further said there were other means through which the president could check the insecurity in the affected states since the situation is criminal and not political.

The governors called on Nigerians to support efforts aimed at addressing the security challenges currently facing the country and affirmed determination to continue pursuing peace and security in the region and the nation in general.