The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has advised the president -elect, General Muhammadu Buhari, to be a father on issues brought before him, and to avoid unnecessarily taking sides.
The party further urged General Buhari to try to adopt the kind of statesman’s disposition of the late former President of South Africa, Nelson Mandela, and deal with citizens with the passion of a father.
Speaking with journalists on Thursday, May 15, 2015, the Deputy National Chairman of PDP, Uche Secondus, expressed the view that the utterances of the president-elect when some stakeholders and traditional rulers from Rivers State visited him last Wednesday in Abuja did not portray him as an elder statesman, especially when the matters in question were still within the domain of the judiciary and public panel of inquiry.
According to Secondus, “The utterances of the president-elect when he received a delegation of some traditional rules from Rivers State does not portray him as a statesman. He is the president-elect and indeed the father of all. He should exercise caution and restraint in some issues, especially when such issues are still in court.
“The election tribunals in the country and even in Rivers State have just commenced sitting and unguarded statements could be seen as prejudicial and give negative signals.
“The president-elect should emulate Mandela who assumed office as president of South Africa at such a critical time in the history of South.”
Mr Secondus opined that it was unethical and unfair for Buhari to make such claims and statements when the issues involved, including the integrity of the governorship election in the state, was still a subject of election tribunals.
“He is the president -elect and soon to be sworn in as the President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria and not the president of the APC,” he said.
