Governors elected under All Progressives Congress, APC, Thursday, said the party was working towards developing a standard communication template for all APC states in order to effectively project the ideals of the party within and outside Nigeria.
Lagos State governor, Babajide Sanwo-olu, stated this on behalf of the governors at a meeting with spokespersons and Commissioners of Information of APC-controlled states in Abuja.
The governor, who was represented by his deputy, Dr Obafemi Hamzat, however, said they were not disturbed by the purported campaigns by some of their party men, ahead of the 2023 general elections, declaring that since every human sleeps, no one can stop the other from dreaming.
“Everybody sleeps and so everybody can dream. We are practising a constitutional democracy. I can decide to gather 40 people in a room and declare my ambition to be president.
”But, I have not seen any of such campaign offices being opened in Lagos or Kaduna, but that is not to say that such cannot or does not exist,” he said.
The governors also congratulated President Muhammadu Buhari on Wednesday’s decision of the Supreme Court which reaffirmed his victory at the last Presidential Election.
Noting that President Buhari’s victory was important to Nigeria’s democracy, the governors advised the opposition Peoples Democratic Party PDP and its candidate, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, to know that there was an end to every election and all litigation.
“We want to congratulate Mr. President and the leader of our party for the Supreme Court decision to uphold his election. We think this is important for our democracy, we think the Judicial arm has done its job and then we can focus fully on governance.
”The other party should also understand that elections must come and go, somebody will win, somebody will not, this is the time to move forward and to all come together as Nigerians and continue to build our country,” he said.
The APC governors particularly took a swipe at Atiku and the PDP for faulting the integrity of the apex court justices, saying both the opposition party and its presidential candidate had no reason going to court if they knew they would not agree with its judgment.
“Why did they (Atiku/PDP) go to the court if they didn’t believe in it? They went to court to file a case, why did they go there to file the case when they believe the courts don’t have what it takes to deliver justice?
”I think that is ridiculous. We all went there, but because you don’t like the outcome, because you cannot prove your case, you don’t need to desecrate the institution. Our judges have been at the head of other countries’ judiciary, including The Gambia and other places, so why will a party desecrate that institution because they lost a case?
”I think that is so very unfair. Why do you go to a house, when you don’t believe in that house?”, Sanwo-Olu queried.
Speaking on the essence of the meeting, Sanwo-Olu said: “We deliberated on programmes that the various APC states are embarking on, how to better improve our communication strategies in engaging our citizens.
”It is okay to do a lot of things, but it is equally important for citizens to know what we are doing and why we are doing it. We believe that as a party, our template must be standard and broad so that each state can adapt it.
”There must be some synergy, you will see the difference very soon. We believe that we need to keep improving on how we communicate with our citizens.
“Then we did some peer review; there are things that some states are doing exceedingly well, which some other states have to learn from. Those are basically the things we deliberated on. The essence for us is how do we continue to deliver services to the citizens of our states and of course, our country”?
