Sunday Clement, Yola
Former Vice President Atiku Abubakar is angry.
Reason: the democracy he and others fought to be entrenched in the polity in 1999 has been bastardised.
To him, if the current ugly trend is allowed to continue, the future of the present generation and those yet unborn will be at total risk.
Atiku stated that the way and manner politicians at the helm of affairs are practising democracy left much to be desired, as the action has given way for unnecessary acrimony.
Speaking at the Yola International Airport on his return from Saudi Arabia where he performed lesser hajj, he said that “democracy which is government for the people and by the people has been completely bastardised and eroded at all the three tiers of government in the country”.
Atiku lamented that a situation whereby majority is no longer the yardstick for measuring the political pendulum in the executive and legislative arms of governance leaves much to be desired.
He advised the political class to, as a matter of urgency, reverse the current trend of political diverseness or else the country would be heading towards political, economic and social doom.
The former Vice President applauded the registration of the All Progressives Progress (APC) and said that any political evolution without a vibrant opposition will not work well for that nation and the practitioners.
He maintained that with a strong opposition from the APC, some level of checks and balances will certainly be recorded in the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) but was quick to advise those at the helm of affairs of the newly-registered APC to practise politics in accordance with the dictates and tenets of the opposition party.
