Former Secretary to the Government of the Federation, Babachir Lawal, has said that Atiku Abubakar entering coalition talks for his personal interest is not a sin. He recently revealed that it doesn’t matter if the PDP member is doing it for himself or his party.
Speaking during an interview with the press, Babachir disclosed that doing it for selfish or unselfish interest has never been the issue when it comes to merger talks, so people should focus on the main purpose of the coalition.
According to him, every personal interest can be accommodated in any coalition, as long as a democratic process happens eventually to determine who becomes what ahead of the elections.
“Is it a sin if he does that? Of course, he could do that for his personal sake or to support another candidate. But that has never been the issue in these merger talks.
Atiku is even more committed than everybody. I can say that based on my analysis of the active role he plays in getting all the groups to come together.
The issue is for us to get together and join or form a big party in which all contending interests are accommodated, and then allow the democratic process to sort out who becomes what,” he said.
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Lawal shared that there is a general rule for all parties forming the coalition to set aside all kinds of personal ambitions until they reach the stage of holding a convention to elect the candidates, and that includes every politician eyeing the presidential seat.
The Ex-Secretary announced that none of the candidates, including Atiku Abubakar, has given a condition for his membership, and the plan remains to form a big party and then allow the democratic process to determine its representatives.
“First of all, the democratic process as to who becomes the leader of the new party. Then, as we approach the election, we do congresses, conventions and finally, a presidential election convention where a candidate will emerge. That has always been the mantra.
We have agreed to keep aside personal ambitions, including those nursing the presidential race, until we get to a stage where we’ll be discussing how to hold a convention to elect the candidates. It has happened before. Almost all the mergers that had gone down were like that.
Everybody will see a man who has probably told his wife or his friends he wants to be president. But in our (merger) talks, we all agree that going alone would be a waste of time.
So none of the candidates, I mean none of the presidential hopefuls that we know, has given a condition that he must be the candidate. Our focus is to form a big party and allow the democratic process to produce candidates,” he added.
