Tell your ministers seeking political offices to resign, APC elder tells Buhari

An elder of the All Progressive Congress (APC) in Kaduna State, Yusuf Ali, has advised President Muhammadu Buhari to compel the Secretary of the Government Federation (SGF), to ask Ministers seeking political offices including the presidency to resign.

This was even as he said it is unethical and immoral for them to continue to remain in office until now.

Recall, that some ministers had indicated their interest in the presidency and governorship elections.

Ali made the call in an interview with newsmen on Monday and also said they should not hide behind court judgment on the electoral act.

According to him, there was a precedence set during the time of President Goodluck Jonathan where seven ministers of the PDP resigned to vie for different offices.

“I am aware that some of Buhari’s Ministers have ambitions to contest for one office or the other.

“In fact, some have even openly declared their interest to contest for elective positions yet they are pretending to be unaware of the moral burden on them to resign and prosecute their campaigns.

“Hiding behind the court judgement on the provision in the electoral act for them to resign before the party convention is neither here nor there because there was a precedent even in the Jonathan Administration when seven ministers tendered their resignation months to the PDP’s primaries to contest for various offices,” he said.

The APC Chieftain said the concerned Ministers don’t need any presidential directive or court judgement to resign, stressing that they should be conscious enough to know that their continuous stay in office is a liability to the party and the government.

“At the moment some of them are distracted already and government functions that have to do with the security and welfare of citizens are suffering.

Take the issue of the Transport Minister, who has literally turned himself into the Minister of Railways, we need someone who can concentrate on supervising the operations and construction of the rail lines without any distraction at least up to the end of the Buhari Administration.\

“In another clime, he could have even resigned without prompting because of his failure to ensure security of the rail-lines, which caused calamity to many families as I am talking now.

“While Nigerian students are languishing at home because of the protracted strike by Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), the man in charge of negotiating to ensure that the strike is called off is busy consulting across the country to run for office.

“This is immoral and we should not continue to run our country like this. There has to be the irreducible minimum we should not cross,” he said.

Ali however, commended the State Governments for getting it right by directing those with political ambition to resign, saying the reverse is the case at the Federal Level.

He said it will be difficult to convince Nigerians that those Ministers are not using public funds to pursue their political ambitions.

“With N100 million pegged for presidential nomination form, what’s the salary of a Minister of the Republic? While they remain in office, how are we sure that they are not going to use the public funds at their disposal to buy the presidential nomination form and pursue and their electoral ambition,” he said.