* APC will rule for 60 years, ex-legislators declare
By Chesa Chesa
The high value placed by the average Nigerian voter on physical constituency projects over the quality of lawmaking by legislators representing them, is one reason the All Progressives Congress (APC) will not discourage National Assembly members from initiating such projects, says the party’s national chairman, Umar Ganduje.
He bared his mind on Thursday at the party headquarters in Abuja when members of the Former National Assembly Members Forum paid him a courtesy visit.
He noted that members of National Assembly legislators are psychologically nostalgic about legislation and that their usefulness lives even beyond their tenure in parliament.
His words: “You can see how important you are. In fact, National Assembly is only the first casualty to military rule. Therefore, since we are lucky for many decades now, we are experiencing democracy, it is your responsibility to consolidate the National Assembly, whether you are inside or outside.
“The psychological thing that bind you together should continue. That is why we are so happy with legislators for their constituency projects. Why constituency projects?
“An ordinary voter would like to see something on ground. Even when your main function is to make laws and oversight functions, an ordinary voter doesn’t want to know how legislation is affecting his life.
“He doesn’t see how oversight function is affecting his life, he can easily see a constituency project whether it is a borehole, whether building of school, building clinic and so many other things.
“So, we think it is very important, whether you are from third, fourth and fifth Assembly, when you see your constituency project when you were elected, you feel very happy and satisfied.”
Leader of the Forum, Hon. Ibrahim Zailani, hailed Ganduje for emerging as the party chairman, and expressed confidence that he has the capacity to lead the party on a path that will have it retain the presidency for 60 years.
According to Zailani: “We have no doubt in our mind that you will lead this party to continuously form government in the Federal Republic of Nigeria for more than 60 years. We know you can do it and we have absolute confidence that you can do it.
“As you can see, we are representing the country because all the six geopolitical zones are adequately represented here.
“We may not be in the House of Representatives now, but we want to tell you that all of us have the energy, the vision and the interest of the party at heart. So, we are offering ourselves for any party assignments.
“With this, we know from one of us, you may have a special place for either the legislators or former members of our forum, because we saw what you have done with one of our member who was your immediate past Commissioner for Finance.
“We want you to do more possibly pick one of our ladies and work with in the APC. We will continue to pray for you, to show our solidarity, to show our support because any support given to you, we are giving to ourselves because we belong to All Progressives Congress.”
