The Minister of State for Labour and Employment, Festus Keyamo, has commended governors elected on the platform of the All Progressives Congress (APC) for dragging President Muhammadu Buhari’s administration to the Supreme Court over the controversial naira redesign policy.
It has been reported that three APC-led governments, Kaduna, Kogi, and Zamfara, had initiated court proceedings against the Buhari administration, demanding the reversal of the deadline set for the use of old naira notes.
More APC states and one Peoples Democratic Party (PDP)-led state had asked to join the suit challenging the federal government when the case came up for hearing last week Wednesday.
In an interview with NAN, Keyamo, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria, stated that the disagreement between the APC governors and Buhari shows the party is practicing true federalism.
He stated that the governors oppose Buhari because they are fighting for the masses.
The lawyer said: “Every single governor that has gone to court fighting for the masses, fighting for the people to get succour, they are all APC governors.”
Keyamo, who is also the spokesperson for the All Progressives Congress Presidential Campaign Council (PCC), said the decision of the APC governors to tackle the present administration showed that the party’s presidential candidate, Bola Tinubu, if elected on 25 February as president, would ensure true federalism in the country.
The Minister stated that the trend of governors taking the federal government to court was started by Tinubu when he was governor of Lagos State between 1999 and 2007.
Keyamo said: “People are calling for true federalism. What you are seeing in display is true federalism.
They should support APC because APC is now displaying the character of true federation where the component parts can disagree with the federal government.
Don’t forget that it was Tinubu that started it long ago when he was governor he was always taking the federal government to court on every issue to tell you that the component parts of the country can disagree with the federal government.
We are not going to sell off Nigerians because of party politics. That is what the governors have shown the world that we are not prepared to sell you out because of loyalty to the centre.”
According to the senior lawyer, Buhari is not to be blamed for the crisis resulting from the cash swap policy.
“It is those who don’t mean well in the implementation, whereas President Muhammadu Buhari means very well,” he said.
“You know the president is the anti-corruption champion of Africa. What he is doing is a clear indication that he is holding fair to his principle till the last day.”
