Non-PDP members fuelling this crisis ---- Babangida Aliyu

Niger State Governor Babangida Aliyu on Wednesday said that external forces were aggravating the crisis in the ruling Peoples Democratic Party. He therefore warned that those outside the PDP but who were against peace in the party to steer clear of its crisis.

Aliyu is a one of the PDP’s seven governors behind the breakaway of some members of the party.

The Niger governor who spoke when he received the Commander, Corps of Artillery, Nigerian Army Kotangora, Major General Hussein Abayomi Saliu, declared that “the PDP has the capacity to resolve whatever differences it has”.

He said, “We must not allow people who are outside the party to get so enmeshed in the problem that is not their own and in the process kill that which we want to build.

“What is happening in PDP is an internal affair, because I am beginning to see a sign as if some people don’t want reconciliation, the kind of articles they are planting in some newspapers showed that they don’t want reconciliation.

“I need to draw your attention to this because I have been reading a lot of articles they planted to create more animosity and anarchy that will make reconciliation difficult.”

Aliyu noted that the G7 Governors at the centre of the crisis were matured enough to know “when to hold and when to go.”

He argued that the whole essence of the crisis that had plagued the PDP since the Special National Convention at the Eagle Square, Abuja, last month, and the walk-out by Aliyu, his counterpart governors and other top members of the party, was about ‘democracy’.

He said, “The whole essence is about democracy and morality. Democracy in the country may not necessarily flourish; morality means that if you make an agreement, whether privately or publicly, we must learn to keep it. It comes to a time when you give me this, I will give you that. These are internal aspects of the party. We have the capacity to resolve whatever the differences are”.

Aliyu said the whole essence of the struggle was to build a democratic culture in politicians to the extent that their words would always be their bond.

He commended the military for growing to become one of the most educated groups in the country and challenged parents to make the education of their children top priority.

Earlier, the Commander of the Army corps, General Abayomi Saliu, had commended the cordial relationship between the military and civil populations in Niger State and the support given to security agencies in the state by the Niger State Government.