Former Secretary to the Government of the Federation, Babachir Lawal, says those struggling to curry the favour of former President Muhammadu Buhari, including loyalists of President Bola Tinubu and some chieftains of the defunct Congress for Progressive Change, are “busy chasing shadows.”
Lawal stated this in an exclusive interview with The PUNCH, insisting that every genuine CPC chieftain who has the interest of the Talakawas—the poor and vulnerable—at heart, will stop at nothing to “kick out any government that brings pain and impoverishment to the people like the Tinubu administration” in 2027.
“These guys have given us a reason to come against them because the CPC is a Talakawa Movement. It’s a movement that has at heart the needs and feelings of the lower class. That is our ideology, which we learned from Buhari.
“The primary aim is how to serve the disenfranchised, discriminated people in the society, which this government has taken as a religion to cause suffering and marginalisation. It is as if the sight of a poor person annoys them. So they want to starve them to death.
“Now if you are an original CPC person, it will pain you. It will push you into action involuntarily to change this type of system that is out to destroy and marginalise the underprivileged in society. That is what Buhari stands for. That is who we are and what we learned from him,” Lawal said.
When asked whether Buhari had given the coalition his blessing, as former Kaduna State Governor Nasir El-Rufai claimed, Lawal kicked against such insinuation.
He said, “First of all, we don’t need his (Buhari) blessing. We only needed to tell him what we wanted to do because we were adults. It is also not like we will go and tell Buhari to follow us. Of course, we are mature and intelligent people.
“Even if Buhari says, hey, gentlemen, I will join you. It is our responsibility to say, No, Oga please keep off. You are too big for us. We don’t want to involve you. You are part of this government. Please remain there until you are fed up.”
Lawal, a founding member of the defunct CPC and former ally of Tinubu, is a key stakeholder in the ongoing coalition involving Atiku, Obi and El-Rufai. He insisted that the opposition alliance and the planned merger of parties were already sealed.
