Former Minister of Aviation, Femi Fani-Kayode, has said he was led by God to dump the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) for the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC).
Earlier, The New Diplomat had reported that President Muhammadu Buhari received Fani-Kayode into the APC fold at the Presidential Villa in Abuja on Thursday. The move by Fani-Kayode has since been generating barrage of reactions from Nigerians, who have criticised the former minister for not being loyal.
Reacting during an interview session with Channels TV, Fani-Kayode stated that he made the right choice adding that he owes nobody an explanation or apology other than his ‘family members and God’.
Speaking further, the former minister stated that he decided to join forces with APC and Buhari because of his love for Nigeria. According to him, Nigeria is on a brink of war, hence any further differences could spell doom for the country.
He explained that he has been working closely with some APC governors in the past months, adding that he believes joining APC was a move in the right direction.
In his words, “A lot has changed over the last six years and it is important that we make the right choices and the right decisions at the right time, precisely we feel as if we are being led by God to make those choices. I make my choices I owe nobody any explanation or apology, other than my family members, and other than my God. I know that I’m doing the right thing.
“The most important thing for me, I think some will appreciate this, is that there is no point in having any principal without power. You must have power in order to ensure that whatever troubles you enunciate you know you can affect them without that, you will simply be working and nothing will change.
“I’ve discovered over the last few months that I can work very closely with people within the APC elements within the government to effect a change we’ve done quite a lot of that over the last few months without even joining the party. And it has been very effective, I’ve collaborated with many people within the party, many of the governor’s in the party, and I will continue to collaborate with them, even some outside of the party.
“But the most important thing for me right now is this, this country, in my view, is on the brink of war, it’s on the brink of disintegration, and we have to join forces all come together to set our differences aside, and ensure that we build bridges of unity and peace, and ensure that we pull ourselves back from the brink and fight those even from outside this country that want to destroy our country by dividing us on religious and political party. We must build that religion, we must work together, and we must affect a positive change in our country, and move this country in the right direction. And that’s part of the reasons that I decided to make this decision today.”
Reacting on his past criticism of Buhari’s administration, Fani-Kayode said that he made those statements when he was ignorant of the efforts of the President. According to him, working with Buhari over the past months has changed his previous perception about the president.
In his words, “I have done that in the past and done it effectively when I felt it was appropriate. However, having moved closer to him(Buhari), over the last few months I’ve discovered a lot of things I didn’t know before, there’s a lot going on behind the scenes, and the most important thing is if I believe in a certain philosophy or I believe that we should move in a certain direction, and I’m getting positive responses when I ask from within the family as it were, and do so behind closed doors, and ensure that change is effective in terms of policy in terms of the way in which the country is run in terms of the way in which disputes are settled amongst our various people in terms of the war against terror, and I get positive results in the consequences of my personal contributions at various levels, and then of course, I have to respect that and I have to begin to think that is it better for us, for me and for my country, to ensure that we operate from within and effect the change we want to put in place.”
