Followingthe resignation of the President of South Africa, Jacob Zuma, Wednesday
evening, immediate past Minister of Foreign Affairs, Ambassador Aminu
Wali, said Imo State Governor, Rochas Okorocha, erred in erecting a
statue in Zuma’s honour.
He said that it was morally wrong in the first place for Okorocha to have erected the statue in Zuma’s honour.
The former Nigerian Permanent
Representative to the United Nations said the action was part of some of
the excesses that a political party was supposed to call governors to
order.
The ex-Nigerian Ambassador to China added
that it was of paramount importance for political parties in the
country to develop the culture to be in charge, rather than the
individual elected on the platform.
“As far as we are concerned, this is a
federal system and of course, morally speaking, the statue should not be
doing anything there in the first place,” Wali said.
He insisted that the statue should never
have been erected in the first place, saying that he could not see the
contribution Zuma made in the development of this part of the world.
“For me, it should never have been put
there in the first place. I cannot see the contribution that the
president of South Africa made to any development of this part of the
world.
“In fact, we have always been in
competition if you look at what is happening to our people in South
Africa and Zuma’s government never made any effort to really address the
issue of Nigerians being massacred in South Africa.
“It is begging the question even to ask whether Zuma’s statue should be there or should be demolished,” Wali added.
He said what happened in South Africa was
democracy at work and party politics being practiced where the party
was the supreme authority that dictated and guided the government.
Wali further said like the ruling African
National Congress (ANC) of South Africa, the Peoples Democratic Party
(PDP) missed the opportunity in Nigeria to entrench the principles of
the supremacy of the party.
“We have come to that stage, but at the
moment, I don’t think we are there yet. Not just quite. What could have
happened, maybe the PDP, when we started it, could have really settled
down.
“But I think we made big, big errors in
the first place because most of the founding fathers did not go for any
elective office,” Wali declared.