Former Deputy Minister of Agriculture, William Quaitoo, says he resigned from his position because of the pressure from party members from the northern part of the country who were hurt by comments suggesting persons from the northern part of the country could not be trusted.
Mr. Quaitoo made the comment in the wake of the Army worm invasion of farms in the northern part of the country, which destroyed several hectares of farms.
Despite apologizing for the comments which he described as regrettable, the northern group of the minority demanded his immediate resignation, or will not guarantee what might happen to him.
MP for Sagnarigu, who led the assault on his colleague from parliament, said he must also leave his seat as a member of parliament.
“We are demanding that he should, immediately, on his own volition resign as a minister and quit from Parliament, failing which the President must sack him to show his revulsion against such ethnocentric tribal bigotry.”
“The people of the three northern regions have been grossly insulted… he has painted us a bunch of unreasonable people who cannot even understand and appreciate normal discourse then he goes on on the basis of that to say that we are untrustworthy people for perpetrating fraudulent activities, making false claims and stealing monies from state coffers.”
Clara Napaga Tia Sulemana, who is also a Presidential Staffer and from the north, also joined the chorus asking her colleague to resign because his comments were unacceptable.
“So, here I am in bed, just struggling with myself to understand why on earth a deputy minister of state will look at the people who hosted him almost all his life(27 yrs) according to him, in the face and tell us we are difficult people and also that we lie to extort money from government. I am very sure this was said without any evidence,”
But speaking to Starr Fm’s personality profile on Wednesday, Mr Quaitoo said he did not resign because of comments from the minority but members from his own party, who felt hurt by his comments.
He said he is sorry for whatever happened but his words were taken out of context, but does not hold any grudges against those who publicly condemned him for not even listening to him.
According to him, he is ready to make the trip to the northern region to render unqualified apology to the people, especially the chiefs.
