Gang-up won’t diminish Tinubu’s political stature, says coalition

THE emergence of Senator Bukola Saraki as Senate President and Yakubu Dogara as Speaker of House of Representatives has not diminished the political stature of the All Progressives Congress (APC) National Leader, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu.

Civil Society Coalition for  Good Governance, which said this in Lagos yesterday, added that any attempt by the leadership of the National Assembly and the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) members to diminish Tinubu’s political  relevance would fail.

Its Deputy Convener, Declan Ihekaire, who spoke at a news conference, explained that Tinubu’s insistence on adherence to party’s decision on election of National Assembly principal officers was geared towards advancing APC’s interest.

He described Tinubu as a towering political icon that wrote the scripts of the change in Nigeria today and likened the struggle by “political lightweight to ridicule him as the vain efforts of defeated dwarfs that see the rise of their political fortunes in an endless chase of Tinubu’s shadow”.

“We see their claim that the present conspiracy by the negative forces to take the leadership of National Assembly has reduced the stature of Tinubu as the vain gloating of defeated and conquered political vassals,” Ihekaire said.

The activist noted that the gang-up by lawmakers should serve as a warning to the APC that the task of neutralising the nauseous effects of the PDP on Nigerian polity in the past 16 years is not yet over. He warned that nothing should be done to reward the PDP.

He said the manner in which Saraki and Dogara betrayed the party by aligning with the opposition that decimated Nigeria for 16 years is morally reprehensible. “They undermined party loyalty, discipline and cohesion and left no one in doubt that they put their personal ambitions above the party’s will and the national interest.

“Since the party was the vehicle through which individuals won elections into offices, and as long as there is no provision for independent candidacy, all party members must subject themselves to party discipline.

“We call on the APC to henceforth invoke its disciplinary processes against any party member who conducts himself or herself in any manner that violates party discipline or undermines the collective interest of the party,” Ihekaire said.