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Tag: opportunism

  • PDP’s coalition is act of opportunism, says Balarabe Musa

    Former Governor of Kaduna State Alhaji Balarabe Musa has described the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) by 39 political parties and groups ahead of the 2019 general elections as an act of “opportunism”.

    Musa told the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN)  in Abuja yesterday: “I don’t think a coalition like this which is opportunistic, will be able to defeat the governing party that is, the All Progressives Congress (APC).”

    The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), the Social Democratic Party (SDP) and 37 others on Monday signed the MoU ahead of next year’s general elections.

    National chairmen of the political parties signed the MoU pledging to work together under “Coalition for United Democratic Parties (CUDP)’’ to produce a presidential candidate.

    They will also field common candidate for other positions.

    Musa, who is the National Chairman, Peoples Redemption Party (PRP), said his party was not part of the coalition.

    “Remember, the reason for coming together is simply because they have lost the opportunities for sharing power.

    “It is not because of anything which they can do which APC didn’t do. No, it is not because they have a different ideological position.

    “There is no fundamental difference between them and the APC; they are just an electoral gang to defeat the APC. I don’t think the coalition is enough,” he said.

    According to him, what is needed is an alliance which is ideologically more focused than the APC and not just an aberration of what APC stands for.

    “In any case also, they have to contend with other alliances. I don’t think it will make any difference at all.

    “Between now and August, we will know whether they can make qualitative difference and do what APC is able to do,” Musa said.

    On the 2019 election, Musa said that Nigerians were more enlightened than before, adding that they would want to see a qualitative difference.

    “We should know that there should be some way we can reconcile all Nigerians to be united as one united, democratic Nigeria based on credibility, national unity and even development of the whole country.

    “Secondly, we must ensure there is free, fair and transparent election leading to a legitimate government.

    “Thirdly, this disabling level of stealing and criminal waste of resources must stop by any means.

    “If we fail to do this, the situation now as it is today is so negative. If we fail to do anything, for instance, if we fail to correct the situation constitutionally, then we should be prepared for the worse.

    “At the moment, the Executive and the Legislature are after each other; they are fighting to the finish.

    “They have been doing that  right from the beginning of this government since 2015. That has to stop,” Musa said.

  • Opportunism meets opportunist?

    What’s happening in the Senate — opportunism about to meet the opportunist?  Or perfidy about to have its comeuppance?

    It’s all about the latest furore around the office of the Deputy Senate President (DSP), now held by Ike Ekweremadu of the minority Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).

    Of course, the story of Mr. Ekweremadu’s emergence needs not be retold. Suffice it to say that in an illicit trade-off to, willy-nilly, crown Bukola Saraki as Senate President, Mr. Ekweremadu’s personal opportunism and his PDP’s lack of scruples and basic sense of fairness won big time.

    The combo of perfidy and opportunism triumphed. But it would appear that victory is turning pyrrhic.

    Proof?  That would come from what normally should pass as democratic heresy — the call by the All Progressives Congress (APC) Senate caucus, calling on Mr. Ekweremadu to either defect to APC or prepare to kiss goodbye his high office, obtained so lowly.

    How, for God’s sake, would a party in parliament ask a member of another party to cross over to its side of the aisle, using the plum office of DSP as bait?  Has the party, albeit ruling, lost its sense of parliamentary proprietary, guided by fidelity to electoral platforms?

    What, in God’s name, would Mr. Ekweremadu tell his senatorial constituents, who with majority PDP votes, voted him as senator?

    But perhaps such fine electoral etiquette is the thinking of starry-eyed idealists!  Maybe pragmatists are made of less stringent stuff.  In any case, the last time Hardball checked, Mr. Ekweremadu’s majority PDP voters didn’t complain about their senator’s opportunism, of merrily corralling a position that he clearly knew wasn’t his — at least by right.  They probably enjoyed a vicarious kick out of it, some bragging right, that even as a minority, their senator was DSP — a Nigerian record!

    So, would Mr. Ekweremadu’s electors, who apparently saw no big deal in his opportunism, stand by him, even if he must graduate to perfidy against his own party, in order to retain the DSP office?

    Well, all that is in the womb of time!

    Meanwhile, Mr. Ekweremadu has his job cut out for him.  After the fall of Ali Ndume, another child of intra-APC perfidy and conspiracy to install Dr. Saraki, could the embattled DSP look towards the Senate President for support and solidarity?

    Perhaps Ndume’s case is good pointer. Saraki could sure help — if his own position is not threatened. If it is, good luck!  That is the sum total of Ndume’s fall.

    Would Ekweremadu’s case be better?  Only if Saraki’s position isn’t threatened!

    Meanwhile, Hardball wishes Mr. Ekweremadu well in a heroic effort to retain a position he never logically or morally or fairly deserved.

    But as he wriggles out of this — or is swarmed by it — let everyone know crass opportunism eventually spawns its own huge and stiff penalty.

    As for the APC caucus, even if talking tongue-in-cheek to bait Ekweremadu to descend to sheer perfidy against his own PDP from crass opportunism against the ruling party, let them know that pushing party subversion for personal gains is heresy in party politics — and the party system is a solid rock on which participatory democracy is founded.

    Meanwhile, Distinguished Deputy Senate President Ekweremadu, endure your choice!

     

  • Melaye, Olafemi: betrayal and opportunism in Kogi

    Melaye, Olafemi: betrayal and opportunism in Kogi

    NEITHER Dino Melaye (Sen– Kogi West) nor Clarence Olafemi, former Speaker of the Kogi State House of Assembly and acting governor, represents the integrity, character and future of the Okun Yoruba people of Kogi State. But in one way or the other, especially when they indulge their permissive ways, they make news and the media are bound to report them. Early this week, as part of their ambivalent responses to the Kogi electoral conundrum, both Senator Melaye and Hon. Olafemi got together a group of like-minded politicians they claimed numbered some 48 and announced they had become public and unabashed turncoats and are thus shifting allegiances to Governor-elect Yahaya Bello. They had become converts to the doctrine of party supremacy, they said, almost facetiously.

    Mr. Bello, previously an All Progressives Congress (APC) governorship aspirant, had been promoted by his party to candidacy when the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) mysteriously and mischievously declared the November 21 governorship election inconclusive. Former governor Abubakar Audu and his running mate Abiodun Faleke were coasting home to victory when out of the blue, and citing a corollary of the electoral law, the electoral umpire declared the election stalemated. At the point the declaration was made, and as the supplementary election would confirm, the election was already won and lost, and well beyond dispute. Mr. Belllo had earlier lost the primary, sulked badly in childish petulance, and surreptitiously worked for the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in the poll. His promotion to candidacy instead of elevating Hon. Faleke to the stool of Prince Audu produced the conundrum which the APC and other party and political do-gooders exploited to create the moral dilemma afflicting the state.

    Since the election, the governor-elect has been working tirelessly to pressure many Kogi political leaders to leap into his bandwagon. He especially singled out Okun Yoruba leaders to work his sorcery, believing that if they rallied to his side, it would undermine the tenacity and enthusiasm of Hon. Faleke. Should Hon. Faleke, who despite his protestation both INEC and the APC insisted remained on the ballot as Mr. Bello’s running mate, relent, the governor-elect believed his position would be strengthened, and the moral dilemma and electoral conundrum dissipated. While Hon. Faleke himself has remained resolute, and leading Okun leaders and elders still support him, a few like Sen. Melaye and Mr. Olafemi have succumbed to pressure. It was not surprising that the two public Okun personalities bowed to pressure, given their antecedents and Machiavellian way of life, and their unverified claim to have some 48 other unknown Okun elders on their side.

    In 2008, when Governor Ibrahim Idris’ reelection was annulled, Mr. Olafemi was sworn in as acting governor. He held that office for about 60 frenetic days, and in the process showed such unexampled loyalty to Alhaji Idris that it was difficult differentiating it from  servility. Asked what he felt about being made acting governor and whether he wouldn’t consider it appropriate to exploit his new status, he said he saw himself only as holding the fort for the deposed governor, whom he was certain would return as governor. The deposed governor had nothing to fear, he cooed, for everyone, including himself, would work for Alhaji Idris’ victory. It did not occur to Mr. Olafemi that if an election could be annulled, it was also possible that the opposition could produce a victor. But Mr. Olafemi whined, and sighed, and cooed, and composed panegyrics for the indifferent and condescending Alhaji Idris.

    Mr. Olafemi’s servility, however, stood, and still stands, in striking contradistinction to the psychological constitution of the Okun people and their worldview. Okun people owe no one apology for who they are, and how they had over the decades displayed self-assurance and independence. Their sense of justice is reputed to be quite remarkable, while relationship with their superiors and inferiors is guided by sound moral principles that cannot be compared or confused with servility. Mr. Olafemi, a first class mathematician and computer scientist surely had the intellect to undergird and nurture those lofty principles the Okun people had ennobled over the centuries. If he chose not to, it is strictly his own choice, not a reflection of the Okun people. Indeed, it is the misconception of the Okun people as malleable, as exhibited by the likes of Mr. Olafemi, that is at the bottom of the injustice meted out to them by the APC and other bodies like INEC and the Attorney-General’s office.

    Sen. Melaye on the other hand is not a first class brain like Mr. Olafemi. But he more than makes up for his obvious intellectual shortcomings with a natural vehemence and uncanny wiliness that are hard to replicate even in satire. Thuggish, brutish and unprincipled, he however speaks very fluently, though on the kind of gibberish and hooey that people of his class are conversant with and wallow in. He sees nothing wrong offering his services and lending his beefy weight to ignoble causes. When the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) hauled in the wife of the senate president, Toyin Saraki, for interrogation, he accompanied her, and even gave a rousing speech on behalf of other misadvised legislators to justify their errantry. He fights at the drop of a hat, and will not bat an eyelid to calmly offer the most dubious but persuasive explanations on both sides of a subject.

    The Kogi West senator, who replaced the controversial but cultured Smart Adeyemi in the upper chamber in June, campaigned on the side of Prince Audu for the election of President Muhammadu Buhari. Soon after, he parted ways with the late politician and then threw in his lot with Senate President Bukola Saraki who was beginning to fight his own disreputable battles in the Senate. Unlike Mr. Olafemi who belittles his intellectual accomplishments to subscribe to ideas and notions at variance with and inversely proportional to his talents and potentials, Sen. Melaye contradistinctively exaggerates his puny gifts to embrace causes and opinions that clearly negate and refute his worldview.

    Both Sen. Melaye and Mr. Olafemi have become turncoats over the Kogi stalemate for different reasons. Yes, they are united by their private ambitions, but both proceed from different backgrounds and are manifestly unprincipled. In fact, their equal lack of character betrays them into actions and statements that are opportunistic and dishonest. Soon after the APC began talking of substituting the late Audu with someone else other than Hon. Faleke, Mr.Olafemi, whose ambition to be either governor or deputy has remained unquenched, launched a fierce lobby to run with whichever devil the party may anoint. By ditching Hon. Faleke and embracing Mr. Bello days after the contrived stalemate, what mattered to Mr. Olafemi was not the interest of the Okun people, whom he noisily claimed to advance and protect, but his own private ambition for which he was unafraid to fritter the little integrity and sensibleness he had left.

    In the case of the more intemperate Sen. Melaye, his consuming passion is to become the governor of Kogi State one day. Should Hon. Faleke mount the throne now, the rambunctious senator would be out of the reckoning perhaps for the rest of his productive years. For him, a bird in the bush is more than a million in hand. It of course matters little to the senator that he is unelectable, or that he does not absolutely have the qualification to mount the stool despite the fact that far inferior people like Alhaji Idris and the present governor, Idris Wada, have occupied the position without merit of any kind.

    All things considered, the Okun people at home and outside are sensitive to the historic nature of the interplay of forces in Kogi State. More, they are sensitive to the implication of not fighting for what should be theirs, consequent upon the tragedy that befell Prince Audu. They understand the poignant messages the events that accompanied the tragedy are sending, and they are acutely aware of the politics and subterranean actions playing out in the state. They know that what is happening now will reverberate far into the future, and affect coming generations of Okun people. They are shocked that the fairly intellectual Mr. Olafemi can’t seem to understand the background and logic of the political stalemate. But they expect nothing noble from the senator who imposed himself on them. Whatever the ruffian Sen. Melaye does and the tactless Mr. Olafemi plots, the majority  of Okun people are unlikely to shirk the historic fight thrust on them by posterity, or betray their son, Hon. Faleke, who has embodied the spirit, struggles and pride of the long-suffering people of Kogi West senatorial district.

  • Ekweremadu’s opportunism…

    Our nation is at the mercy of foxy politicians and their godfathers who daily assault our sensibilities because we are bereft of elder-statesmen who have the moral voice to call a spade by its proper name.  Yakubu Gowon who could  have spoken forcefully against what is going on in our society, if only for the sake of our children, is engrossed in endless prayers while those reap where they did not sow contrary to  God’s  injunction,  celebrate fraud as accomplishment.

    Bukola Saraki has been going around visiting leaders to justify what his party has appropriately described as a treacherous act. Ekweremadu has retired to the East to celebrate what was described as ‘snatching victory from the jaw of defeat’ after fraudulently accepting an inducement from a Saraki who was willing to sell the victory of his party. David Mark and Atiku Abubakar have been wildly celebrated by their supporters and the media as astute politicians. And for PDP and its freeloaders that did not see stealing government monies as corruption, stealing 60-49 Upper House victory Nigerians freely gave APC is a ‘victory for the independence of the legislature…’

    Ike Ekweremadu belongs to a segment of Igbo elite with a history of betrayal of uninformed members of their Igbo nation who look up to them for direction. His group including Ohaneze mobilized their people to vote against Buhari and against change. He admitted that much while celebrating his pyrrhic victory in Enugu last week. “Igbo have no regret for the way they voted; if they have the opportunity tomorrow, they will do it again”, he boasted. Then turning to APC whose stolen mandate he was celebrating, he said “We are prepared to work with APC and President Buhari; we will help them to ensure that corruption is reduced to the barest minimum and that the security issue is addressed. We will help them to ensure that our economy will rebound; we will also help them to ensure that there is employment for everybody. But so long as they deviate from this noble principles, and decide to chase shadows, I can assure them, they will get what they are looking for”.

    For Senator Obinna Ogba, the re-election of Ekweremadu is “a major victory for the South-east because   ‘there is no way you can share all these positions without taking the Igbo into consideration”. At the end, it is all about sharing. It has nothing to do with Nigerians who have been short-changed after voting for ‘change’ or the Igbo whose name is being used in vain to immorally acquire power.

    To further justify his immoral act, Ekweremadu assaulted the memory of Dr Nnamdi Azikiwe, a foremost Nigerian nationalist and one of the founding fathers of our nation, by asserting that “in the 1960s when NCNC went to election and lost to NPC, Zik had to negotiate himself back to power and became the President of Nigeria”; and that “In 1979, NPP (Nigeria Peoples Party) that was so dominant in the East lost in the presidential election; Zik and his colleagues also negotiated himself back to power and Edwin Ume-Ezeoke became the Speaker of the House of Representatives”. This is nothing but revisionism and a great disservice to the memory of Zik. From the available literature, we have no evidence that Zik’s NCNC went into alliance with NPC because of what Zik stood to gain personally. If he was driven by personal ambition, a more rational choice of alliance would have been with AG whose leader, Awo had already conceded the office of Prime Minister to Zik. I think history will judge Zik more as a man who sacrificed personal ambition to preserve the unity of Nigeria as well as protect the interest of his Igbo people who like the Jews thrive more in other peoples’ countries.

    Similarly it was apparent Zik was dragged out of retirement in 1979 by a group of self-serving Igbo elite who wanted to ride on his back to achieve their political ambition. There was no evidence he personally benefited from the NPP and NPN 1979 coalition. Zik is also on record as calling on Igbo ministers serving in Balewa’s government to resign following the collapse of the NCNC and NPC coalition in the first republic. He did the same following the collapse of NPP and NPN in the second republic. Zik, like most of his contemporaries might have tried to protect the interest of Igbo nation within the greater Nigeria nation, there was no evidence he tried to exploit the Igbo nation for personal political gain.

    …and Atiku’s Apostasy

    Atiku Abubakar is a unique  Nigerian  who took a shot at the Presidency only three years after retiring from the customs ‘placing third after MKO Abiola and Babagana Kingibe in the Social Democratic Party (SDP) primaries’. In 1999, Obasanjo found him irresistible and made him his running mate.  His ambition to upstage and prevent Obasanjo from his second term forced President Obasanjo who felt betrayed by a trusted ally to swear Atiku would not succeed him. An unforgiving Obasanjo literarily chased him out of PDP.

    He took refuge in Tinubu’s AC where he secured a platform to pursue his ambition after the Supreme Court had overruled his disqualification by INEC on the ground that he ‘had been indicted for financial misconduct by an investigating panel set up at Obasanjo’s behest’. He crawled back to PDP, abandoning Tinubu and his ACN after losing the election. APC provided for him a refuge when he once again fled PDP that had shut him out of the 2015 presidential race. There were rumours he was on his way back to PDP after losing the APC primary to Buhari . On March 17, Special Adviser to President Goodluck Jonathan on Political Affairs, Rufai Ahmed Alkali. while receiving members of 120 support groups loyal to Atiku who were defecting to the PDP, said “Atiku is a PDP man to the core but he has gone on vacation and I believe one day he too will come back to the part.”  Atiku later gave details of the President’s Jonathan surprise visit to his house at midnight on Friday, March 13. According to him, President Jonathan who had pleaded with him on three separate occasions to leave the All Progressives Congress (APC) said “I need to go back to PDP because we built the party together and we are its founding fathers and that we needed to go back and rebuild it.”

    Then Atiku refused to attend Buhari’s campaigns claiming he had ‘told General Buhari’s campaign organizers that if they do not invite him to the rallies, he would not attend’. Speaking in an interview with BBC Hausa on Friday, March 20,  he claimed there  are minor irregularities in connection with the system being followed by the campaign team of General Buhari ‘.

    Now after giving open support to Saraki accused of disrespect for President Buhari and of trading off his party’s victory, Atiku issued a statement expressing  his “unalloyed commitment to the Buhari administration’’. According to him, “the recent outcomes of the National Assembly elections, contrary to insinuations are products of interplay of politics, (since) “in politics, it is a mistake to expect fixed outcomes”.

    What is not in doubt in all this is the fact that Atiku loves neither Tinubu nor Buhari or cares a hoot about APC which he is ready to dump if PDP offers him a platform for 2019. Atiku’s only obsession is to become the President of Nigeria. He will betray anyone that stands in between him and his dream.

  • Fayose: Populism or opportunism?

    Over the ages, man by virtue of his uniqueness as a rational being has fashioned out means and ways to advance its primacy among all other living creatures that God has created to inhabit the current earthly plane. In his efforts to a further divine injunction to expand and dominate the world, various schemes and processes were  put in place by him to ensure orderliness as the key ingredient to achieving the mandate from the Supreme Being.

    One of such efforts was man’s desire to evolve leadership and by extension governance in promoting societal good rooted in orderliness. In the end, the concept of governance was evolved by him to cater for his well-being and security.

    Several definitions have been given to the concept, but the most apt is that which states that a government is the system by which a state or community is governed.As the definition suggests the people, which are the basic component of a given socio-economic space, design and implement an arrangement that cater for the well-being of all.

    Flowing from the initial steps, the people who have designed and implemented the system are assumed to subscribe to the authority whom they have agreed to set up as a means of not only guaranteeing their well-being but also ensure that their safety is adequately catered for in the socio-political space that they’ve found themselves.

    Thus, for the government architecture that has been designed, it is assumed that the best in any given society is invested with the right legal and coercive instruments to function effectively as the ‘guardian’ of the area under his authority.

    Owing to the dynamic and intricate nature of government (as a machinery) and governance as a process, it is assumed or envisaged by philosophers who over time evolved the concept, that leadership must be attained by those considered as the best the society could put forward at any point in time.

    Governance and government have also assumed different forms such as monarchy, democracy, autocracy and other patterns but the central theme in the process that threw up leadership is the need for members of the society aspiring to leadership to undergo a certain form of apprenticeship, a period that allows an aspirant to understudy the society which he hopes to preside over.

    In monarchical arrangement, which is rooted in leadership by divine rights, princes and those in the nobility are put through a period of tutelage where they are taught etiquette and right mannerism that must be exhibited by occupants of the offices they are destined to occupy. They are also expected to learn more about the history, culture and tradition of their society.

    In some monarchy, some of them are even expected to undergo some form of leadership training via administering lesser territory before eventually becoming the supreme leader. The same process (though with some form of modifications is also expected to take place in a democratic environment where those who aspire to a high office usually rise through the ranks by taking up one post or the other before becoming the figure everyone defers to.

    Thus, the leader of any given society must be seen to have passed through the furnace and rigours of apprenticeship and must be seen to be a man of high moral rectitude, of sound mind and intellectually capable of functioning effectively in office.

    These bring to light the current theatre of the absurd playing out in Ekiti, a state acclaimed to be the Fountain of Knowledge but, which is currently being presided over by Ayodele Fayose, a combative character as its chief executive.

    Fayose, who is currently standing trial in various law courts on charges that bother on graft and unethical financial dealings during his first stint in office, was returned as elected in the race that pitted him against the then incumbent, the cerebral Olukayode Fayemi.

    Aside from his trial, Fayose whose initial tenure was marked by unbridled violence was impeached from office by members of the state House of Assembly for the same reasons of engaging in graft. Cognizance of statutory provisions that bar such a character from seeking public office until after 10 years, he soon launched into self-help to stave off efforts by well-meaning citizens of the state to question his eligibility.

    A self-styled populist, Fayose is reputed to have limited or scanty regards for democratic or governmental institutions which he hopes to utilize for the greater well-being of the people whom he has in the past touted as his major constituency. In the premises of the state High Court Complex, his nature took the better part of him when he allegedly ordered his rampaging supporters to beat to pulp, a judge, who had the audacity to urge him to call his restless supporters to order.

    Interestingly, the security operatives drafted to maintain order looked the other way when the Afao-Ekiti born politician unleashed his ‘boys’ on the hapless judge. The symbolism of the action and the manner it was managed is such that in Nigeria under the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) the platform upon which Fayose won the June 21, election, might is right. It is only in Nigeria that a barbarism of this nature will take place, and the people vested with the powers to act would behave as if nothing happened.

    To Fayose and his co-travellers in the PDP, there is nothing wrong in committing unpardonable infraction on the very institutions of state necessary for safeguarding the well-being of the people that they lead. Nothing short of being in power is desirable and any means to sustain it would do.

    Not satisfied with defiling the temple of justice, and as part of his current efforts at showmanship, rather than do stocktaking for effective take off of his administration, Fayose did what many people think is rather impossible by throwing the gates to the newly constructed Government House located at Oke Ayoba open to all manners of people.

    His media handlers were quick to rush to the information space to describe the action as epitomizing his populist bent as a ‘caring leader’ not minding the fact that the monument is a sacred edifice that should be accorded the best in terms of reverence and awe by not only those in leadership but those teeming masses of the populace. Can anyone imagine the gates of the White House being thrown open to all comers? I don’t want to talk of Aso Rock Villa because, I believe they are part of the present madness. Besides, I see a very spiteful character that is so full of hatred for conventional reasoning, and would do anything to desecrate it. There is nothing wrong in not accepting conventional positions, but whatever you are bringing must be superior. In this instance, has Fayose offered anything better than the new Government House? Guess.

    To Fayose, there is nothing wrong if and when such edifice or institutions are desecrated as long as they provide tools for political opportunism. The new governor must be advised to free himself from the current electoral hangover by applying himself to the task ahead. Reading the current trends in the country, electorates are getting impatient with incompetent office holders, and from the way he started, he might have a shorter tenure than the last time.

    • Raji is Special Adviser on Information & Strategy to the Governor of Lagos State.