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  • PDP heading for self-destruction – Mark

    PDP heading for self-destruction – Mark

    Senate President, David Mark, on Wednesday sounded a note of warning to warring factions in the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) to sheathe their swords to prevent the party from a looming collapse.

    Mark further warned that unless the severe in-fighting in the PDP is put to an immediate end, the party may be heading for final destruction.

    This is contained in a strongly warded statement by the Chief Press Secretary to the Senate President, Paul Mumeh.

    Mumeh said that Mark spoke when the Deputy President of the Senate, Ike Ekweremadu who heads the PDP Post-election assessment committee visited him in Abuja.

    It said that Mark was worried over the continued acrimony between factions in the party and frowned at a situation where “the PDP is already hemorrhaging.”

    The statement quoted Mark to have warned that “unless we halt the bleeding and find the necessary therapy, we may be heading for the final burial of the party.”

    “The party (PDP) is already comatose and we should do all we can to resuscitate the party rather than this unnecessary rancor and bulk passing.

    “The emerging factions (in PDP) are absolutely unnecessary.  The combatants must sheathe their swords and embrace dialogue.  My appeal is that we should not do anything further that would damage the already fragmented house.

    “Everybody should come together and rebuild the party.  We have gotten enough bruises.  We need not inflict further pains on ourselves, with continuous bickering.

    “Enough of this blame-game.  We should return to the drawing board and need not wash our dirty linen in the public, anymore.

    “I believe a useful lesson has been learnt from the PDP electoral misfortune.  As for me, it is time to put on our thinking caps and chart a new course.

    “I trust Senator Ekweremadu that he and his team will do a good job and unearth the remote and immediate causes of our misfortune and make recommendations that will enhance the future of the party.

    “I have worked closely with the Deputy President of the Senate over the years and I know his capability and capacity to handle issues.”

    He urged PDP stakeholders to rise above the present circumstances and work hard to rejuvenate the party.

    He said the new status of the party as an opposition is a challenge which “we must face with all honesty, sincerity of purpose and dedication to duty.”

     

  • Fresh crisis threatens PDP

    Fresh crisis threatens PDP

    Recriminations are flying around among party faithful who are mourning the Peoples Democratic Party’s (PDP’s) fall from grace during the general elections. The party leadership and the governors on the one hand and the President’s close associates on the other are trading blames. Deputy Political Editor RAYMOND MORDI examines the controversy threatening to tear the party apart.

    This is not the best of times for the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP). The party has been hit by fresh crises, following its recent defeat at the polls. There had been signs that all was not well with the party, but party chieftains carried on as usual. After coming face-to-face with the reality of March 28 and April 11, the expectation of all and sundry was that members of the party would close ranks and brace themselves for their new roles as members of the leading opposition party.

    But, rather than remain to rebuild the party, a good number of them have jumped boat, by defecting to the All Progressives Congress (APC). This started from the moment they saw the handwriting on the wall prior to the general elections. Others even waited till after the decisive March 28 presidential elections before taking the plunge.

    There have been a lot of recriminations in recent weeks about what went wrong. Stakeholders are trading blames and calling for each other’s head. For instance, after a meeting of 19 PDP governors in Abuja recently, the resolution was that the national officers should resign, to pave the way for a new leadership. The governors got together to do a post mortem on the election. The National Chairman, Adamu Mu’azu, and some members of the NWC were said to be part of the closed-door meeting. But, Mu’azu and his team were later asked to excuse the governors.

    As a way of fighting back, members of the NWC are poised for a show down with the governors as they have vowed not to resign. They are calling for a public hearing into who caused the collapse of PDP between the governors and NWC. The leadership of the party is insisting that at the public hearing, members, stakeholders and leaders of the party would listen to views from everyone to ascertain who created problems that led to the poor performance of the party.

    Observers say the PDP has a lot of soul-searching to do. Aside from losing the Presidency, which it has held for 16 years, the party lost its majority in the National Assembly and will be the leading opposition when the eighth National Assembly is inaugurated after the May 29 handover. The PDP won 46 senatorial seats out of 109, while the APC cornered 60. The situation in the House of Representatives does not differ. From a height of 21 state governors, the party has only 13 slots now. It lost in its traditional strongholds of Adamawa, Plateau, Niger, Kaduna, Benue, Bauchi and Jigawa.

    Aside from the governors, the President Goodluck Jonathan’s aides and close associates have come up documents suggesting that members of the NWC stole funds belonging to the party’s treasury shortly after President Jonathan lost the presidential election. Two of the associates noted that the President was dismayed by greed of the NWC members, who stole over N250 million from the party’s war chest prior to the April 11 governorship and State Houses of Assembly elections.

    A Presidency source noted that the conduct of members of the NWC contributed largely to the defeat of President Jonathan. He said they more interested in pursuing their private material interests than the party’s corporate interest. “They were too busy helping themselves to party funds as President Jonathan’s campaign suffered,” he added.

    In a fierce rebuttal, several of the NWC members said President Jonathan was the architect of his own failure. “He was the person running the country, not members of the NWC. If Nigerians turned against him, it’s not because of anything the NWC did or didn’t do,” one member said. Another NWC member accused the President and his closest associates of prosecuting the multi-billion dollar campaign using structures outside the party.

    Some members of NWC have even accused President Jonathan of planning to hijack the party in order to place his loyalists in place in anticipation of running for office again in 2019. Specifically, they accused Governor Godswill Akpabio of Akwa Ibom State of leading the plot to remove the Muazu-led NWC, to position himself for the 2019 election. “We are determined to ensure that nobody can just pocket a party that many eminent Nigerians contributed to establish,” one of them noted.

    Nevertheless, a defiant Mu’azu has vowed to stay on till the expiration of his tenure. Far from accepting blame for the party’s defeat, Mu’azu asserted that the governors contributed to the abysmal outing of the party during the last general elections. Recently, the NWC has issued a strong warning to those it described as ambitious aides and associates of the President, “trying to use their closeness to him to cause crisis in the party and pave way for more defection to other parties.” In an unusually strongly-worded statement, the party leadership said it would expose such individuals and make them face the full weight of the party disciplinary measures if they fail to immediately retrace their steps.

    The statement signed by National Publicity Secretary, Olisa Metuh, said it is “aware of the clandestine activities of such aides and associates of the President, including their unholy alliance with some elements in other parties to undermine and weaken the PDP by attacking its leadership.

    “The NWC is aware that these same individuals who mismanaged the presidential campaigns are now desperately seeking to cause crisis in the PDP with a view not only to divert attention from their misdeeds but also to ensure that they remained politically relevant by hijacking the party structure for their selfish purposes.”

    Jonathan lost the March 28 presidential election to his main challenger, Muhammadu Buhari of the All Progressives Congress, APC. Despite the President’s concession of defeat, some of his party leaders have for weeks subtly blamed each other for the loss.

    Ahead of the elections, Mu’azu faced stringent criticisms for his contribution to the campaign efforts of Mr. President. Many party members accused him of refusing to campaign for the President openly, especially in the northern states.

    To douse the call for the resignation of its members, the NWC has constituted a post-election assessment committee to review and evaluate the performance of the PDP in the general elections and make recommendations for the repositioning of the party.

    According to the party leadership whose tenure ends next year, the best option is to allow a smooth transition, cautioning the governors that resignation as an option would not work. According to members of the NWC, apart from Delta and Ebonyi states, all the PDP governors got the candidates they wanted as they pushed unpopular candidates.

    The party leadership can only be set aside at the party’s National Executive Committee (NEC) meeting. The leadership, whose tenure is expected to end in March 2016, may not call for an NEC meeting until after the May 29 handover date, when the tenure of many of the governors as members of NEC would expire. The constitution of the PDP saddles the NWC, which is responsible only to the NEC, with the responsibility of running the party. The NWC members are now tactically waiting for May 29 before deciding on when to hold a NEC meeting. It is the belief of the NWC members that the President and the governors who are also members of the NEC could influence the outcome of the meeting. While the President will remain a member of NEC even after the end of his tenure, the governors cease from being members afterwards.

    Those spearheading the calls for the resignation of members of the NWC include: Governor Seriake Dickson of Bayelsa State, Governor Ayodele Fayose of Ekiti State and a former Deputy National Chairman, Olabode George. Governor Dickson has openly blamed the PDP’s loss at the federal level on what he described as indiscipline and disloyalty of some party members. Speaking recently in Yenagoa at the inauguration of a special committee, Dickson warned that dire consequences await any member of the PDP who engages in anti-party activities.

    Observers have however argued that the main reasons why the PDP lost at the federal level on March 28 were as a result of imposition of unpopular candidate on the mass. After the primaries, there were disgruntled PDP members calling on the party managers to refund the monies they spent in buying intent and nominations forms.

    Besides, President Jonathan, the observers insist, lost popularity among the masses because he lost focus. Secondly, his overzealous wife, First Lady Dame Patience, did not help matters. She intruded in the running of many state chapters of the party.

    A party chieftain Senator Victor Ndoma-Egba appears to have thrown his weight behind members of the NWC. In an interview, the Senate Leader and the Cross River State member of the upper legislative chamber since 2003, explained that the road to the defeat of the PDP in the March 28 and April 11 elections was paved from the December 2014 primaries of the party when the governors deliberately shut out “unwanted candidates” and imposed their own on the party.

    He said: “The resultant effect was exodus from the PDP without any corresponding influx.” According to the Senate Leader, “In the case of the PDP recently, politicians left because they felt that they did not fit within the governors’ calculations. In my view, since every politics is local, each case should be treated on its merit. Unbridled defection has the capacity of not only overheating the polity and upsetting the entire political configuration, but destabilizing the polity.”

    Ndoma-Egba advised that the best antidote against the PDP defeat in 2019 was to stem further defections by ensuring “internal party democracy” as a party can only give the nation what it has. He added: “A party that does not have internal party democracy can only falsely promise the nation democracy.”

  • Mu’azu, others must go – Fayose

    Mu’azu, others must go – Fayose

    Ekiti State Governor, Ayo Fayose, has launched an attack on the Peoples Democratic Party National Chairman, Adamu Mu’azu and members of the party’s National Working Committee (NWC), insisting that they must go.

    The governor in a statement issued on Tuesday by his Special Assistant on Public Communication and New Media, Lere Olayinka, accused Mu’azu of selling out to the opposition at the last general election.

    Fayose wondered why PDP heavyweights like Mu’azu, Federal Capital Territory Minister, Bala Mohammed and Governor Isa Yuguda failed to deliver their home state of Bauchi to the party despite the enormous resources at their disposal.

    He argued that Mu’azu must quit his position as the National Chairman on account of the crushing defeat suffered by the party at the general election, likening the party chairman to a war commander who lost a battle and must give way to another commander.

    While demanding evidence of the funds the national leadership of the party claimed he collected, the governor said he only received N30 million for last general election which he delivered to the party.

    Fayose maintained that his demand for Mu’azu and others’ resignation was done in good faith and in the overall interest of the party saying, “I have no apology on my position on the NWC because their responsibility as a party does not take away their failure in the last general election.”

     

  • 173 dump PDP for APC

    The former senatorial aspirant of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) in the 2011 general elections, Dr. Aboki Zhawa has defected to the All Progressives Congress (APC).

    Zhawa made public his defection at his Rubochi Ward in Kuje Area Council.

    Zhawa, a retired Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Petroleum, Education and Head of Service, who crossed over to APC with 173 of his loyalists and supporters, was received by the former Speaker of Kuje Area Council, Alhaji Abdullahi A. Galadima and APC ward chairman in the area, Mr. Dogo Nana Bamaiyi, at a brief ceremony held at the party’s office in the area.

    Notable among those that defected were former councillorship candidate of the PDP in the area, Luka Danjuma Yemison, former PDP elder, Mr. Galadima Tatari Gbako, Mukaila Ibrahim Zhawa and PDP elders in the area.

    The former senatorial aspirant said he and some of his loyalists dumped his party in order to move the country forward.

    He said he was compelled to come into the APC fold with his supporters after he realised that indigenous people of the territory have been schemed out of important positions under the ruling PDP.

    He said, “We are in a world of reality. I have told people severally that we are not born for a party. The party is born for us, as we are not slaves.

    “So my [defection] to APC with my supporters is a matter of interest,” he said.

    He noted that natives of the territory were giving much recognition during the military administrator of the former FCT Minister, General Maman Vatsa, which he said area councils and some ministries were created to carry the natives along.

    According to him, many indigenous people of the territory were carried along under the military administration of Gen. Muhammadu Buhari, adding that the military administration of Buhari was transparent.

    He berated the FCT admini-stration’s land swap policy, saying the PDP-led government has failed to resettled natives whose farm lands and house have been taken away from them over the years without compensation.

    “The natives have scattered all over the places. We do not even know our places again. As nobody is planning anything for the natives. We are just like lost ship. With the coming of Buhari, natives of the FCT shall regain their status, which is why I decided to join the APC with my supporters” he said.

    Responding, chairman of the APC in FCT, Alhaji Usman Abdulmalik said the party was elated by the effort of the former senatorial candidate for his wise decision to dump the PDP to join the APC.

    He said the party would carry him and his supporters along in every decisions of the party in order to ensure that APC delivers dividends of democracy to people in the FCT.

  • 2015 poll: Hate campaign caused Jonathan’s defeat – PDP

    2015 poll: Hate campaign caused Jonathan’s defeat – PDP

    The leadership of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) on Monday said the hate electioneering camping, initiated by the party’s presidential election organisation was responsible for President Goodluck Jonathan’s crushing defeat in the 2015 election.

    Jonathan’s campaign spokesman, Chief Femi Fani-Kayode, Ekiti State Governor, Ayo Fayose and the First Lady, Mrs. Patience Jonathan were the arrow heads of the hate campaign.

    President-elect, Gen. Muhammadu Buhari; national leader of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Asiwaju Bola Tinubu and other leaders of the party were the major targets of the assault.

    At a press briefing at the PDP secretariat on Monday, the party’s National Publicity Secretary, Chief Olisa Metuh said, “The decision of the Presidential Campaign Organization to adopt and execute a hate campaign strategy against the then presidential candidate of the APC, Gen. Muhammadu Buhari led to the failure of PDP.”

    Metuh said the blame being heaped on the leadership of the party by PDP governors and some aides of the President for the loss of power at the centre was misplaced.

    According to him, the President’s campaign team failed to heed advise to desist from the hate campaign, adding that the leadership of the PDP, which could have offered direction, was sidelined in the campaign.

    He revealed that the party generated over N9 billion before the election, apparently from the sale of nomination forms across the 36 states, Abuja and the presidential nomination.

    The PDP spokesman further revealed that the negative effects of the hate campaign aimed at Northerners, their values, tradition and culture backfired on the party, its presidential and most of its governorship candidates in the region.

    He dismissed allegation of mismanagement of campaign funds against the party chiefs, saying the party contributed N500 million to the presidential campaign and N100 million each to its governorship candidates across the states. National Assembly candidates also benefitted.

    “The the monies were paid either directly to the candidates, through ministers or campaign directors in some states,” Metuh affirmed.

    He stated the readiness of the party’s leadership for probe in respect of election fund management, even as he defended N30 million advance, which he said, was given to each member of the National Working Committee.

    According to him, the money was payment for three years backlog of medical, housing and other allowances of the NWC members.

    He faulted the call for resignation of the party’s elected officials over the abysmal failure at the polls, saying the party chiefs were not assigned any role in the presidential campaign.

     

     

  • Stop ‘weeping’ over defeat, Mark tells PDP members

    Stop ‘weeping’ over defeat, Mark tells PDP members

    Senate President, David Mark has urged members of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) to put the failure of the last elections behind them and be prepared to build a strong and united party ready to play a credible opposition.

    Mark spoke when he met with PDP Senators-elect and House of Representatives members-elect in Abuja at the weekend, according to a statement by his Chief Press Secretary, Paul Mumeh.

    The statement quoted the Senate President to have said that, “We must accept the ups and downs as an opposition party. That is what the PDP is now. We must remain a united family and face the reality.”

    He insisted that the dismal showing of the PDP in the last elections may in the long term be a blessing to the party and the nation, “because we are going back to the drawing board to do a critical review and fashion out a blue print that would get us out of the woods for good.”

    “The role of opposition is strange to us but it is not a death sentence. We should be ready for the challenges.

    “We are prepared to play a credible opposition. I believe the nation and indeed Nigerians would be the best for it.”

    Mark however bemoaned the bickering within and among party members trading blames over the poor showing at the polls, saying: “there is no need weeping over lost opportunities or mistakes of yesterday.”

    “The failure of yesterday should be our lesson for a better today and a triumphant future.”

    He called on all stakeholders of the PDP to bury their hatchet and resolve to work together for a united and progressive party for the future.

  • Jonathan embarks on phantom post-mortem

    Jonathan embarks on phantom post-mortem

    Like everything else about President Goodluck Jonathan’s approach to critical issues, his post-mortem of the general elections is as superficial as his shambolic reelection campaign. Last Thursday, while reacting to the post-election report presented to him by the head of his campaign organisation, Ahmadu Ali, a former minister and denizen of the PDP, the president attributed his defeat to anything but his failings and his party’s lack of great ideas and cohesion. “The PDP is still the dominant party,” the president boasted. “If you look at the results, the difference is just 2.5 million votes, and if you look at the areas where it is perceived that the PDP scored so low, the PDP couldn’t have got those kinds of scores. But the elections are over, so the country first.”

    By narrowing his defeat to just one area out of the many-sided beatings he took on both March 28 and April 11, he gave the impression of a politician who liked to clutch at straws. What is obvious to everyone who has taken the pains to analyse the results of the presidential and other polls is that, far beyond the about 2.5 million votes that separated the loser from the winner, and far beyond the fact that he was beaten virtually everywhere and on all fronts, the country could not wait to angrily repudiate Dr Jonathan as leader. He was no longer liked, and the electorate blamed him for all the things that had gone wrong with the country, be it insecurity, declining economy, Chibok schoolgirls abductions, bad external image, etc.

    Strangely, the president still manages to describe his Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) as the dominant party. Dominant where? Did he take care to look at the statistics of his defeat at all? He and his party lost on all fronts, and their dominance has been taken away from them so comprehensively that no one is left in doubt which is the dominant party today. In addition, Dr Jonathan disputes the margins by which he and his party lost in many states. Yet, it is precisely in the states where he and his party won that voter turnout was implausibly high, far above the national and even world averages.

    The president was of course not done with deriving cold comfort from his quaint interpretation of the merciless beating he took. Said he while trying to encourage his demoralised party: “Our duty is to go back and identify areas of challenges so that the party will come up strong and play the role as a very strong party. The PDP is still the most organised party, is still the party that is not owned by anybody, is still the party that whatever you are, you can get to any level with your competencies and so on.” Here, the president again submits to very wild, unsubstantiated claims. There is no proof, in the face of the APC’s devastating electoral showing and tight organisation, that the PDP is the ‘most organised party.’ But the president makes the claim notwithstanding.

    Dr Jonathan follows up by describing the PDP as not owned by anybody. It is not clear what he had in mind, whether actually he thought he did not himself dominate the PDP so brutally that those who could not endure his suffocating hold had no choice but to disengage themselves from the party. He confuses dominant party philosophy, as exemplified by the APC, with personal, idiosyncratic dominance, as symbolised by what he and a few others did to the PDP. For a party that precluded many aspirants from even contesting the presidential primary, and one that enthroned a few vicious, uncouth and ruthless politicians in key positions at the federal and state levels — men and women who had become gods that could not be challenged — it is surprising that Dr Jonathan talks of his party as not having a glass ceiling.

    The president regrets his defeat, and is bitter at the manner he was humiliated and repudiated. He may not regret conceding defeat, for it saved him and his wife much trouble, local and international, but he has clearly not got over the March and April losses. His inability to reconcile himself to his new status has led him to vicious retribution against some of his appointees, including the Inspector-General of Police (IGP), Suleiman Abba, whom he recently fired. If he and his party will continue to live in denial and blame others for their defeat, they will be unable to do the clinical post-mortem required to understand why they failed and how to recover lost grounds. Judging from Dr Jonathan’s reaction and his party’s uncoordinated assessment of the debacle, the PDP will need new faces untainted by defeat, hearts and minds not shattered by the terrible electoral losses, and judgement not coloured by face-saving rationalisations. None among those who lead the PDP today has shown the kind of depth, dispassion and sobriety the party requires for the politics of tomorrow and the day after tomorrow.

  • Ifeanyi Ubah: weeping for his sins

    Ifeanyi Ubah: weeping for his sins

    If only babies could talk’, that was the catchphrase of a popular advert in the country sometime ago. If only we could have access to Ifeanyi Ubah’s mind, then we would know the real reason he wept like a baby during the submission of the report of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) Presidential Campaign Organisation to President Goodluck Jonathan, at the new banquet hall of the Presidential Villa on Thursday. According to Daily Sun in its Workers’ Day (May 1 edition) , Ubah started weeping after President Jonathan’s address, which drew a thunderous applause and standing ovation from the audience.

    The report added that he wept uncontrollably such that at a point, he had to excuse himself from the gathering, after some party chiefs had taken turns to console him, to no avail. Apparently, those party stalwarts must have understood the reason for his weeping. The report added that Ubah was sweating like a Christmas goat (please pardon my embellishment) at the occasion. When a billionaire weeps or sweats profusely in public, it is not a laughing matter.

    Chief Ubah is the founder and chief executive officer of Transformation Ambassadors of Nigeria (TAN), the body that was at the vanguard of the president’s reelection campaign. That organisation meant nothing to most Nigerians and if it had any meaning at all, it was to those making money from it in the PDP and deceiving President Jonathan that the whole of Nigeria was behind him. As a matter of fact Ubah and Co. claimed they had 12 million signatures of Nigerians who wanted Jonathan to continue in office, after travelling all over the 36 states of the federation. In Nigeria, cooking figures is one of the easiest things to do.

    Ubah, lest we forget, is also the chief executive officer of Capital Oil. He and his firm have been in the centre of several messy deals, the most notorious being their involvement in the oil subsidy scandal. In 2012, Cosmas Maduka, President of Coscharis Group, accused him of duping him of N21bn in the course of some business transaction.

    In saner climes, the First Citizen would keep people like Ubah at an arm’s length. But, in a country of anything goes, and under a man like President Jonathan, the Ubahs called the shots. They are the president’s frontline allies. This is a man that we knew little or nothing about until he turned 40 a few years ago and celebrated his birthday in almost all the newspapers in the country; some of which gave out their front page for the vainglory.

    As a major player in the oil sector, Ubah must have been instrumental to the oil and gas sector’s donation of N5billion to the Jonathan campaign. Meanwhile, these are people, like the power sector owners, who are complaining that they have problems accessing funds for their operations and that banks are not granting them loans again. I wonder which responsible bank would give loans to such unserious characters who can only be successful business men in Nigeria because of our warped sense of doing business.

    So, contrary to the newspaper report that Ubah wept over President Jonathan’s loss in the election, it is possible that the man was weeping over his personal loss arising from the president’s defeat at the polls, and more importantly, over the questions he may, including others like him, have to answer regarding oil subsidy, which only a complicit government like President Jonathan’s could have treated with kid gloves. Add to his long list of woes, his ambition to become Governor of Anambra State is now gone with the winds.  It is possible that was one reason he was so close to the president.

    Otherwise, why would he be the one to weep over the president’s loss? What is his own? Why would he weep louder than the bereaved? Even President Jonathan who lost the election is not weeping; at least not publicly. Not even our own ‘Mama Peace’, his wife. Not even those close aides of the president.

    So, I must be dead right when in my piece immediately after President Jonathan conceded defeat, I wrote that he must have consulted no one or only a few persons before taking that decision. President Jonathan confirmed that much when receiving the campaign organisation’s report. “Yes, I did not consult anybody before I made that phone call (conceding defeat to Gen Buhari) but I made that phone call on behalf of all of you and on behalf of the PDP”, he said. You can imagine what would have happened if the president had sought the opinions of the likes of Ubah on the matter! So, the question again, what is Ifeanyi Ubah’s own? I won’t want to speculate far into why the emergency oil mogul wept, but I am sure President Jonathan is not deceived that he was weeping for him (Jonathan). The man must be weeping for himself. The newspaper got it wrong when it said Ubah wept because he “could not contain his emotions”.

    My people will say ‘owo jona’ (money goes down the drain!) If Ubah and his fellow money-miss-road who donated more than generously to the PDP campaign made their money through a dint of hard work alone, they would have been cautious in the way they gave cheerfully, even if subversively. There are thousands of their fellow Nigerians out there who cannot boast of where the next meal would come from, their own generosity does not extend to such people. Apparently, Ubah must have been thinking of where to recoup the investment he made into the president’s failed reelection bid. He must have been weeping internally for long only for him to weep in the open when he could no longer contain it. There are many like him who are in such tears now. And they will weep for long because it is the ordinary Nigerian that they are putting in pains to have their comfort. Some of them will soon start to visit hospitals abroad to have their blood pressure examined. Some of them will, like our Andrew, check out of the country to seek asylum abroad. And there is every cause for them to worry when a new government that is not likely to condone granting them access to the kind of easy money that they stumbled on is about coming to power.

    Ubah cannot imagine that he would now be an outcast at the Villa that he used to enter and exit at will because the day the incoming president is seen with people like Ubah, that is the end of Nigerians’ trust in him. And I am sure General Muhammadu Buhari knows that. “Show me your friends, and I will tell who you are”.

  • Religious politics is bad for Nigeria – Bishop Ighele

    Religious politics is bad for Nigeria – Bishop Ighele

    Bishop Charles Ighele is The General Superintendent of Holy Spirit Mission (Happy Family Chapel) read Political Science at the then University of Ife. He spoke with David Lawal on the lamentable roles of religion in the just-concluded general elections. Excerpts:  

    How have you been able to use your background in political science to advance religion?

    After graduating in 1980, I have seen that my background in political science and history has helped me to see how decision-making brought about a lot of suffering to families in different parts of the world.

    You now see that the way government is run, the way government is advised to do things, the quality of the citizens and how much the citizens are ready to be a part of the system. All these helped me. When I studied bureaucracy in the university, it made me understand bureaucratic bottlenecks.

    It is helping me so much in the ministry, and when you look at the bible; in the New Testament, in the Acts of Apostles, you will see people sell parts of their properties to take care of the poor and this is what the church has always stood for.

    This is how it supposed to be because it is not about we men of God getting extremely rich and the people getting extremely poor. We were not anointed just for us to feel good and be rich. We were anointed because God has other people in mind. That is what I keep telling people, it is not about us – it is about the people.

    Can religion and politics walk together for the good of the people?

    Well (smiles) you know as a preacher when you look at the Old Testament, you would see the mixture. You see religion and you see politics or should I call it governance. People like King David. You can’t divorce the two but the church has to be interested in the quality of the leaders that are arising.

    So you can’t separate the two. As far as I am concerned, I don’t believe in this is spiritual and this is secular; everything goes together.

    So, you are saying that religion and politics go together. You didn’t mention that clearly enough.

    Well, I didn’t really talk about partisan politics. Consequently, there is something known as partisan politics. What is politics? I don’t want to go into defining what politics is. But you see, man critically cannot be divorced from governance; man cannot be divorced from the people in charge unless you want to live on an island like Robinson Crusoe.

    So, there is also one known as partisan politics. Personally, I am interested in politics; I follow it to the minute details, just as I also follow football. I am not a footballer but I follow it and then I am not a politician but I follow it. I am interested in politics but I am not in partisan politics.

    What do you really mean when you say partisan politics?

    Well, partisan politics is when you decide to join a party then be a politician in that particular party, which I have personally said I will not go into. Now, I’m not saying that some of my colleagues who have gone into it have done anything wrong. As far as I am concerned, there are two groups of pastors, two groups of preachers.

    There is a group of pastors called to go into partisan politics just like somebody can also be a journalist and a pastor. Somebody can be a medical doctor and also a pastor. Somebody can be a pharmacist and also a pastor; somebody can be a footballer and a pastor. So, somebody can be a pastor and also be into partisan politics.

    I don’t condemn them at all but there is yet another group. This particular group, God has taken them to a status and God has put them in a place whereby their own is to act as fathers in the land but it does not mean that a father cannot support any of the children. People like Pastor Enoch Adeboye and Bishop Mike Okonkwo would not go into partisan politics; they belong to this other group I am talking about.

    How do you assess the last general elections?

    I did not like the last elections. I am not talking about those who won and those who lost. I am not going into that at all but you see the forces of religion and ethnicity. These two forces played a major role. Jigawa state governor, Sule Lamido, said during the campaigns that if you were campaigning for Jonathan in the north they will call you a pastor.

    In the north, people were told to vote for Buhari. Now in many churches in parts of the south, there was a lot of campaign also in the churches. People were told not to vote for a Muslim. In the north, Muslims were told not to vote for Christians.

    So, that is what I didn’t like at all and you see this is taking us back to the days of Northern Peoples Congress (NPC), NCNC and Action Group when the election was terminated through the January 16, 1966 coup. That is the element I did not like at all. I liked what happened during the SDP and NRC days when Abiola and Tofa contested. I like it that way because religion did not play a role. When religion become a major issue in campaigning in any nation, it is dangerous. I didn’t like it at all.

    I cannot see what happened during the 2015 election as political progress. It is not political development. I didn’t like it. I don’t want this country to turn to another Lebanon.

    Our two main parties have been stained with religious garbage. Those clothes need to be washed. I am not a preacher of doom but all I am saying is that corrections can be made. The APC-led federal government can begin to see how it can fill the religious gap for us.

    This is what I believe would be in the interest of our nation. Religion is worse than Indian hemp; it makes people go crazy and makes people not to think again. Religion is more than opium. It makes people to kill.

    Were you pleased with the roles religious leaders played in all of these? 

    What happened in the last elections was that APC was smarter than PDP in playing the religious card. Both parties played the religious card heavily. They were able to re-brand General Buhari from the way he had been known even four years ago. So they were able to put their hearts together.

    He brought his brain box and put it in APC to iron the whole thing. They did a very smart campaign and played a better job with the religious card.

    It was silently played in some sections of the north while some of the Christians were busy making noise about it. You won’t see the Muslim core North, you won’t see the Imams talking in papers vote for this. It was not so but here it was so because you will find out that the Muslims were highly well organised and I really commend them for that. The Christian community does not know how to move as one body under Christ to achieve what they want to achieve.

    What will be your advice to the incoming government?

    My advice for this incoming government is that they should make sure they deliver what they promised during campaigns. When I look at their package, I look at the area that they lay emphasis on being corruptions and that seemed to have struck a chord in an average Nigerians because there is corruption in this land. And so many Nigerians have now seen General Buhari as a symbol of fighting corruption.

    So hopes are high. The people are beginning to see that perhaps within six months corruption should be off from Nigeria. The first 100 days, there should be light everywhere but I think that as I speak as a leader and I want to plead with Nigerians to go and learn how to speak as leaders.

    If this government really means business, instead of just handling corruption from the top, there should be what I will call a socialisation progress – from the grassroots. In the village there is corruption, secondary school there is corruption, everywhere there is corruption. So there should be a team of think tank that should be quietly assembled and this team should be asked to produce a blueprint on how to fight corruption.

  • Oyegun to PDP: Keep us on our toes

    Oyegun to PDP: Keep us on our toes

    The National Chairman of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Chief John Odigie Oyegun, has tasked the Peoples a Democratic Party (PDP) to present a formidable opposition to the party and to keep them on their toes for the next four years.

    Speaking when he received a delegation of former governors led by former Anambra State governor, Chief Jim Nwobodo, Oyegun said one of the major problems of the PDP was the fact they tried to destroy the opposition and make them very weak.

    He said the APC desires a formidable opposition from the PDP, saying, “we want the PDP to keep us on our toes so that we don’t make the same mistake they made.”

    Oyegun said that a nation moving from one government to another and from one party to another peacefully is a major success , pointing out that the just concluded elections were quite unique  not because President Goodluck Jonathan conceded defeat, but because he did what nobody believe could be done.

    He added that terrible things could have happened after the elections, “but Jonathan was inspired by God to do what Nigerians thought will not happen.”

    “By conceding defeat, Jonathan deserves a place in the nation’s history,” he added.

    Speaking earlier, Nwobodo congratulated the APC for emerging victorious at the elections, saying the feat was historic.