It must be symptomatic of the fallen standard of education in Nigeria today that the quality of political discourse has dropped to an unbelievably pedestrian level. Public comments are devoid of neither rigour nor intelligence, while criticisms are stark and devoid of such nobility of purpose that serve the overall interest of a nation. The atmosphere is therefore suffused with knee-jerk remarks and unintelligible utterances made only for the sake of their noise and nuisance values. In the end, not the parties or the society is enriched.
All the political parties have in some degrees not been up to par in their information management and dissemination strategies. However, the Peoples Democratic Party’s (PDP) comment in the wake of the bomb blast in Nyanya, Abuja, mid-month must be the lowest limits. As acrid smoke still billowed from what may probably be the worst terror attack on the nation, the PDP spokesman, Chief Olisa Metuh, released what will pass for the most unconscionable political statements in recent times off-handedly blaming the opposition All Progressives Congress (APC) for the attack.
The PDP’s statement reads in part: “We stand by our earlier statements that these attacks on our people are politically motivated by unpatriotic persons, especially those in the All Progressives Congress (APC) who have been making utterances and comments, promoting violence and blood-letting as a means of achieving political control. Nigerians are also aware of the utterances by certain APC governors which have been aimed at undermining our security forces and emboldening insurgents against the people.
“Those who have been promoting violence through their utterances can now see the monster they have created. They can now see the end product of their comments; a country flowing daily with the blood of the innocent. The question is how do they feel when they see the mangled and blood-soaked bodies of their victims? How do they feel when they hear the voices of the dying and injured? Of course they feel nothing. Their hearts have been hardened and they are embittered by the fact that they have been rejected by the people. They are bitter because the people have chosen to rally round the government they love and voted for; but must they choose the path of violence and blood-letting as a response to the wishes and aspirations of the people?”
There must be a limit to party propaganda and political bombast. The charred and mangled bodies of nearly 100 innocent citizens cannot be the platform for scoring cheap political points or engaging in childish blame game. Have we descended to the level of playing politics with death and destruction; with our collective national calamities? Metuh made his vacuous statement even as the nation wept and compatriots were still in the vast motor garage sorting pieces of flesh from personal effects. The ruling party would make wild accusations against fellow countrymen while condolence messages were streaming in to Nigeria from across the world.
Metuh had made such weighty allegations based merely on specious, circumstantial grounds with nary a strand of evidence. Politicking while the nation is in deep sorrow may well be an attempt to cover up PDP’s failure in the past three years to curb this incipient terror that has brought the country to her knees. But this cancerous insurgency may well have its roots in the PDP as was noted by the late former National Security Adviser, General Owoye Azazi.
While we admonish all parties to endeavour to raise the level of public political engagement in the interest of the nation, the ruling PDP has a higher, bounden duty to show better example.
Tag: PDP
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Vacuous politics
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Kwara PDP factions reconcile
The two warring factions of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in Kwara State have settled their differences.
The party had been polarised into Freedom and Unity groups before and after the state congress three weeks ago. Federal Character Commission Chair Prof Abdulraheem Oba led the freedom group; Senator Gbemisola Saraki led the other group.
The freedom group protested the results of the congress, alleging irregularities.
A statement yesterday by the freedom group’s spokesperson, Tajudeen Kareem, said: “At a reconciliation meeting held in Abuja between the Chairman, Iyiola Oyedepo and the groups’ leaders, everyone resolved to bury their grievances and work together.
“The meeting examined the lapses in the conduct of the congress and reviewed the roles played by elders and officials. It was resolved that party members should support the new executive members to build a durable party structure.
“Oyedepo denied that he was sponsored by some vested interests. He said his candidature received the support of opinion leaders and political heavyweights in the state. He also promised to run a transparent, democratic and an inclusive administration.” -
Jonathan’s burden
You can preach a better sermon with your life than with your lips” says Oliver Goldsmith. “No matter what claims a leader may make, his behavior as actually observed by the followers will be the most persuasive communication says Robert M. Fulmer. Machiavelli in The Prince also asserted that the prince is judged by the calibre of people he appoints into his cabinet. The pertinent question is: How can an erring leader change course when patronage hunting pack of sycophants keep on drumming into his ears how great he is, what a heaven-sent messiah he is. Because President Jonathan won 2011 presidential election without much difficulty and oblivious of the fact that he had squandered his goodwill, he thought he is also going to have an easy ride in 2015.
As Aristotle rightly puts it, “The good of man must be the objective of the science of politics”. It is however unfortunate that in Nigeria today, especially at the centre and PDP-controlled states, in the last 15 years of the locust, political leadership is hardly associated with nobility of purpose and public spiritedness. It is a well-known fact that poor governance is at the heart of Nigeria’s problem. If the current situation of things in our beloved country, Nigeria is any thing to go by, many will readily agree that at the moment, there is no government in Nigeria. A government, I believe can only lay claim to that name when it touches the lives of the people, ensure the security of their lives and property. A government like that of President Goodluck Jonathan, which has failed to make any meaningful impact on the lives of the people is not fit to bear that name. Good governance is possible only where there is political commitment at the highest level of government. It is also possible where governance is put ahead of politics, unlike what obtains in our country today under President Jonathan’s watch, for Max de Waal rightly observed, “governance is government minus politics”.
These are not ordinary times; as such, they require extraordinary solutions. It is our collective duty to prevent our country from sliding into an era of “deceptive” silence or stolen voices. We cannot afford to be indifferent to what goes on around us, because our indifference more than anything else, may mark the final death of democracy and our dreams for societal self-improvement. For the sake of Nigeria’s democracy and the country herself, I make bold to say everything must be done to review the kind of system that threw up unwanted leaders that have afflicted Nigeria in recent time. Machiavelli, in one of his treatises said “the best fortress that exists is to avoid being hated by the people, if you have fortresses yet the people hate you, they (fortresses) can not save you. The case of the self-acclaimed largest party in Africa, PDP can not be an exception. In the last 15 years, because of its penchant for subverting the democratic will of the people, that is, not making people’s vote to count, the party has continued to display a shallow understanding of public opinion. In the words of former American president, Abraham Lincoln, “With public opinion on its side, nothing can fail; with public opinion against it, nothing can succeed”.
The foregoing explains why the tide of public opinion is against PDP today. It is no news that the self-acclaimed “largest party in Africa”, the Peoples Democratic Party has since acquired for itself a disdainful stature of being a notorious congregation of gangsters. Poignantly, not only has the party leadership remained unperturbed about its inglorious stature, it has continually taken it upon itself , even against wise counsel, to ensure that Nigeria remains perpetually backward and a laughing stock in the comity of nations. It must be said that whether or not the political philosophy cum ideology of the PDP is one aimed at attaining the unprecedented height of ridicule, the PDP, in its continued mess has brought wanton shame and agony to the country, and this makes the people a party in the matter. It is doubtful if anyone will argue the position that Nigerians of all walks of life are sick and tired of the foisted agonizing reign of the PDP, which has brought to the country nothing but pain and misery. It is on record that the former president, Olusegun Obasanjo single-handedly imposed late President Umaru Yar’Adua and Goodluck Jonathan on his party and Nigeria at a makeshift PDP convention, under the guise of consensus candidates, despite stiff opposition from all strata of the Nigerian state. Obasanjo was privy to the deteriorating health of Yar’Adua, but chose to play the all-knowing ruler whose will must supersede the people’s desire. The result is where we are today: A culture of imposition which led to lack of internal democracy within the ruling party, PDP, which also, consequently, led to the emergence of an ill-prepared, ill-equipped and grossly under-performing President Goodluck Jonathan.
It is obvious that Jonathan is neither in charge, nor in control. It is confounding that the ruling party, PDP finds it so difficult to evolve a political culture that attracts the best material to public office. This explains why it prefers the current electoral system that has become a pastime of men and women who are prepared to engage in the vilest of activities to capture public office and the key to public treasury. Since PDP captured power 15 years ago, the quality of leadership, especially at the centre has continued to nosedive and the impact of governance is almost non-existent at the three tiers of government controlled by it. The major emphasis is on acquiring and retaining power with little or no responsibility to the citizenry. In spite of the fact that we complain about the poor quality of leadership, PDP has continued to boast that a man that ought to throw in the towel, or be forced to resign, must not only be re-elected, his party, PDP, must win all the well-governed states control by the major opposition, the only credible alternative to PDP, the APC. The example of Osun and a neighbouring state, Ekiti is a major evidence of PDP maladministration at the state level before it lost the two states to the APC.
The long-suffering people of the two states can now compare two eras: The better forgotten PDP era when they were pauperized as compared to the present populist era of the APC governments when they are being empowered on a daily basis. Is it therefore not in our own interest to heed the advice of a public commentator, Bobson Gbinije, by working for the “de-PDPfication” of Nigeria? To say that PDP has become a gangrene that must be exorcised from Nigerian polity, if this democracy is to survive, is merely stating the obvious. Unless we seize the bull by the horn, that is, take our political destiny in our own hands, PDP will completely ruin our future, the future of our children and the country herself!
• Aminu is National Coordinator, Oodua Youth for Good Governance -
APC hails suspension of PDP rally
The All Progressives Congress (APC) has hailed the reported suspension of today’s Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) rally in Adamawa State.
In a statement in Lagos yesterday by its Interim National Publicity Secretary, Lai Mohammed, the party called the suspension “the right decision under the circumstances”.
It said the suspension has shown that President Goodluck Jonathan is listening to the voices of his compatriots on important national issues.
‘’As we said in a statement on April 24, it smacks of insensitivity, inhumanity and indecency for our President and other leaders to engage in any celebratory venture when we do not know the fate of the girls, who were abducted from their school.
‘’We also said the President should not repeat the same mistake he made when he went to Kano to dance at a political rally after the Nyanya bus park bombing.
“We are delighted that good sense has prevailed this time,’’ APC said. -
Ekiti: The PDP’s morbid obsession
When Vice President Namadi Sambo the other day declared Ekiti and Osun “war fronts” in which the PDP was set to do full battle to win back power in the looming gubernatorial elections, the attentive audience might well have dismissed the vow as delusional, and the metaphor as over-wrought.
This, after all is the silly season, the time for political hot air.
To react in that manner would be dangerous, however. For it fails to take into account the PDP’s morbid obsession with the two states, especially Ekiti, of which Sambo’s declaration was merely the latest expression.
Against all indications to the contrary, spokesperson after spokesperson in the PDP has claimed Ekiti not merely as a state in which it has a respectable following but as their stronghold, a “PDP state” in their phrasing.
Vincent Ogbulafor, the former PDP chairman now standing trial for criminal breach of trust, said so. His successor Okwesilieze Nwodo, who was dismissed from the post well before his tenure was up, said so. Bamanga Tukur, who succeeded him and ran the party like an overbearing school principal, said so before he was deposed and dispatched to use his management skills to whip the railways into the mid-20th century.
Ekiti was PDP territory until four years ago when the gubernatorial elections in that state and Osun were stolen from the PDP through judicial legerdemain, Namadi Sambo and company have been saying, and that recovering those offices in the forthcoming elections, come what may, was the PDP’s firm resolve.
Whatever it may be, Ekiti has never been a “PDP state.”
In the 1999 general elections that terminated military rule, Ekiti elected a State Assembly in which the Alliance for Democracy (AD) enjoyed a controlling majority, and a governor on that party’s platform. More tellingly, it rejected in overwhelming numbers the presidential candidate of the PDP.
Four years later, a general election that local and international observers said was far and away the most fraudulent they had witnessed anywhere, literally buried the ACN in Southwestern Nigeria bar Lagos, where the canny Governor Bola Tinubu who honed his political skills in the toughest streets of Chicago had correctly anticipated and foiled the grand design of the fixers.
That monumental heist delivered the PDP to Ekiti, with a political nonentity, all flash and no substance as governor, and a razor-thin majority in the State Assembly.
Ayo Fayose’s time in office is largely remembered as an encounter of the unprepared with the unforeseen. Ekiti lurched from one crisis to another as he amused himself flying over its compact territory in an executive helicopter. Not for him the cratered roads crying out for repairs. He conceived no scheme more sophisticated than a so-called integrated poultry project that gulped billions of Naira without producing a single egg.
He became a liability even to the PDP that had steamrolled him into office and was impeached. The EFCC sandbagged him with a charge sheet so comprehensive that, if convicted, he would need several lifetimes to complete the cumulative sentence.
But the PDP was determined to hold on to its stolen trophy. It rigged its candidate Segun Oni into office at the election that followed. Instead of voiding the entire poll, the courts ordered a re-run in those constituencies where it had been marred by violence and irregularities. The PDP repeated the offence with brassiness on a scale almost beyond belief, leading the Returning Officer to declare that she could not in her Christian conscience announce the results handed to her.
Several days later, without formally renouncing her faith, she put aside her Christian conscience, dutifully read the confected returns, and urged those who felt aggrieved to go to court.
The ACN pursued the matter all the way to the Appeal Court, which declared that its candidate, Dr Kayode Fayemi, had been duly elected governor of Ekiti State.
In those towns where Fayose and Oni were not frankly despised, including the state capital, Ado-Ekiti, they were accorded only a tepid welcome. But even with Federal Might and “Africa’s biggest political party” behind them, they spent so much of their time and the state’s resources trying to shore up their insecure hold on power that they had little left to pursue meaningful development.
Since Dr Fayemi took office, Ekiti State has been a different place. He has reached out to the state’s legion of learned men and women whom Fayose and Oni alienated to generate ideas and programmes of development. He restored education to the centrality it has always enjoyed in the life of the people.
He has completed the roads Fayose and Oni abandoned, and constructed new ones. He inaugurated a social safety net that provides monthly stipend for older residents, the first in Ekiti and one of the first nationwide. For the first time since its establishment, the Ikogosi Warm Springs can now be called a resort, and a tourist destination.
Dr Fayemi has accomplished all this and much more quietly and almost unobtrusively, without the histrionics that marked Fayose’s era or the smug vindictiveness of Oni’s time. Ekiti is thriving in ways it has never known. There, “transformation” is not a slogan; it is a lived reality.
That is also the case in the state of Osun, where the scope and the frenetic pace of development cannot but astonish those who knew what the place was like under PDP Governor Olagunsoye Oyinlola and what it is now under Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola, who was elected on the platform of the ACN.
Now the PDP wants to put an end to all that. It has not phrased its quest as starkly as I have done here, but it cannot complain that I have misjudged its intent.
Only such an intent, plus overweening contempt for the Ekiti people, can explain why it drew Fayose out of his den and with scant regard for due process pressed him into service as its candidate in the gubernatorial election scheduled for June. That the process which produced the ticket was supervised by a hugely discredited former PDP governor the courts said the police must never arrest merely underscores the PDP’s desperation.
But that desperation is rooted in a morbid obsession, a consuming craving that knows no bounds and no restraints for what one cannot have.
It is a dangerous affliction. In the end, it drives its victim to destroy the object of his or her desire that refuses to be possessed. That is the psychology of morbid obsession.
Those who have been warning that the PDP will resort to blatant rigging to conscript Ekiti State into its fold, unmindful of the chaos that is sure to follow, cannot therefore be dismissed as idle alarmists.
Unless it is too far gone in its delusion, the PDP must know that it cannot win a free and fair election in Ekiti, much less with a candidate who has nothing to offer, and that if it turns Ekiti and Osun into “war fronts” for the forthcoming elections, it will have to do battle with their newly empowered residents.
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Gaidam: insecurity will end with APC at the centre
•’God ‘ll expose terror sponsors’
Yobe State Governor Ibrahim Gaidam has said insecurity will become history in the country when the All Progressives Congress (APC) takes over the central government next year.
The governor said the nation was better off before 1999, when the ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) took over the reins of leadership of the country.
He said: “Nigeria would be in trouble if we allow the PDP to continue in power beyond 2015. We were better off before 1999. From all indices of development, things are getting worse since the PDP government took over the affairs of this country. The economy is very bad. Look at the security situation in the country: there’s no light, no roads. Nothing is moving.
“With an APC government at the centre, it is my view that the insecurity in the country will be over and everything will be improved upon. Nigeria will be better again.”
Gaidam, who spoke yesterday at the inauguration of newly elected state executives of the party, also said God would soon expose the sponsors of the Boko Haram sect.
“The insurgency is coming to an end and God will get hold of the sponsors. God will not allow them to succeed again,” Gaidam said.
The governor called for special prayers for the 234 secondary school girls kidnapped by Boko Haram members in Chibok, Borno State.
He urged the new party executives to show their political strength in the next election by ensuring that their constituencies vote for the APC.
Gaidam described the APC as the only party that can take Nigeria out of the woods.
He added: “We decided to be part of this merger to join other progressives to save Nigeria from PDP’s misrule.”
The party’s new chairman Mai Mala Buni promised that the executives would give 100 per cent loyalty to APC.
He acknowledged the enormous responsibility placed on their shoulders. -
‘Leave Jonathan out of Akwa Ibom’
A member of the National Caucus of the Peoples Democratic Party(PDP), Senator Anietie Okon, has decried the attempt by Chief Don Etiebet, a member of the PDP Board of Trustees, to involve President Goodluck Jonathan in Akwa Ibom State politics.
Reacting to a statement by Etiebet, Senator Okon said: “ It is an incontrovertible fact that the President has never interfered in the politics of Akwa Ibom State and does not deserve this diatribe.”
Describing Chief Etiebet’s attempt to smear the president’s image as “disingenuous and invidious, the senator said the article lacks credibility and substance”.
He said Etiebet lacks the moral capacity to raise issues with Akwa Ibom PDP.
Senator Okon said: ”The unguarded and uncouth outburst coming from an elder smacks of absolute mischief and disrespect for the office of the president and constitute an insult to the President.
“It has been roundly condemned by all the good people of Akwa Ibom State.” -
Presidential indiscretion
•President Jonathan’s statement about inducement for election contradicts a professed fighter of corruption
President Goodluck Jonathan is gradually becoming embarrassingly audacious. From his ab initio taciturn posture upon assumption of office, he is exceedingly assuming a belated confidence, through mostly unguarded utterances quite unbecoming of a man holding such venerated position. His latest imprudence was his reported inflammatory political statement in Kano.
The president was bubbling with unrestrained political fervour at the event designed to formally receive Mallam Ibrahim Shekarau, former Kano State governor back into the fold of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP). There he launched tirades against incumbent Governor Rabiu Kwankwaso, accusing him of misappropriation of the money handed over to him to curry the favour of Kano delegates at the Abuja PDP presidential primary convention that produced him as candidate of the ruling party in 2011. The president declared: “The allowances sent by my party campaign office for election purposes were taken away by Kwankwaso without giving anybody a Kobo. How can he say he voted for me?”
Kwankwaso was earlier said to have reportedly regretted “voting for President Goodluck Jonathan in the 2011 presidential election, as he has done nothing to move the nation forward.” Sadly, the president’s political showmanship came at the Polo Ground in Kano State at this period of national mourning consequent upon the Nyanya Park, Abuja, bomb blast that killed hundreds of people and: the kidnap of about 234 school girls in Chibok, Borno State, that were yet to be fully resolved. This is regrettably bad and unnecessary!
Our main concern is not about the political tantrums thrown by these two big wigs but the fact that the president moved beyond the limit of decorum by flaunting his inducement of Kano delegates at the primary convention. He spoke as if it was an act of generosity on his part to give out such questionable and unaccountable funds in a country in the abyss of escalating immorality. We recognise the reality that party primaries are usually expensive, which is why it has become an unwritten code and practice for aspirants across the political party divide to spend heavily on the primaries. But we see this trend as also antithetical to the spirit of guaranteeing internal democracy in political parties’ attempts to present to Nigerians the best candidates to choose from during elections. No wonder aspirants with deep pockets routinely emerge during parties’ primaries, which could partly be responsible for the urge to see public office as one for recouping money spent than as service to the country.
We call on the president to publicly tell Nigerians how much he spent on his 2011 PDP presidential primary and how he came about the money that could best be described as bribe, not only to Kano delegates but other delegates from other states across the federation. Since the president has confessed to being a political bribe giver, we demand of him to tell us how he will be able to call any of his ambitious ministers or aides to order when caught in the act in future? No wonder, his administration is fast notching up the notoriety of oil funds disappearance, over-invoicing, oil theft escalation, among other corrupt practices.
President Jonathan’s Kano statement of bribe giving is abominable and condemnable. We can objectively conclude that his confession in that ancient city portrays him as an avowed promoter of this ugly corruption trend in the nation’s degenerating body polity. Otherwise, he should have realised that such disparaging statement is capable of proliferating corrupt practices and also serve as impediment to the Independent National Electoral Commission’s resolve to ensure internal democracy within political parties’ process of candidates’ selections. -
PDP, Omisore plan to import miscreants to Osun, APC alleges
The Osun State chapter of the All Progressives Congress (APC) has accused the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and its governorship candidate for the August 9 election, Otunba Iyiola Omisore, of planning to cause a breach of the peace in the state.
According to the APC, intelligence reports at its disposal alleged that a plot has been hatched to import miscreants and thugs to the State of Osun to stage protests in order to create mayhem across the state.
In a statement issued on Saturday, APC further alleged, “These senseless and unwarranted protests are intended to manipulate the populace, the electorate and the electoral system in their (PDP and Omisore) favour.
“Plans are said to have been concluded by both Omisore and the PDP to create a virtual state of confusion before August 9 believing that if the plan works, it would facilitate an easier manipulation of the electoral process and their rigging exercise.
“This is a sinister conspiracy against law and order in Osun, which has been known and confirmed by responsible individuals and foreign diplomats in the country as a safe and peaceful place to do business and attract investments.”
The APC therefore called on law enforcement agencies to ensure that the alleged plan does not succeed in the interest of democracy, law and order and peace in Osun State.
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PDP praises political class for unity against terrorism
The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has applauded political leaders for uniting against terrorism.
The party’s National Publicity Secretary, Chief Olisa Metuh, in a statement yesterday, described the development as unprecedented in contemporary history.
He added that the “new found unity” has restored the confidence reposed in the political class to provide leadership direction for the nation.
The statement marked a departure from the PDP’s several futile attempts to lay the blame for the sustained bloody terrorist attacks in the country on the doorstep of the opposition All Progressives Congress (APC).
“Our political class has shown their commitment to the unity and greatness of our dear country. They have shamed doomsday prophets who relentlessly work against our unity by not only stoking the fires of hatred and dissensions but also by predicting disaster and countless negatives against our dear country.
“Their coming together to present a common front not only speaks volumes to the citizenry regarding the unity of the nation, but also sends very strong message to those behind acts of terrorism and violence in our land.
“This is the only way to move the nation forward. In uniting, the political leaders not only rekindled the spirit of oneness among Nigerians but also revived the faith in the Nigerian project, which were hitherto threatened by unhealthy dissensions,” the PDP added.
The party commended President Goodluck Jonathan for his untiring efforts in the fight against terrorism, saying that the enlarged National Security Council meeting on Thursday created the platform for unity among the political leaders.
The PDP called on Nigerians to remain vigilant and to continue to stand against actions that encourage violence and terrorism.
According to the ruling party, the challenges facing the nation are transitory and cannot defeat the collective spirit of the Nigerian people and their proven determination to live as one.
“The PDP believes in Nigeria and Nigerians. We believe that our country will emerge out of these challenges a renewed, stronger and more united Nigeria.
“The time has therefore come for all citizens to look ahead and join hands in love to build a prosperous country where all will live in peace and unity irrespective of ethnic, religious and political differences,” the statement added.
The PDP assured it would continue to provide level play ground for all citizens to advance their views and aspirations without compromising the overall interest and unity of the nation.