The Nation Newspaper

Tag: PDP

  • Atiku to PDP: Take responsibility for nation’s sorry state

    Atiku to PDP: Take responsibility for nation’s sorry state

    Former Vice President Atiku Abubakar on Monday challenged the leadership of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) to take responsibility for the sorry state of the nation.

    He charged the PDP to face the reality of the situation in the country, rather than resorting to name-calling and childish response to the crisis of confidence bedeviling the ruling party.

    In a statement issued by his media office, the former vice president urged the PDP to get off the moral high horse and stop searching scapegoats among members of the opposition.

    Specifically, Atiku noted that it was inappropriate for the leadership of his former party to describe him as an “ingrate.”

    He reminded the leadership of the ruling party that as a former vice president, and someone who had worked hard in the formation of the PDP, he deserved respect and decent language from the PDP leaders.

    He accused the leadership of the PDP of treating his case with selective memory.

    “The personal insults in the PDP statement succeeded in doing just one thing; which is to depict its managers as childish, petulant, and above all else incompetent.

    “It confirms the notion on the part of many that they don’t have what it takes to live up to their ‘sacred’ mandate. They have lost their way, and their refusal to recognise the error of their ways has prompted the shepherds to – reluctantly – move on, for the nation’s sake to build a better future for the country’s teeming population,” the Atiku stated.

    The former vice president recalled that the new guard in the PDP kept a low profile when he along with other champions of democracy such as the late Gen. Shehu Yar’Adua, the late MKO Abiola, the late Kudirat Abiola, the late Sunday Afolabi and other members of NADECO, including Asiwaju Bola Tinubu fought in the frontline to remove the military from power.

    “Since almost all of us – the founding members of the PDP – have been hounded out of the party because we allegedly have one aspiration or the other, people who supported military rule or did not even know what was going on, are now the masters of PDP, and present themselves as the custodians of the nation’s future.

    “But I challenge anyone of them to show their contribution; except looting the Nigerian treasury.

    “If I and other patriots working in tandem with the National Assembly did not work together to retain term limits in the constitution, none of those holding power today would not have been there from local, state or federal governments.

    “Those who wrap themselves in the PDP banner should at least recognise and respect those of us who made today’s debates possible,” Atiku maintained.

     

  • Why I joined PDP – Shekarau

    Why I joined PDP – Shekarau

    The scramble to take advantage of the ongoing defection of prominent members of the ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) to the All Progressives Congress (APC) has continued to gain momentum among displaced politicians across the nation.

    The latest in the attention-chasing adventure occurred on Monday with the former governor of Kano State, Mallam Ibrahim Shekarau declaring for the PDP at the Yar ‘Adua centre, Abuja.

    Shakarau, who formally announced his decision to join the ruling party, described the APC as a party without a structure.

    Maintaining that the opposition could not be seen or touched, because it had lost its soul, the former Kano governor said he was leaving the APC because the party has become a political fraud.

    In a swift reaction, however, the Interim National Publicity Secretary of the APC, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, could only wish Shekarau well in his new marriage to the PDP.

    In a telephone chat with one of our correspondents on Monday, Mohammed simply said: “We wish Shakarau well in his new marriage.”

    Challenging the leadership of the APC to produce the party’s constitution and manifesto, Shekarau boasted that no intimidation, blackmail, or character assassination would change his vision.

    He said, “Because some people wanted to pocket the party and that was why the constitution of the party had yet to see the light of the day.

    “The soul of the APC is lost. It cannot be touched or seen. APC Constitution is a political fraud. There is no management at any level of APC. This is the issue we raised and this is what we challenged.

    “I did all I could do to salvage the APC with no results. I refused to keep quiet in the face of the shenanigan going on in the APC.

    “Some people want to pocket the party when the constitution of the party cannot be found anywhere on the street of this country. We cannot see ourselves belonging to a platform where we have been made to pocket others.

    “After six months, no structure was found anywhere, we cannot belong to such, where no caricature of management is found. We challenged the leadership of APC to tell us why the constitution and manifesto of the party is not found on the street of Nigeria.

    “There is nowhere in the constitution of the APC that said X and Y are the leaders of the party.

    “Politics is not not only about contesting and winning elections neither is it about getting public offices alone, but a platform to get the people to participate in nation building.

    “As we are stepping into PDP, the party has made some amendments and has looked inward. We are solidly behind the leadership of the party. We will contribute meaningfully to development of the country in general.”

    Shekarau said his decision to dump the APC for the PDP was jointly reached with his supporters in Kano and across the country.

    Also speaking at the occasion, former Governor of Sokoto State, Alhaji Attahiru Bafarawa, said the APC has become the old PDP.

    Bafarawa, who also defected to PDP a few days ago, said he and Shekarau were in the PDP to rebuild the ruling party.

     

  • PDP decries constant condemnation by opposition parties

    PDP decries constant condemnation by opposition parties

    The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has called on the opposition parties to proffer solutions and alternatives to it rather than constantly condemning its policies and programmes.

    The party’s National Publicity Secretary, Mr. Olisa Metuh, made the call in a statement on Sunday.

    “While we concede to the inalienable rights of individuals to associate with any political party of their choice, we advise that they should proffer solutions and alternatives rather than engage in constant condemnation,” the News Agency of Nigeria quoted the party spokesman as saying in the statement.

    Metuh also said that while the PDP recognised the right of citizens to hold opinions and identify with their choice of political platforms, it found it difficult to understand the bitterness against it by the opposition.

    He said that such bitterness became more worrisome when former PDP members spoke negative things about the party they had greatly benefited from.

    He wished former Vice President Atiku Abubakar and other PDP members who recently defected to the opposition well and prayed that they would find it in their hearts to accord the PDP due recognition someday.

    This, Metuh stressed, was because of the party`s contributions not only to the development of the country, but also to their individual political progress.

    He said as the sole custodian of the sacred mandate of over 160 million Nigerians, the PDP would continue to maintain the high moral ground of decency.

     

  • Three more PDP govs heading to APC

    Three more PDP govs heading to APC

    * Senators, Reps also expected to defect

    Three more governors elected on the platform of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) are getting ready to defect to the All Progressives Congress (APC) in a fresh wave of defections from the PDP.

    Two of the governors are from the Northwest and the third from the North central.

    More Senators and Representatives are also bidding their time to cross over to the APC, highly placed sources said yesterday in Yola where former Vice President Atiku Abubakar teamed up with the APC mid week.

    At the last count, Governors Rabiu Kwankwaso (Kano), Aliyu Wamakko (Sokoto), Murtala Nyako (Adamawa), Ahmed Al-Fatha (Kwara) and Rotimi Amaechi (Rivers) and no fewer than 37 Reps and 11 Senators defected from the PDP to the APC.

    Also numerous state legislators and local government chairmen and councillors in Kwara, Kano, Rivers and Sokoto states defected to the APC.

    It was gathered yesterday that 16 PDP lawmakers in Adamawa will be joining APC later this week.

    Sources said that Alhaji Atiku, Governor Nyako, General Buba Marwa, Marcus Gundiri, Mr. Boss Mustapha have been working the phone from their Yola homes to convince more PDP members to cross to the APC.

    Atiku, in particular, is said to have lined up a number of meetings with PDP bigwigs with a view to wooing them into the APC.

    Some supporters of the immediate past national chairman of the PDP, Alhaji Bamanga Tukur are also said to be contemplating dumping the PDP should the PDP continue to procrastinate the harmonisation of the factions in the party.

    A PDP lawmaker in Adamawa State said yesterday that the party’s new national chairman Adamu Muazu may have been misled by vested interests to ignore the harmonisation.

    The lawmaker said that any attempt to impose Deputy Governor Bala Ngilari as the PDP governorship candidate in the 2015 election will spell doom for the party.

     

     

  • APC and Atiku

    APC and Atiku

    FORMER Vice President Atiku Abubakar has finally dealt what appears to many commentators as his last card by crossing over to the All Progressives Congress (APC). The putative progressive party will no doubt welcome him with open arms, for they are as anxious to denude the ruling party of its spine as they are indifferent to what any critic might say of the sanctity of their ideology. After having once crossed from the PDP to the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN), the ancestor of the APC, and then crossed back to the PDP, the combative former vice president has completed his galactic peregrinations. If he attempts to cross to anywhere after this latest foray, it is certain he will have no place in the world’s orbital arrangement.

    The APC has welcomed him. So, too, does Barometer, though not as if it really mattered. He has, however, not given a hint why he is probably Nigeria’s leading political nomad, traversing the nation’s lush grazing fields. Does he have an eye on the presidential race? Some say no. Was that why he enacted a most illustrious consultation across the country’s political zones? Surely, he knows that the APC’s presidential wannabes constitute a long and illustrious list, daunting even to the best and most practical politician in the party or indeed anywhere. Nigerians must hope that when the party dashes ambitions, as it will certainly do, a re-enactment of the famous Mfecane Movement that rocked and roiled Southern Africa in the early 19th century would not be triggered.

  • Fayose’s baleful rapprochement with Ekiti electorate

    Fayose’s baleful rapprochement with Ekiti electorate

    IT took him a while before he supplanted the leaders of his political party, but after last year’s coup de main, the former governor of Ekiti State, Ayo Fayose, has seemed all dressed up and nowhere to go. It was not hard for him to make his moves, for he is rough-hewn, and his party, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in Ekiti, equally guileful, but it has been harder for him to device a message for the future and imbue it with life. In his first coming, begun in 2003 but aborted before he completed one term, he caught popular imagination, provided the so-called dividends of democracy for his people with nothing more than the giddy excitement of a local government chairman, and because he was impulsive and populist, he did many other irrational things. In short, he so vulgarised governance that his embarrassed people and party leaders performed political euthanasia on him in 2006.

    Eight years later, and with no evidence whatsoever that he had learnt or done anything but fine-tune his quirky political tactics of arm-twisting opponents, Mr Fayose has reappeared on the state’s political scene selling himself as a rejuvenated politician prepared for the arduous task of shepherding a wholesome state, as a mature statesman eager to forgive his enemies, and as a pragmatist capable of winning elections should his party, which he has virtually hijacked, give him a second chance. No one knows what residue of wisdom still lies in his party or how much character still inheres in his party leaders and supporters. But should they con themselves into making their now mature arm-twister candidate of the PDP in the June 2014 governorship poll, the state’s political combat will witness lively twists and feints.

    Mr Fayose doesn’t know how to play softball. Street smart, boisterous, and with a rage as incandescent as molten magma, he will find himself taking on two equally lively opponents the ambitious and feisty Opeyemi Bamidele, and the mercurial but soft-spoken Kayode Fayemi. The restless Mr Bamidele, it is known, runs on a cocktail of messianic formulae designed, as he put it bravely, to salvage the state form the hands of the uncooperative Dr Fayemi. And the latter, who is the current governor, runs on a cocktail of public works projects he is convinced will remain unparalleled for some time to come. Beside these two gentlemen of the Labour Party (LP) and All Progressives Congress (APC) respectively, the feistiness of Mr Fayose threatens to be ordinary.

    What is crucial to Mr Fayose, notwithstanding, is that he is coming into the combat with considerable self-belief and chutzpah. After making peace, as it were, with those who undid him in the clumsy impeachment of 2006 that terminated his governorship, he believes he would be able to sustain the right momentum into the June race. In addition, he has promised to spend just one term if elected. As Olusegun Obasanjo, a former president, and President Goodluck Jonathan have shown so numbingly, the seductive talk of one term is pure baloney. The ordinary Nigerian politician is nearer in habit to President Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe than to former President Nelson Mandela of South Africa. Not only can the Nigerian politician not be trusted, they also nurture an incestuous romance with power.

    It may never be known whether Ekiti people have forgiven Mr Fayose in accordance with his pleas, but he seems more in need of forgiveness than to forgive anyone. Yet, even if they manage to smile at his charades, his chances of picking the PDP ticket are as remote as the scarifying peaks of the Himalayas. But let him go ahead and make peace, since the state obviously needs it for the June poll. At least it will salve his corroded conscience and prepare him for life after politics.

  • Jonathan in Sokoto, says PDP is party to beat

    Jonathan in Sokoto, says PDP is party to beat

    The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) will coast home to victory come 2015, President Goodluck Jonathan stated yesterday.

    He said the party “is the number one party in Nigeria and it would continue to be so.”

    The president spoke in the Shehu Kangiwa Square, Sokoto State where he formally welcomed former Governor Attahiru Bafarawa and his supporters to the PDP.

    In his entourage were Vice President Namadi Sambo, Senate President David Mark and National Chairman of the PDP, Adamu Mu’azu.

    Governors of Akwa Ibom, Bayelsa, Katsina, and Kogi states were also at the reception.

    Sambo, Mark, Mu’azu, Akpabio and the other governors echoed the unity of the PDP and their resolve to work together for success in the 2015 elections.

    Bafarawa told the president “to go and have a good sleep,” promising to deliver Sokoto State to the PDP.

    Sokoto deputy governor, Mukhtar Shagari, who is rumoured to have been promised the party’s governorship ticket, said: “Here in Sokoto, we love you and will send you back to Aso Rock in 2015.”

    But residents agonised over traffic gridlock as the ancient city was practically shut down, even long before the president’s arrival around 10am at the Sultan Abubakar 111 International Airport.

    Security operatives cordoned off major roads, leading to residents being unable to move freely.

    Spotting an overflowing white babariga, Jonathan described Bafarawa as “the political leader” of the state, stating that with his declaration for the PDP, the battle for the 2015 is won.

    According to him: “From what I know and what I have seen here today, I am convinced that in Sokoto, we are ready and just waiting for the 2015 elections.

    “Bafarawa has been your political leader. He has won all the elections and we know that when you see Bafarawa and see Mukhtar Shagari, you will know where your interest would be protected.”

    The president added that PDP has resolved “to use Sokoto as an example to show other states that PDP is still the major political party to follow.

    “We will also visit other states to showcase what the PDP government has been doing.”

  • Amaechi wins again!

    There is this saying in Yoruba land that if you pursue someone and you are unable to catch up with him, you beat a retreat. Unless you want to be like the tortoise that said in response to a question as to when he hoped to return from a journey, that he would return when he had been disgraced. The person asking the question could not believe his ears and repeated the question: “tortoise, I say when will you return from this trip”? And the tortoise replied again that he would return only when he had been thoroughly disgraced. Those of us who know the stories of tortoise know that that is its way. It is always clever by half.

    Those watching the unfolding scenario in Rivers State must have known that those who want to remove the governor, Chibuike Rotimi Amaechi are only wasting their time. When God installs, no man can remove. Where they should have seen this handwriting clearly except that they believe in wars and chariots, was in the very way Amaechi emerged as governor. Where were the entire Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) top shots, including the incumbent president, when the then President Olusegun Obasanjo wanted to deny Amaechi his right of being the party’s flag-bearer in the state in 2007? Obasanjo had said then that Amaechi’s candidature had ‘K-Leg’? They all sheepishly agreed with the then president, the same way they are blindly following President Goodluck Jonathan in the ‘Amaechi must go project’.

    Amaechi single-handedly took up his case and eventually got justice from the Supreme Court. Not satisfied, Amaechi’s enemies went back to the apex court, all in their desperate bid to remove him, but the court affirmed again on Friday that Amaechi is the duly elected governor of the state, thus throwing the camp of those who think today’s world is all about naked power into confusion. It is just the beginning. It is the same way that any non-performing government that is hoping to win the 2015 election by wars and chariots will be greatly disappointed.

  • Nigeria’s bad luck party?

    Being the incumbent should, ordinarily, stand President Goodluck Jonathan in good stead in the run-up to next year’s presidential election but at the moment he is not even sure of having a strong, united party behind him.

    At the president’s inauguration three years ago, the governing People’s Democratic Party (PDP), which he heads, had a comfortable majority in both chambers of the National Assembly.

    He could have any bill passed into law, notwithstanding opposition parties’ views. That is no longer the situation.

    Floor-crossing by its legislators has wiped out the PDP’s majority in one chamber – the House of Representatives.

    Although the party retains its dominance in the other chamber – the Senate – the president cannot pass any bill into law without co-operation by opposition party members.

    This is one reason why this year’s federal budget is sitting unattended in the assembly.

    This time last year the ruling party had 19 of the 36 state governors.

    By the end of the year, five of them had formally defected to the main opposition party, the All Progressive Congress (APC), and more may be waiting to do so.

    This means that, because the governors control their legislatures, President Jonathan cannot get through any amendments to the constitution – under Nigeria’s federal system, two-thirds of state parliaments must approve any such changes.

    It also means the president will have to work harder for votes in those states next year, should he run for president.

    This leads on to why the ruling party is now in a crisis situation.

    The major cause is the president’s undeclared intention to run for another term in office next year.

    This is why the tenure of the party’s national chairman, Bamanga Tukur, became a problem for many party leaders, who accused him of arrogance and failure to consult.

    He has now resigned after months of pressure; his opponents, angered by his perceived support for President Jonathan’s re-nomination, had been demanding his removal.

    While the storm within the party was gaining momentum, former President Olusegun Obasanjo, political benefactor of Mr Jonathan and a strong influence within the party, wrote a damning letter last month cataloguing alleged personal shortcomings of the president and his style of governance.

    The letter was more devastating than if it had been written by the leader of the main opposition party.

    President Jonathan replied, denying all the allegations.

    He said that the former president had done him “grave injustice” with the public letter.

    He accused Mr Obasanjo of trying to incite the populace against him.

    His supporters within the PDP leadership and his political aides fired a barrage of denunciations against Mr Obasanjo but the resultant controversy has not helped the president.

    Yet another political bombshell was delivered by the governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria.

    He alleged that nearly $50bn (£30bn) was unaccounted for from crude oil receipts taken by the national petroleum corporation.

    Official denials followed shortly afterwards but in the end it was admitted that about $10bn was yet to be accounted for.

    There was a report last week that the president directed the central bank governor to resign because his letter had been leaked, but that the governor refused, apparently calculating that it would be difficult for the president to muster the two-thirds majority in the Senate needed to sack him.

    It seems the president has dumped Mr Tukur in the hope this can save the party, which has won every election since the end of military rule in 1999.

    His own political future remains uncertain.

    It is not only raining over President Jonathan, it is like a deluge falling on him.

    He may have to draw on all the luck of his first name to sail through.

     

    Culled from BBC

     

  • On PDP’s weight loss programme

    Politicians are by nature the most sunny and optimistic set of people on earth. They would spin a calamity and make it seem like their greatest hour. Garrulous Information Minister, Labaran Maku, belongs to that breed. Each time he opens his mouth gems fall out.

    While trying to make sense of the unending defections from the ranks of the ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), he declared that the party was shedding weight in order to regain strength. In Maku’s universe anyone who has defected from the party was either shameless or desperate.

    The minister forgets that many of those who have abandoned the party are in the final lap of their second tenure. It is unlikely therefore that their motivation for moving to the opposition All Progressives Congress (APC) was about being given tickets to run for office again.

    In any event, if that were the motivation it is something they could easily have received without the aggravation they went through as members of the G-7 governors or New-PDP. I dare say it takes even greater courage to divorce a party you have associated with for ages and plunge into the unknown with new associates in a party that is just in formation.

    In a country where government patronage is the only game in town and legitimate opposition is demonised, it takes more courage to walk out of one’s comfort to join forces with those on the outside.

    Maku’s ill-digested diatribe ignores the fact that for many months those who eventually left kept pressing the PDP to address their grievances but were treated like inconsequential school boys. Those untreated issues were what eventually toppled erstwhile chairman, Bamanga Tukur and led to the installation of Adamu Muazu.

    Everything in the emerging political picture points to the 2015 general elections being a very close battle. Any wise political party would choose to enter the contest with all the hands it can muster. If these ex-PDP types were such lightweights and losers why is Muazu pulling out all the stops to get them back?

    Those who think the likes of Kano State Governor, Rabiu Kwankwaso, Rivers State Governor, Rotimi Amaechi, former Vice President Atiku Abubakar, are the weights that have to be shed so PDP can emerge stronger are only deluding themselves. These politicians have proven that they have following in their home territory. They are also known as fighters who would give as good as they get.

    But more importantly, I suspect that the desire to prove their continued relevance to the Makus of this world come the elections could be added motivation for all who have turned their backs on PDP.