Finally, the eagle has landed with the emergence of former governor of Edo state, Comrade Adams Oshiomhole, as the national chairman of the All Progressives Congress (APC). By that strategic political orchestration and stratagem, the APC, under the leadership of President Muhammadu Buhari, has sounded the ultimate Nunc Dimittis for the opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP). The opposition must be wishing that this had not happened. Oshiomhole’s chairmanship of the governing APC is a masterstroke in the contemplation of a revitalized winning machine ahead of the crucial 2019 presidential election in which Buhari, as the expected candidate, continues to be PDP’s nemesis and Waterloo.
It is a platitudinous fact that the PDP never wanted the APC to remain cohesive in the hope that it could profit from its internal squabbles and divisions in the build-up to next year’s general election. That was the reason it had continued with its negative profiling of the APC and its jejune antics of taunting the APC as incapable of holding congresses and national convention to elect its national executive committee (NEC). That narrative had, sardonically, become a platform on which the battered opposition strove to draw political relevance. Unfortunately, its rash of criticisms had only portrayed it as dimwitted. And generally, the PDP has now outlandishly reduced opposition politics to petty tittle-tattle and confabulation, poking around in the APC’s internal affairs when issues that directly affect the welfare, security and wellbeing of the nation and her citizenry are blowing in the wind.
Therefore, the manner in which the PDP and its noxious frolics could not escape essential stigmatization with regard to its unimaginative interference in APC’s internal affairs is the same manner in which its so-called quick responses to APC’s governance issues cannot escape indictment as products of frustration birthed by the historic and sensational termination of its megalomania in the 2015 presidential election. Its rodomontade that it would rule Nigeria for the next 60 years had suffered a short circuit. Its 60-year rule dream got terminated in its sixteenth year in power. The decision by Nigerians to sign a social contract with the APC is at the bottom of PDP’s histrionics. Unable to absorb the shock, and in a frenzied bid to stage a come-back to power to continue the robin hood road show, it has resorted to ridiculous and lugubrious acts of propaganda and blackmail.
But one thing has been very evident in the corpus of criticisms that the PDP has hurled at the APC and Buhari’s administration since inception: the criticisms are all sheer bunkum and gobbledygook oozing out of the belly of damaged and compromised party machine, whose leaders lack the moral high ground to pontificate about corruption. But surprisingly, the PDP, through its publicists, has been laboring hard to skew the corruption narrative against the APC and Buhari, whose moral magnitude has received national and international approbation; a leader, who typifies the moral conscience of the administration and the moving force of the anti-corruption war.
It is in the context of the sheer preposterousness of PDP’s antics that the sensibilities of Nigerians who have become seized of the facts of monumental corruption and mindless looting that charaterised the sixteen years of the PDP government get daily assaulted and ghastly bruised. The fact that the PDP has the gumption to sermonize about propriety in official conduct questions and ridicules our sense of morality. The opposition party has sunk so deep into the corruption morass for it to be able to challenge the APC. Its records of malfeasance and sleaze are sordid. Its integrity capital has been greatly discounted. There is no iota of positivity in its kitty to show to a manically bewildered citizenry.
The PDP cannot come to equity because it does not have clean hands. The totality of the political machine is soiled. The party’s unconscionable and wicked strategy to charge the APC-led federal administration with the mundane issues and primordial sentiments of religion and ethnicity in order to diminish the single-minded effort by Buhari to confront and dismantle the odious legacies of corruption, insecurity and mismanaged economy inherited from it, are reprehensible. Herein is the fallacy of PDP’s oppositional politics. It is obviously luxuriating in the aqua of hocus-pocus, thinking that Nigerians have forgotten so soon how its government mindlessly plundered the nation’s patrimony.
There is no doubt that the leading opposition party has nothing new to offer. It has thus become a compulsive irritant, knowing full well that it cannot electorally rebound due to Buhari’s writ-large credentials and characters of financial prudence and integrity. In addition, the prospects of a much more unified party under the chairmanship of a hard-hitting Oshiomhole have raised the bar far higher than the PDP had expected. Until June 23, the PDP had been indulged by the party’s NEC under the urbane and unassuming leadership of Chief John Odigie-Oyegun. That political indulgence had served as an oxygen mask for the prostrate PDP, which, at the time, should have been put where it rightly belongs through precise and sustained narratives by the APC.
Had Oshiomhole been the chairman at that period when the nation was daily regaled by revelations of corrupt acts perpetrated by the PDP and officials of its government particularly from 2011 to 2015, he would have robustly deployed the platform of his office to further deconstruct the nature of the plundering administration and the characters that superintended it. Today, Oshiomhole has stepped in as national chairman to the discomfiture of the opposition: all gloves are off for bare-knuckled fights with the floundering opposition. It is too late for the PDP to stop the macabre dance. Regardless, Oshiomhole will take the wind out of its sail, deploying his huge capacity for wits and grits.
Viva Nigeria! Viva APC! Viva Buhari! Viva Oshiomhole! Welcome to a new era in political party administration. The combination of Buhari and Oshiomhole would produce robust government-party leaderships that would be complementary in their vast flourish. Oshiomhole is not ready to take prisoners. He is in the mood to completely decimate the opposition. He has the intellectual magnitude, the oratorical clout and the sheer fecundity to deploy the power of logic in the articulation and elucidation of party manifestoes and government policies. He is very efficient and utilitarian. He will consistently and persistently intervene in very coherent defence of policy decisions and choices by the federal government.
Indeed, the almost four years of tolerating the irritability of the PDP are over for good. The opposition is advised not to joke with Oshiomhole. Enough of political sarcasms and innuendoes that had been thrown as barbs at the APC and Buhari for a period of eon! PDP’s characteristic criticisms that had bordered essentially on ad hominem; that had been highly tendentious most times and, at other times, vitriolic and incendiary should be moderated if the opposition must enjoy little peace. In fact, the PDP is now in between the devil and the deep blue sea. Whether it becomes irresponsible or not, it should know that it has Oshiomhole to contend with per time.
The role of the opposition is not, as it were, to cry wolf where there is none or to become irresponsible in raising the alarm before international organisations without verifiable factual bases nor is it to play on our centrifugal proclivities at the expense of our centripetal and agglutinating fulcrum. The PDP and Oshiomhole’s opposite side- Prince Uche Secondus- will come under the sledge hammer if they continue with these odious tactics. Clarifications: the APC-led administration is not averse to criticisms, but the criticisms must be constructive.
Honourabe Obahiagbon, a former member of the House of Representatives, wrote in from Benin.
This past week, 47-year old Justice Allen H. Loughry II, of the West Virginia Supreme Court of Appeals in the US, was sentenced to 395 years in prison and $5.5 million in fines after being hit with a 22-count indictment on numerous charges of fraud and corruption. This is a textbook example of how to permanently lock up miscreants in public office.
Nigeria is yet to join the community of civilized nations where no one is above the law. In civilized societies, people in positions of public trust get tougher sentences than those who are not high profile criminals. The question which comes up every time among Nigerians whenever a politician or a judge gets into trouble or jailed overseas is: When will Bukola Abiku Mesujamba Saraki go to jail? A history that is not removed is bound to be repeated. Mesujamba Saraki is the most colorful and controversial corrupt politician dead or alive in Nigeria today.
The corruption, fraud, extortion, and other malfeasance perpetrated by the Saraki Family Corruption Dynasty is well documented and well known to Nigerians. We don’t need to list them in alphabetical order. Until few weeks ago when the Offa bank robbers named Mesujamba Saraki as their patron saint, Saraki’s crime skyscraper seems to have disappeared from the radar of Nigeria’s criminal justice system. His legendary disobedience of our laws has brought out rage of fatigue about our ancient criminal justice system. Governors, senators, House Reps, LG chairmen, councilors and other corruption titans are getting away with more stealing. The looting spree has long ceased to amaze Nigerians.
The Saraki Family Corruption Dynasty has violated every goddamn law in the book. It took every imaginable form of illegal and illicit business. That no member of the Saraki Family Corruption Dynasty has gone to jail is a political mystery. Mesujamba Saraki has been a politician of nine lives, surviving a series of crimes and scandals which surely would have ended up anyone else’s career and freedom. Mesujamba Saraki’s crime history is the cancer at the heart of so many Nigeria’s problems today. Through looting, embezzlement, fraud, and outright plundering of Kwara State and the federal treasury, and the liquidation of two or three banks, he has single handedly destroyed jobs and holds back growth costing our economy trillions of Naira every year.
His greed and graft have trapped Nigeria’s poorest in the most desperate poverty as Mesujamba Saraki and his looting gang syphon off funds and prevent hardworking Nigerians revenues and benefits of growth that are rightly theirs. Vital resources for our schools, hospitals, infrastructures, safety and security, healthcare and social services have been stolen as Mesujamba Saraki cleaned out our treasury. Saraki has been able to get away with all these crimes because Nigeria is being run by Mafia-style cartels by political bosses and corrupt business people.
Yes, Nigerian Senate harbors Mafia-style criminals similar to Al Capone’s mob in 1920s America. Corruption stretches from the very top to the very bottom in our society. No other person like Mesujamba Saraki has singularly reduced Nigeria to a colossal collection of impoverished masses. Mesujamba Saraki is genetically venal, ruthlessly ruthless, more corrupt, more shameless, and more brazen. And with a weak president, a National Assembly of thieves, and a dysfunctional judicial system, Saraki will continue to call the shots. When will Bukola Abiku Mesujamba Saraki go to jail?
Bayo can be reached on: bjoluwasanmi@gmail.com. [myad]
Former governor of Edo state, Comrade Adams Oshiomhole, was destined to be national chairman of the governing All Progressives Congress (APC) at this intersection in the nation’s political evolution. His emergence approximates a part of the philosophy in the muses of H.L. Detridge that “we are all victims of our actions; our destinies are controlled by the cosmic rolls of the dice, the whims of the stars and the vagrant breeze of fortune that blows from the windmills of the gods.”
Divine elements, apparently working in harmony with existential considerations as well as the avuncular disposition and approbation by President Muhammadu Buhari, had culminated in the consensual coronation of Oshiomhole at the party’s June 23 national convention in Abuja. The magnitude of the strategic political concession that produced the Oshiomhole consensus also bore the obligatory imprimatur of the party’s 24 state governors who provided the essential validation that resolved the previously contentious issue in his favour.
From the initial audacious notices of intention to vie for the position of national chairman by no fewer than five persons and the acrimonious outlooks that the scramble for the position had assumed, huge pressure had been piled on the party under the leadership of Buhari who had to act expeditiously and sagaciously by making two down-to-earth and back-to-back interventions. The first was to overrule the decision by the National Executive Committee (NEC) of the party to extend its tenure by a year by calling for congresses and convention, thus obviating a legal conundrum.
The second and, perhaps, more strategic intervention was the expression of his preference for Oshiomhole to take over from Chief John Odigie-Oyegun as the new navigator of the APC ahead of and beyond the 2019 general election. Significantly, Buhari did not impose Oshiomhole by presidential fiat. His candidature merely and justifiably enjoyed lofty presidential recommendation. That recommendation was shorn of political shenanigans. There was no need for Buhari to dissimulate and vacillate on the issue, having been convinced that the party needed the Oshiomhole persona at this time.
The president had placed the issue on the table for interrogation and critical reflections by other influential stakeholders. The fact that all the contentious issues eventually resolved themselves in Oshiomhole’s favour derived from the stakeholders’ objective considerations; whereas, a potential flash point could be located in Oyegun and Oshiomhole’s aspirational exertions. There was no doubt that Oyegun had party apparatchiks who could have provided the rampart for his possible re-election. But, having provided the leadership compass to the APC from 2014, the shape and texture of his leadership capacity could not escape critical appraisal in the circumstance of the contemporary governance issues and the vagaries of the 2019 burgeoning political nuances.
The question would then arise: did Oyegun’s leadership style, as exemplified in Buhari’s first term, bear great and appropriate relevance in the planned prosecution of the 2019 general election and the concomitant political gerrymandering? The answer must have informed the final gravitation by some state governors, who were initially insisting on Oyegun, to embrace the political correctness of Oshiomhole’s candidature as a presidential fait accompli. Concurring with Buhari’s judgment was political wisdom. Dismounting their ego horse was in pari materia with the constructive and productive ramifications of the president’s preference.
In fact, respect for Buhari’s preference remains quite significant in the post-convention political interactions and party administration. For a governing party with a president who is revered and sure-footed in the exercise of power, it would have been foolhardy for party operatives and their back-end sponsors in government to dig in their feet in their go-getting bid to upstage the president’s strategic applecart. Besides, the president, as the poster child of the administration, receives the approbation and disapprobation for both actions and inactions. It is within the context of this cosmopolitan reality that Buhari seeks to guarantee his date with history.
As the unofficial candidate of his party, Buhari is already on the cusp of history and he would not want the electoral tragedy that consumed the former president, Dr Goodluck Jonathan, to happen to him. Disloyal antics of the leadership of Jonathan’s Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) had largely contributed to his defeat and his becoming the first incumbent to be so demystified in the annals of presidential elections in Nigeria. Buhari knows that it would be farcical if that happens to him. This perception underpinned the choice of a restless, can-do and surefooted Oshiomhole and will continue to validate his appropriateness for the position.
By and large is the fact that Oshiomhole understands the magnitude of the task ahead. Even before the national convention, he had fixed his eyes on the bigger picture of consolidating the Buhari legacies and appropriating the people’s buy-in for massive electoral advantage in 2019. While the atmospherics of victory around him were titillating his followers, he was not only clear-headed but also in serious dialogue with himself and in a series of across-the-board conversations with prolific minds on how to grow support for the party and the president. Indeed, he knew from the outset that the chosen enterprise would not be a tea party.
Therefore, beyond the song and dance of his ultimate coronation, Oshiomhole’s concern is how to lock in the vast majority of votes required in renewing Buhari’s mandate in the 2019 presidential election. That is how to prove that the confidence reposed in him by the president and the party was not misplaced. That is the burden that Oshiomhole bears. There is a mission to accomplish. Even though the objective conditions that produced Buhari’s presidency under Oyegun’s chairmanship in 2014 differ from the conditions that obtain now, there is a sense in which Oshiomhole would be inclined to want to surpass Oyegun’s accomplishments. That is the spirit: to build incrementally and purposively on his predecessor’s legacies.
Indeed, having consummated the ultimate leadership deal, Oshiomhole’s immediate task is to chart a trajectory towards a renewed, vibrant and robust political configuration in the APC. He is expected to deploy his persuasive powers and negotiating skills in the execution of his responsibilities and the initial chore is to resolve the problematic issue of the new Peoples Democratic Party (nPDP) that stares the APC in the face like a veritable bugaboo. He is obligated to build a united political family in strategic counterpoises to the dialectics of oppositional politics.
Oshiomhole is also expected to espouse and expound socio-political and economic issues within the context of APC’s manifestoes and governance philosophies. In driving pro-people national conversations, he will be defining and giving bites to the party’s electioneering onslaught against the opposition ahead of, during and after the 2019 presidential election. With a massive capacity for oration, he is expected to persuasively sell Buhari’s re-election campaign promises to Nigerians by energizing and sustaining narratives that are essentially pro-Buhari and anti the leading opposition party and its presidential candidate.
However, his post-election exertions, once he delivers Buhari, will centre fundamentally on deploying the platform of his position as national chairman to elucidate government’s policies on both national and global platforms. He will provide necessary defence to the actions and inactions of the Buhari administration within the contexts of prevailing conditions that have given rise to them. The president and the party can rest assured in Oshiomhole’s capacity to prolifically promote the issues involved in governance for citizens’ clear understanding. On that score, Oshiomhole, who has already put his nose to the grindstone in both frontline and rearguard tasks that will conduce to utilitarian benefits of the Buhari administration, will not disappoint.
Ojeifo, editor-in-chief of The Congresswatchmagazine, wrote via ojwonderngr@yahoo.com. [myad]
Deputy Speaker of the House of Representatives Yussuff Lasun
The Deputy Speaker, House of Representatives, Lasun Yussuff, has commended the manner in which the two-day national convention of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) was conducted.
Lasun, who spoke to news men on the sidelines of the Convention today, Sunday, argued that this is the first time in the history of Nigeria that a political party would have a national chairman that served out his term without threats or outright removal.
The lawmaker, who congratulated President Muhammadu Buhari for displaying exemplary leadership quality and for sustaining a cordial relationship with the immediate past national executive of the party, also praised the immediate past Chairman, Chief Odigie Oyegun for his political dexterity that played a vital role through the merger process leading to the victory of the APC in the 2015 presidential elections as well as his cordial working relationship with other leading political stalwarts in the APC, such as Chief Bisi Akande, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu and Chief Ogbonaya Onu among others in navigating the party through turbulence.
Lasun said that when the book of political party formation and administration would be written, copious credits and references will be given to them.
The Deputy Speaker while congratulating the newly elected National Chairman of the APC Adams Oshiomole said the new party chairman was coming with a loaded credential not only as the immediate past two term governor of Edo state but a man who made his name out of agitation based on fairness and justice from the Labour community.
Lasun also congratulated the other members of the new executive of the party praying that Allah will guide them and help them to deal squarely and fairly with whatever outstanding issues that may not have been totally sorted by the past exco.
The Deputy Speaker looks forward to the profound oversight and guidance of the Oshiomole led new leadership in the forthcoming Osun State Gubernatorial primary elections, where the people will be allowed to exercise their free discretion to vote through their recognized delegates of the party at the primary election just as it was in Edo state, and recently in Ekiti state for an aspirant that represents their hope stressing that “this is sine-qua-non to our victory at the general election.”
He also congratulated the chairman of the 2018 Convention committee, Governor Badaru of Jigawa State and the entire members of the committee “for organising a very transparent and near hitch free event that has further elevated the profile of our great party”.
He described the convention as “a new high for the party, a boost in the profile of the party and an additional impetus and point of attraction for those still contemplating joining the party and pride to existing members.” [myad]
President Muhammadu Buhari in a handshake with the new national chairman of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Chairman Comrade Adams Oshiomhole as the 2018 APC National Convention comes to a close today, Sunday at the Eagle Square in Abuja. Vice President Yemi Osinbajo (left), waits for his turn to congratulate the new helmsman. Photo by Sunday Aghaeze. [myad]
A former National Caretaker Committee Chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Senator Ahmed Makarfi, has said that if he become President of Nigeria on the platform of the party, he will not mnd to appoint good people from the opposition, especially, the All Progressives Congress (APC) to form his federal cabinet and other vital organs of the government.
“If I am nominated and eventually get elected, my philosophy will not be to go after the opposition. It is to see how I will work with the opposition in any area for the good of all of us while maintaining our independent political opinion over any matter.
“That is how you can bring Nigerians together. And that is when people will not even have any need to cross carpet. If I get nominated and I find somebody in APC who can help me do what I want to do, I will look for you without demanding that you join the PDP.
Makarfi, who answered reporters’ questions in Abuja, said that he is offering himself to be President of Nigeria because he has a better idea of how to bring development fast to the country.
“It is a question of what do I have to offer that is better than what the other person has to offer. It should not affect personal relationship. At the end of the day, whoever gets it will have to work with others to succeed.
“If one of the other candidates gets the ticket, I will do what I can do to make sure he succeeds, just as I expect that if I get the nomination, others should be prepared to do what they can to make me succeed.
He however, commended President Muhammadu Buhari led All Progressives Congress (APC) government for successes recorded in the fight against insurgency.
“Yes, I have to give the government credit in the area of Boko Haram, not that it has come to an end, but they have recorded some successes, you can’t take that away from them.
“Because I want to be the candidate of my party, it will not be an excuse to insult or do negative campaign against other candidates.
“I will leave you to make that decision on your own. That is the kind of politics that I want to see happening in Nigeria.” [myad]
President Tayyip Erdogan has maneuvered votes by Turks to perpetrate himself in power with his Islamist-rooted AK Party. He has been in power more than a decade and a half ago.
The elections being conducted today, Sunday, is expected to usher in a powerful new executive presidency long sought by Erdogan and backed by a small majority of Turks in a 2017 referendum. Critics say it will further erode democracy in the NATO member state and entrench one-man rule.
Reports reaching us said that more than 56 million people were registered to vote at 180,000 ballot boxes across Turkey. Voting began at 8 a.m. (0500 GMT) and will end at 5 p.m. (1400 GMT).
President Erdogan, the most popular but also divisive leader in modern Turkish history, moved the elections forward from November 2019, arguing the new powers would better enable him to tackle the nation’s mounting economic problems – the lira has lost 20 percent against the dollar this year – and deal with Kurdish rebels in southeast Turkey and in neighboring Iraq and Syria.
But he reckoned without Muharrem Ince, the presidential candidate of the secularist Republican People’s Party (CHP), whose feisty performance at campaign rallies has galvanised Turkey’s long-demoralized and divided opposition.
Addressing a rally in Istanbul on Saturday attended by hundreds of thousands of people, Ince promised to reverse what he and opposition parties see as a swing toward authoritarian rule under Erdogan in the country of 81 million people.
“If Erdogan wins, your phones will continue to be listened to … Fear will continue to reign … If Ince wins, the courts will be independent,” said Ince, adding he would lift Turkey’s state of emergency within 48 hours of being elected.
Turkey has been under emergency rule – which restricts some personal freedoms and allows the government to bypass parliament with emergency decrees – for nearly two years following an abortive military coup in July 2016.
Erdogan blamed the coup on his former ally, U.S.-based Muslim cleric Fethullah Gulen, and has waged a sweeping crackdown on the preacher’s followers in Turkey. The United Nations say some 160,000 people have been detained and nearly as many more, including teachers, judges and soldiers, sacked.
The president’s critics, including the European Union which Turkey still nominally aspires to join, say Erdogan has used the crackdown to stifle dissent. Few newspapers or other media openly criticise the government and he has received far more election coverage than other presidential candidates.
“This is no longer a Turkey we want. Rights are violated, democracy is in terrible shape,” said health sector worker Sema, 50, after voting in Istanbul.
She and others in the city said they voted for the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) so that it exceeds the 10 percent threshold of votes needed to enter parliament. If it does so, it will be harder for the AKP to get a majority.
Erdogan, who defends his tough measures as essential for national security, told his supporters at rallies on Saturday that if re-elected he would press ahead with more of the big infrastructure projects that have helped turn Turkey into one of the world’s fastest-growing economies during his time in office.
Polls show Erdogan falling short of a first-round victory in the presidential race but he would be expected to win a run-off on July 8, while his AK Party could lose its parliamentary majority, possibly heralding increased tensions between president and parliament.
Other presidential candidates include Selahattin Demirtas, HDP leader, who is now in jail on terrorism-related charges that he denies.
In a final appeal for votes in a video clip from his high security prison, Demirtas said: “If the HDP fails to get into parliament, all Turkey will lose. Backing the HDP means supporting democracy.”
Nollywood actress, Mercy Aigbe took to her Instagram page to reveal that she is now a landlady after she packed out of her husband house last year.
The actress took to her page to share a photo with the caption: “It’s the Lord’s doing and it’s beautiful in my sight! “Few months after that cake gift, I bought a beautiful home for myself and my kids in a choice area in Lagos!!!!!!!! Say hello to the new LANDLADY.” [myad]
Nigerian fashion influencer and lady celebrity stylist, Toyin Lawani, has said that every man is entitled to about 10 women as part of solution to cheating in relationships because of their polygamous nature.
“Every man is entitled to 10 women. Even pastors cheat. Our world is corrupt. Just make it work for your kids’ sake,” she writes on her Instagram handle.
She condemned women who think they can play both the roles of a dad and a mum in their kids’ lives, saying: “to all the idiot mums that think a father’s space can ever be replaced by a mother’s space in their kids’ lives, get this ehn? You can never grow manhood.
“Best believe and start acting right. Even if the fathers of our kids are dead beats… Ehn? You have to make it work for the future; for the sake of the child who didn’t beg you to be born.” [myad]
President Muhammadu Buhari has attributed the crisis in the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) to the success the party had so far achieved in establishing good governance.
Speaking today, Saturday at the National Convention of the part in Abuja, the Presidency said: “the unresolved cases we have is the price we have to pay for success, as everyone wants to be associated with a winning team.”
He assured all the party members that despite a few lingering issues with the congresses in some states, the party will emerge stronger after the convention.
“I am imploring all those with grievances to keep faith with the party until we put things right.”
The President also appealed to all to put the party ahead of personal considerations and to accept the outcome of the exercise in good faith. “You are all important to our party’s progress and all must come together to ensure success in the forthcoming polls so as to enable us to continue the good work we have been doing for our fellow Nigerians.”
He thanked the outgoing National Executives of the party for their tireless efforts in securing victory for the party at the last elections and managing the success thereafter.
“I have been following the preparations leading to this event and I must commend this Convention Committee under the leadership of His Excellency, Governor Badaru Abubakar for providing a level playing field and instilling confidence in both aspirants and delegates with their thorough approach and adherence to transparency.
“I commend all the delegates from across the country for your sacrifice and patience, travelling all the way from your different destinations and waiting in inclement weather, as it has been raining all the day. Thank you for your commitment.
“The adoption of consensus as a first option is commendable and the process has led to a lot of healing and cohesion across the states and the zones, and where elections are inevitable, I have been assured that the process adopted will result in clear and undisputed results. Again I am appealing to all contestants to keep faith with the party.”
We use cookies on our website to give you the most relevant experience by remembering your preferences and repeat visits. By clicking “Accept”, you consent to the use of ALL the cookies.
This website uses cookies to improve your experience while you navigate through the website. Out of these, the cookies that are categorized as necessary are stored on your browser as they are essential for the working of basic functionalities of the website. We also use third-party cookies that help us analyze and understand how you use this website. These cookies will be stored in your browser only with your consent. You also have the option to opt-out of these cookies. But opting out of some of these cookies may affect your browsing experience.
Necessary cookies are absolutely essential for the website to function properly. This category only includes cookies that ensures basic functionalities and security features of the website. These cookies do not store any personal information.
Any cookies that may not be particularly necessary for the website to function and is used specifically to collect user personal data via analytics, ads, other embedded contents are termed as non-necessary cookies. It is mandatory to procure user consent prior to running these cookies on your website.
Of Oshiomhole And The Fallacy Of PDP’s Oppositional Politics, By Patrick Obahiagbon
Finally, the eagle has landed with the emergence of former governor of Edo state, Comrade Adams Oshiomhole, as the national chairman of the All Progressives Congress (APC). By that strategic political orchestration and stratagem, the APC, under the leadership of President Muhammadu Buhari, has sounded the ultimate Nunc Dimittis for the opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP). The opposition must be wishing that this had not happened. Oshiomhole’s chairmanship of the governing APC is a masterstroke in the contemplation of a revitalized winning machine ahead of the crucial 2019 presidential election in which Buhari, as the expected candidate, continues to be PDP’s nemesis and Waterloo.
It is a platitudinous fact that the PDP never wanted the APC to remain cohesive in the hope that it could profit from its internal squabbles and divisions in the build-up to next year’s general election. That was the reason it had continued with its negative profiling of the APC and its jejune antics of taunting the APC as incapable of holding congresses and national convention to elect its national executive committee (NEC). That narrative had, sardonically, become a platform on which the battered opposition strove to draw political relevance. Unfortunately, its rash of criticisms had only portrayed it as dimwitted. And generally, the PDP has now outlandishly reduced opposition politics to petty tittle-tattle and confabulation, poking around in the APC’s internal affairs when issues that directly affect the welfare, security and wellbeing of the nation and her citizenry are blowing in the wind.
Therefore, the manner in which the PDP and its noxious frolics could not escape essential stigmatization with regard to its unimaginative interference in APC’s internal affairs is the same manner in which its so-called quick responses to APC’s governance issues cannot escape indictment as products of frustration birthed by the historic and sensational termination of its megalomania in the 2015 presidential election. Its rodomontade that it would rule Nigeria for the next 60 years had suffered a short circuit. Its 60-year rule dream got terminated in its sixteenth year in power. The decision by Nigerians to sign a social contract with the APC is at the bottom of PDP’s histrionics. Unable to absorb the shock, and in a frenzied bid to stage a come-back to power to continue the robin hood road show, it has resorted to ridiculous and lugubrious acts of propaganda and blackmail.
But one thing has been very evident in the corpus of criticisms that the PDP has hurled at the APC and Buhari’s administration since inception: the criticisms are all sheer bunkum and gobbledygook oozing out of the belly of damaged and compromised party machine, whose leaders lack the moral high ground to pontificate about corruption. But surprisingly, the PDP, through its publicists, has been laboring hard to skew the corruption narrative against the APC and Buhari, whose moral magnitude has received national and international approbation; a leader, who typifies the moral conscience of the administration and the moving force of the anti-corruption war.
It is in the context of the sheer preposterousness of PDP’s antics that the sensibilities of Nigerians who have become seized of the facts of monumental corruption and mindless looting that charaterised the sixteen years of the PDP government get daily assaulted and ghastly bruised. The fact that the PDP has the gumption to sermonize about propriety in official conduct questions and ridicules our sense of morality. The opposition party has sunk so deep into the corruption morass for it to be able to challenge the APC. Its records of malfeasance and sleaze are sordid. Its integrity capital has been greatly discounted. There is no iota of positivity in its kitty to show to a manically bewildered citizenry.
The PDP cannot come to equity because it does not have clean hands. The totality of the political machine is soiled. The party’s unconscionable and wicked strategy to charge the APC-led federal administration with the mundane issues and primordial sentiments of religion and ethnicity in order to diminish the single-minded effort by Buhari to confront and dismantle the odious legacies of corruption, insecurity and mismanaged economy inherited from it, are reprehensible. Herein is the fallacy of PDP’s oppositional politics. It is obviously luxuriating in the aqua of hocus-pocus, thinking that Nigerians have forgotten so soon how its government mindlessly plundered the nation’s patrimony.
There is no doubt that the leading opposition party has nothing new to offer. It has thus become a compulsive irritant, knowing full well that it cannot electorally rebound due to Buhari’s writ-large credentials and characters of financial prudence and integrity. In addition, the prospects of a much more unified party under the chairmanship of a hard-hitting Oshiomhole have raised the bar far higher than the PDP had expected. Until June 23, the PDP had been indulged by the party’s NEC under the urbane and unassuming leadership of Chief John Odigie-Oyegun. That political indulgence had served as an oxygen mask for the prostrate PDP, which, at the time, should have been put where it rightly belongs through precise and sustained narratives by the APC.
Had Oshiomhole been the chairman at that period when the nation was daily regaled by revelations of corrupt acts perpetrated by the PDP and officials of its government particularly from 2011 to 2015, he would have robustly deployed the platform of his office to further deconstruct the nature of the plundering administration and the characters that superintended it. Today, Oshiomhole has stepped in as national chairman to the discomfiture of the opposition: all gloves are off for bare-knuckled fights with the floundering opposition. It is too late for the PDP to stop the macabre dance. Regardless, Oshiomhole will take the wind out of its sail, deploying his huge capacity for wits and grits.
Viva Nigeria! Viva APC! Viva Buhari! Viva Oshiomhole! Welcome to a new era in political party administration. The combination of Buhari and Oshiomhole would produce robust government-party leaderships that would be complementary in their vast flourish. Oshiomhole is not ready to take prisoners. He is in the mood to completely decimate the opposition. He has the intellectual magnitude, the oratorical clout and the sheer fecundity to deploy the power of logic in the articulation and elucidation of party manifestoes and government policies. He is very efficient and utilitarian. He will consistently and persistently intervene in very coherent defence of policy decisions and choices by the federal government.
Indeed, the almost four years of tolerating the irritability of the PDP are over for good. The opposition is advised not to joke with Oshiomhole. Enough of political sarcasms and innuendoes that had been thrown as barbs at the APC and Buhari for a period of eon! PDP’s characteristic criticisms that had bordered essentially on ad hominem; that had been highly tendentious most times and, at other times, vitriolic and incendiary should be moderated if the opposition must enjoy little peace. In fact, the PDP is now in between the devil and the deep blue sea. Whether it becomes irresponsible or not, it should know that it has Oshiomhole to contend with per time.
The role of the opposition is not, as it were, to cry wolf where there is none or to become irresponsible in raising the alarm before international organisations without verifiable factual bases nor is it to play on our centrifugal proclivities at the expense of our centripetal and agglutinating fulcrum. The PDP and Oshiomhole’s opposite side- Prince Uche Secondus- will come under the sledge hammer if they continue with these odious tactics. Clarifications: the APC-led administration is not averse to criticisms, but the criticisms must be constructive.