2015: Jonathan’s foot soldiers in South-West unveiled Ahead of 2015 general elections, there have been furtive efforts for the control of South-West by political parties and their stalwarts. Unlike in the First and Second Republics, when only politicians of Northern extraction were responsible for who got what, when and how, the calculation had since changed, no thanks to the nemesis of the Northern oligarchy, Chief Olusegun Obasanjo, who emerged president at the inception of the present democratic dispensation. With the growing dissension within the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and the North’s loss of its traditional allies, the South-South and South-East, the political arithmetic had since been altered. In 2015, who gets the South-West will rule Nigeria. It is the scramble for the region that informed the merger deal of the All Progressives Congress (APC), of which the forces behind merger reasoned, would give them the Presidency in 2015. Even as his party, the PDP is facing serious threat of internal implosion, as a result of crisis of confidence between its national chairman, Alhaji Bamanga Tukur, and certain governors on the party platform from the North-West, President Goodluck Jonathan is leaving nothing to chance ahead of the 2015. The art of subterfuge is an asset in politics. As Jonathan keeps the nation guessing over his 2015 presidential ambition, admonishing those in elective offices to face the business of governance, his foot soldiers are busy testing the waters. Daily Sun unveils some of his foot soldiers, in the South-West. Buruji Kashamu: He is a stalwart of PDP from Ogun State. He rarely gets mentioned in the media but the chairman of Kasmal Group, is, perhaps, the most influential PDP stalwart in the South-West today. He was the motivating force behind the litigations that led to the emergence of the Adebayo Dayo-led faction as the authentic PDP executive in the state and ultimately, the chain of events that saw to the exit of loyalists of Obasanjo from Wadata Plaza. Armed with the judgments of Justices Okon Abang and Abdul Kafarati, of the Federal High Court in Lagos and Abuja, respectively, which declared as improper, the zonal congress that produced Segun Oni, Olagunsoye Oyinlola and Bode Mustapha, as South-West zonal chairman, national secretary and auditor, respectively, the PDP and the Presidency were able to shut the gate of the party’s national secretariat on Obasanjo’s men. In Kashamu, a regular visitor at Tukur’s residence in Abuja, the likes of Bode George, Ishola Filani and Shuaib Oyedokun find a good ally in the annihilation of Obasanjo’s men in South-West PDP and the 2015 Jonathan presidency project. Bode George: A chieftain of the PDP from Lagos State, he was former deputy national chairman, South-West, of the party. The former military governor of old Ondo State was one of the confidants of Obasanjo. He had since parted ways with the former president. With the parting of ways, Obasanjo lost an ally in his former Man Friday. George has since been taking his pound of flesh. Few instances will suffice. While Obasanjo desperately wanted former national chairman of the party, Dr. Ahmadu Ali, to succeed him as chairman, Board of Trustees (BoT), George, Ebenezer Babatope, Shuaib Oyedokun and few other members of that organ of the party from South-West gave their support to Jonathan’s candidate, Chief Tony Anenih, who eventually emerged. Daily Sun checks also revealed George orchestrated the endorsement of Jonathan for 2015 presidency by the South-West zone of the party at a zonal meeting on June 17, 2013, in Lagos. In a communique signed by the chairman, South-West Caretaker Committee of PDP, Filani, the zone said the endorsement was as a result of Jonathan’s leadership qualities and transformation efforts. It commended Jonathan on the measures he had taken so far in tackling the current security challenges dogging the country. Kashamu moved the motion for the endorsement of Jonathan for second term and it was seconded by Chief Tola Odulaja, a chieftain of the party from Ogun State. Fredrick Fasheun: Factional leader of the Oodua Peoples’ Congress (OPC), he has been engaged in sustained diatribe with chieftains of the Action Congress of Nigeria (APC) over his moves to resuscitate the defunct Unity Party of Nigeria (UPN). The ACN has alleged that he was being used by the Presidency to create confusion in the South-West ahead of 2015, an allegation Fasheun had since denied. He claimed that the ruling party in the zone had lost the moral authority to speak for the Yoruba race, as a result of its sudden alliance with Congress for Progressive Change (CPC) and the All Nigerian Peoples’ Party (ANPP), political parties, which, he submitted, were meant to promote Hausa-Fulani oligarchy: “When Action Group was there, it was representing the voice of South-West. These political parties at the regions wanted to attain Pan-Nigeria outlook, but none of them was able to attain that status. ACN was regarded as the political voice of the South-West in the scheme of things. But when merger came and merger went and it was glaring that a political voice of Yoruba people went to merge with the political voice of Hausa-Fulani, the Yoruba people felt being outside in the scheme of things. They no longer have any political voice.” As he struggles to blot off the toga of a quisling of Jonathan, Nigerians are also asking questions over alleged pipelines monitoring contracts for his faction of OPC. Fasheun admitted he applied for pipelines monitoring contract: “Yes, OPC applied to NNPC two years ago for a contract to monitor oil pipelines within the South-West, because we have the capacity to do so. Though we have not been given the contract yet, we are still hopeful, contrary to the report by the ACN that we have been given a monthly contract of N2.4b by the FG. “I control a group of Nigerians, six million strong Nigerians. Do we have a stake in Nigeria? Do we qualify to apply for contracts, if we have applied for that contract for about two and a half years, do we not deserve a response from the government? “For your information, up till now government has not awarded that contract. People are telling lies to Nigerians and to the whole world to gain political advantage. When we get the award, it is not Fasheun that is going to stay on the pipelines; it is at least 40,000 members of the group that is going to do the work. We have already informed them.” Shuaib Oyedokun: A PDP chieftain from Osun State, he was former deputy national chairman, PDP South-West zone. Daily Sun investigation revealed that he is in league with other founding members of the party from the zone, who are fed up with the alleged highhandedness of Obasanjo. A reluctant convert to the Jonathan 2015 presidency campaign, Oyedokun last June took Obasanjo to the cleaners over the latter’s subtle indictment of Jonathan administration in Dutse, Jigawa State: “Anybody who has benefitted from the PDP and is attempting to damage the PDP, God will damage the person. I am bound to talk because I am one of the founding fathers of the PDP in this country. Some of the documents forming the PDP were done in this office. “It was Obasanjo that convinced us to support Jonathan. He convincingly sold Jonathan to us that we had no choice but to support Jonathan. If he sold Jonathan to us and he is now disagreeing with him, he should call us and tell us his reasons. “If he is putting up another person within the party, that is okay. But insinuations are rife that he wants to move them (people) to another party. Where you are being respected, you must tread softly. “Obasanjo has put us in such a precarious position that anything he says, people will say he is speaking on behalf of the South-West and that he has the final say. No! He has no final say. I am talking for the majority of the leaders in the South-West. We will stand up to him this time around. Obasanjo sowed the seed of discord that is germinating in the party.”
Posted on: Mon, 02 Sep 2013 10:17:18 +0000
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