APC And The Tough Road To 2015 The emerging mega party, the All Progressives Congress (APC) had last month, boasted that no fewer than 15 governors elected on the platform of the ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) would join its fold. To many, the Jigawa state governor, Alhaji Sule Lamido, an avowed progressive within the PDP was among those expected to dump the PDP and join the APC. But last week, Governor Lamido gave the APC a shocker. He not only denied media reports that he would join the merger group; he called it a political fraud. DONALD OJOGO revisits the new twist in the APC/aggrieved PDP Governors’ romance amidst the castigation of ACN governors as corrupt by one of their own, Yinka Odumakin. The Jigawa state governor, Alhaji Sule Lamido put to rest speculations that he and a few of his colleagues who are aggrieved within the ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) were on their way to the All Progressive Congress (APC). The governor who spoke to a team of three journalists in Dutse, the Jigawa state capital, equally opined that former Head of State, Major-General Mohammadu Buhari (rtd) was naïve in his romance with the new APC political setting, adding too, that promoters of the merger group do not make any difference. “I’m highly amused. Do you know what they call self-wish? These are local propaganda which is terribly elementary. In 1999, we had PDP, AD and APP. After fourteen years in 2013, it is PDP only that has remained. AD had gone from AD into AC, into ACN, into something else and now going to APC. “APP had gone into ANPP and then later on they are going to something; they are going to APC. “I would say he should be walking with his eyes wide open because those around him in 1999 were somewhere else. Were they with him? Our people will say if you see a horse fully dressed walking alone in the forest, it must have thrown the owner off. Don’t ride it because it threw somebody away. “I have been wondering; they abuse the PDP that we are murderers, party of riggers, a party of whatever – it is evil. Why do they want murderer governors in their midst? Why do they want us to be there? “Number two, this so called APC is again what you call political fraud because you may change the nomenclature – change it ten times over. Did people in the newly named party come from heaven? They are the same old people”, the governor said. However, the governor’s assertion was greeted with a curious silence in the camp of the APC as none of the principal officers of the association’s interim leadership was prepared to react to it. But as the silence continued, an estranged ally of the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) and erstwhile Publicity Secretary of the Afenifere, Yinka Odumakin accused the party’s leadership of corruption. He said, unlike those before them, the current political leadership in the southwest think about themselves alone and not about the general interest of the people. Odumakin, who was Buhari’s Spokesman and Chieftain of the Save Nigeria Group, specifically accused governors elected on the platform ACN of awarding one Kilometer of Road construction for N1 Billion. Boasting about his knowledge of Yoruba political leaders, Odumakin said; “I can tell you authoritatively that the most dangerous and terrible tendency in Yoruba politics is the house of deceit that Tinubu represents.” Odumakin, recalled how he dragged former Governor Alao Akala before the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, for awarding One Kilometer of road for N50 Million, said most Yoruba leaders are “greedy.” “Between 1999 and now, I’ve related at close quarters with most actors in the Yoruba political space at close quarters and I know the weaknesses and strengths of all. “Only those who have sold their souls will ignore this fact; there has never been any such greedy bunch in our nation- not under “Demo” or even PDP. “When Tinubu turned “60, ACN states contributed N1b for a bash, nobody tried that in Yorubaland before. “Chief Adebanjo was chairman of AD in 1999 and not one relation of his got a ticket unlike Tinubu whose wife is a senator, son-in-law a Rep, sister-in-law a House member in Lagos and daughter now Iyaloja via imposition . But as Buhari’s Congress for Progressive Change (CPC) denied Odumakin as spokesman for the former Head of State and indeed, castigated him for the sweeping allegations against the southwest governors, ACN’s spokesman, Lai Mohammed parried Lamido’s statement. The party CPC, in a statement by the National Publicity Secretary, Rotimi Fasakin, said; “As a matter of fact , “Mr. Yinka Odumakin has not functioned as the spokesman for General Muhammadu Buhari since 2011, shortly after the disposal of the CPC’s Presidential petition at the Supreme Court . “As a Party, we are not unaware of the mischief embedded in the reporting that was meant to achieve very politically capricious purposes. We do not know whose interests the reporters and the Newspaper are serving. “ But let it be stated that, much as the said story was embarrassing to our amiable National leader, General Muhammadu Buhari, we wish to disabuse the minds of our friends, teeming supporters and merger partners that this hogwash was a cynical display of unprofessional journalism. “Our National leader, General Muhammadu Buhari, respected for nobility and enviable character traits, is far removed from the grotesque characterization of frivolity by the reporters of the Newspapers” Fashakin said. On his own, Lai Mohammed said he would not glorify such comments by the Jigawa governor with any response. “I won’t respond to such comments; it means glorifying the comments. If they say our party is a political fraud, when the 2015 elections come, they will know who the fraud is. “You can as well take that as the response of our party to the Jigawa governor’s comment on the APC; that is if at all he made that statement as alleged”, Mohammed told LEADERSHIP Sunday on telephone. But both reactions notwithstanding, the PDP said in a statement signed by its acting National Publicity Secretary, Mr Tony Okeke, in Abuja that the CPC’s action is “another clear example that the opposition in the country is a “whitewashed tomb.” According to PDP, “This damming verdict did not come from our great party neither did it emanate from one of the fractious, ever disagreeing opposition outside the merger camp. It came from the heart of the merger itself. “Yinka Odumakin, General Buhari’s spokesman only bowed to the humanity in him, underwent purgation while succumbing to a self righting catharsis. It is a pity that the top rank of his party, threatened by this heavy revelation, is making futile efforts to discredit the truth in its sacredness. Wondering why the CPC did not join hands with “its cohorts in the ACN to tackle and disprove the allegation of corruption hauled at its face by one of its own,” the statement argued that the PDP is not surprised that the CPC would attempt to deny and distance itself from the spokesman of its leader. “The ACN, CPC, their major and minor allies in the APC have again shown that they are whitewashed tombs, which look beautiful on the outside but in the inside, are full of the unclean. “Where again is the lie in the fact that the ACN practises clique tyranny with the wife of its leader a Senator; son-in-law, a member of the House of Representatives; daughter-in-law in the Lagos State House of Assembly and daughter, the President-General of the Association of Nigerian Market Women and Men imposed by her father?, the ruling party queried. A chieftain of the PDP from the southwest, Dr. Suleiman Adepoju told LEADERSHIP Sunday that the comments made by both Lamido Odumakin should not be trivialized by the opposition. “I think the opposition should not just trivialize the comments made by the duo of Lamido and Odumakin because they are very instructive comments. “For Lamido, he has succeeded in telling Nigerians that all the noise about PDP governors joining the APC was propaganda after all. “The bombshell by Odumakin is just apt and that is why no one has come out to say a word in the so-called progressives’ family that has deceived the people of the south west; at least, Odumakin knows them all and he has only succeeded in exposing their deceit”, he said.
Posted on: Sun, 28 Jul 2013 05:51:00 +0000
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