The recent outing by Segun Oni, Obasanjo’s surrogate who was removed by the judiciary after 42 months as governor of Ekiti state, as APC Acting National Chairman, was not only a demonstration of APC’s insensitivity to its supporters but also an assault on the sensibilities of Nigerians that not too long ago, watched in shock as APC allowed David Mark, often regarded as ‘a veteran of coup plotting’, operating according to Ekweremadu from inside his sitting room all through the night along with PDP stalwarts, surreptitiously hijacked power, which Nigerians worked so hard to secure. But for the underestimation of the desperation of PDP leaders trying to cover their past by APC leaders, Nigerians never voted for a National Assembly that will spend N300m on toys while over 20 states of the federation are unable to pay a minimum wage of N18, 000, or a senate where 83 elected senators will lock up the senate chambers in solidarity with one of their members who has a case before the Code of Conduct Tribunal.
Yet APC, at the beginning held so much promise for Nigeria. At its inauguration, this column in a piece titled ‘What Nigerians expect of Buhari and Tinubu’ (Thursday Jan 31, 2013), had said: ‘What Buhari, Tinubu and their colleagues are being called upon to do was not just an inauguration of party to win an election since that job has been made easy by PDP’s self-inflicted damage, but an inauguration of a modernising party to replace the current political parties moulded in the military image, with garrison commanders as party leaders’. What the times called for, the column added ‘are men with eyes on history; men who would emulate the federalists Hamilton and Adams, the Republicans Jefferson and Madison of USA of the 1790s, the British enlightened elite that established parties as modernizing agents after Britain’s reforms of 1832, their French counterparts who did the same after French revolution of 1789 and the Japanese leaders after the Meiji Restoration of 1867’. We can now also add Vladimir Putin and Dmitry Medvedev United Russia Party of 2001.
But sadly, three years down the line, APC leaders are yet to take control of their party. The betrayal of the electorate by APC started immediately after a victory it did not work hard enough to earn. Buhari and Tinubu, men of great faith trusted men of little faith in their party instead of adhering to the advice of Nicollo Machiavelli, the 16 century Italian diplomat and political theorist, to the Prince, on how to acquire and hold on to power. Before the duo knew what was going on, Atiku Abubakar, Bukola Saraki and Dogara, all PDP men in APC cloak, working hand in gloves with David Mark, APC had been thrown into disarray. The party does not seem to have fully recovered from that initial shock.
At a time Buhari and Tinubu should have re-established their control over their party by expelling Saraki, Dogara and their discredited sponsors, Buhari said the treatment for an eye sore was not eye removal obviously unaware the two eyes had been blinded. That provided an opportunity for Saraki and other PDP men in APC cloak to consolidate their position by substituting the party’s choice of leadership of the two houses with their own choices. They went on to corner as many chairmanship positions of important committees of the two houses as the ruling party. They also went on to spite the ruling party by bending the house rules to accommodate ex-Governor Godswill Akpabio, Saraki’s major backer as minority leader.
Segun Oni’s emergence as acting chairman of APC, to many observers is indefensible. This is not to say Oni is not eminently qualified for the position. Oni by all means is an illustrious Nigerian. In fact in my criticism of his tenure as governor of Ekiti State, my argument was that by orientation, disposition and my knowledge of him in our ‘Great Ife’ days, he was too refined to be associated with what we today know as PDP 16 years’ legacy. For me, ‘that his attempt to serve his people ended in disaster was due more to the Nigerian factor than personal failings’. He was a victim of desperate godfathers such as Obasanjo and Bode George, who imposed him as PDP candidate despite coming third in his party primaries, employed the services of General Olurin, Maurice Iwu and Madam Ayoka to fraudulently proclaim him governor after an electoral defeat and went on to procure the services of pliable judges that secured for him victory after victory at the tribunals until the Appeal court declared his 42 months in government illegal .
In a piece on this pages dated December 5, 2010, I had described Oni as a ‘man with a persevering spirit, who while in office was not overbearing but had carried himself with dignity even as he fought with stubborn doggedness, the crime of illegitimacy’’. “Of all the South-west governors, forcefully and fraudulently imposed, Oni was simply the best behaved”, the column concluded. But if there are people who consider the a above appraisal is value-laden, Dr Kayode Fayemi, whose mandate was usurped for 42 months has also personally acknowledged Oni as a man who ‘chose honour in spite of opportunity to cut deals with the presidency’ and collect billions to build palaces’ among the squalor of his people like some ex-governors have done.
But Segun Oni’s personal attributes cannot obviate the reality that he was removed by the judiciary for illegally occupying the governorship seat of Ekiti for 42 months. If APC therefore respects the sensibilities of its supporters and the feeling of decent Nigerians, Oni’s controversial antecedents ought to have precluded him from holding the high office of Deputy National Chairman or acting national chairman of APC, the acclaimed party for change. APC reserves the right to play the ostrich and pretends it does not know Obasanjo hardly sows where he will not reap in ten-folds or that Atiku, his former deputy, and APC stalwart is not a man obsessed only with becoming Nigerian president, but the party has to respect the sensibilities of discerning Nigerians that voted for it because they made a distinction between it and PDP.
However, in the final analysis, APC must not fail. The consequences of failure are unimaginable. If Buhari and Tinubu therefore wish to be remembered by history, they will have to take control of their party from the garrison commanders and turn it to a modernising agent similar to what obtained in pre-independent Nigeria. With prostrate economy and our children’s abridged future due to self-serving liberalization and privatization policies of the military and its offshoot-PDP, there can be no better time for a modernising party that can confront hooligans who confiscated our national wealth for private use just as Vladimir Putin and Dmitry Medvedev have used their United Russia, a party without ideology formed only in 2001 and controlling only 238 seats of the 450 strong state Duma to turn Russia from candidate for Western Aid to an undisputed world power. The choice is before them.
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