2015: PDP’s Dirty Tactics Muzzle APC

Mr Osita Okechukwu, a chieftain of the All Progressives Congress (APC) captured the tension in his party thus: “I think the impeachment gale is politically motivated. If you notice, the 20 allegations levelled against Nyako were the same 20 allegations levelled against him in 2008 both in letters and items. And the PDP leadership protected […]

Mr Osita Okechukwu, a chieftain of the All Progressives Congress (APC) captured the tension in his party thus: “I think the impeachment gale is politically motivated. If you notice, the 20 allegations levelled against Nyako were the same 20 allegations levelled against him in 2008 both in letters and items. And the PDP leadership protected him. So, the question is, if Nyako has remained in the PDP, could he have been impeached? The answer is no. So, that is why I’m saying that it is politically motivated.
“If you go to the one in Nasarawa, you have seen that the people are on the streets which demonstrate his support base. They said he diverted money for SURE-P to train youths. Part of the SURE-P money is meant for youths. They are being trained as apprentices for the advancement of social services. They said the governor did extra-budgetary allocation in 2012. In 2013, they approved the budget of the same governor, containing most of those items in what could have made a supplementary budget in 2012. And they didn’t fight. This does not happen until the APC concluded its National Convention.”
Okechukwu’s position tallies with that of the National Chairman of the party, Chief John Oyegun, who condemned the sack of Admiral Nyako. The party’s chairman alleged money politics and arm-twisting.
Apart from the impeachment of Alhaji Balarabe Musa, a Peoples Redemption Party (PDP) Governor in Kaduna State in 1981 by the majority and ruling party, National Party of Nigeria (NPN), it would be the first time since the return of Nigeria to democratic rule that under the influence of the ruling party at the centre an impeachment of an opposition governor would take pleace. In previous cases, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) governors were impeached but were replaced by PDP deputy governors. In the case of the current trend of impeachment and threats of impeachment, the ruling PDP is accused of removing opposition parties governors in order to replace them with PDP apologists.
The current development is seen as the signature of the current PDP’s National Chairman, Alhaji Adamu Mu’azu, who assumed the position in January after the removal of Alhaji Bamaga Tukur. Shortly after his inauguration, he made the following promises: “PDP shall regain its glory if there is justice, fairness and equity entrenched by ensuring a level-playing field for all members aspiring for elective positions, as well as appointments.” He said he would equally ensure that he reconciled all the aggrieved members and bring back defectors, so as to move the party forward. “One of the main tasks ahead of me as the national chairman of the party, is to ensure that all our members who defected to the opposition party, returned to PDP,” he added. However, instead of these defectors returning on their own, other means are being used to reclaim the various states lost.

Nasarawa: Money politics, promise of automatic ticket to lawmakers threaten Al-Makura’s seat
In Nasarawa State, denials continued to come from the PDP, the Presidency and the state Assembly over sponsored plots to impeach Governor Umaru Tanko Al-Makura, but unfolding events have put questions on such denials. First, earlier denials that the deputy governor, Dameshi Barau Luka, was going to dump the APC for the PDP, in the initial stage to enthrone the PDP in the state with the subsequent impeachment of Al-Makura, were rubbished by the eventual defection of the deputy on March 3. He had claimed he defected because Al-Makura betrayed him.
Then came the ideas of probing the governor, after an initial one in November of 2013, which was dumped midway. The probe was rushed, and a report into the investigation was hurriedly compiled. Few days after, 16 of the 24 members of the Assembly rushed back from an on-going recess and held an emergency session where they passed a motion of impeachment containing allegations of fraud and abuse of office. The deputy governor was spared in the impeachment notice.
Sources said a member of the National Conference in Abuja brokered the deal for members, part of which was that they would benefit from automatic ticket for re-election to return to the House in 2015, an allegation Mohammed Baba Ibaku (PDP, Udege/Loko) swiftly denied. An earlier report had also alleged that 20 members were invited penultimate week and promised N1 billion as gratification to impeach Al-Makura, an allegation Ibaku and the PDP spokesman, Olisa Metu swiftly denied.  These allegations came penultimate week. It was followed by series of meetings in  Lafia, first with the PDP members of the National Assembly, and second, with the state PDP structure.  
The allegations also said that an impeachment notice was already written ahead of the planned members’ return from the recess, with inputs from the Presidency, the PDP national leadership, as well as the PDP members of the National Assembly. Incidentally, the impeachment notice was greeted with anger from the people, as protesters poured into the streets of Lafia, in opposition. Government had to move in the military to contain the protesters, but it is not clear what would happen next as traditional rulers and opinion leaders have waded into crisis, ostensibly to halt the impeachment moves.
 
Borno:  Sheriff throws weight around, promises lawmakers tickets
The PDP and Abuja seem to have given former Governor Ali Modu Sheriff of Borno State all what he needs to enable him take over Borno from the opposition APC.  The sudden reopening of the Maiduguri International Airport, last Monday, for Sheriff’s private aircraft to land gave credence to the support he has been receiving from The Presidency. The airport was shut down on July 27 over what the Federal Government called “security concerns.” The development forced top government officials in Borno State, including Governor Kashim Shettima, to remain indoors.  Besides reopening the airport, dozens of soldiers, armed with sophisticated weapons gave cover to the August visitor who confirmed to his supporters that he was in Maiduguri “to bury the APC,” a party of which he was a founding member.
Findings reveal that beside Kano State, Borno State, because of its population,  is strategic to the PDP’s elaborate agenda of gaining substantive control in northern Nigeria in order to consolidate President Goodluck Jonathan’s ambition to contest in 2015. Since its creation, unlike its contemporaries, Borno was never controlled by the ruling government at the centre. In fact, it is believed that its people are “traditionally leftist and perpetually opposed to the ruling government.”
Sources say part of the mandate of Sheriff is to use both members of the National Assembly and those in the Borno State House of Assembly to take away power from Governor Shettima.
Few days after he left Maiduguri where he held series of meetings with his supporters, three members of the House of Representatives, including Abdurrahman Terab (Bama/Ngala/Kala bage); Peter Biye (Gwoza/Damboa/Chibok) and Isa Lawan Kangar (Abadam/Guzamala/Kukawa/Mobbar) defected to the PDP. There are allegations that they were “hugely induced” with both money and promise of automatic ticket by the ruling party. There are insinuations that Senator Ma’aji Lawan may cross-carpet to the PDP, join hands with Sheriff and deliver Borno North Senatorial Zone and in return get automatic ticket to return to the Senate. On the other hand, Senator Zanna, who defeated Sheriff in 2011 may move to the APC in order to remain relevant.
At the level of the State House of Assembly, our correspondent reports that the rank is sharply divided between loyalists of Sheriff and the incumbent governor. There are reports that 17 of the 28 members of the Assembly have expressed their willingness to follow Sheriff to the PDP. During his recent visit, some of the members had secret meetings with the former governor and have been allegedly induced financially, as well as a promise for automatic ticket if they decamp to the PDP and thereafter proceed with plans to impeach the governor.
A few of the members who spoke with our correspondent debunked the allegation of inducement: “As far as I am concerned, the Borno Assembly is intact and absolutely loyal to the APC and the administration of Borno State. Nobody gave me money and even if given, I would not succumb,” one of the members, who spoke in confidence said.
Sources close to Sheriff indicated that the former governor is in the good books of Mu’azu. “What Ahmadu Muazu wants is somebody who will deliver Borno and he has seen that in Sheriff. The issue is not so and so persons are founding members of the PDP, rather, how have they fared since 1999?”.

In Osun, it’s show your voter’s card, get N10,000
Two weeks before the Osun State governorship election, the two main political parties in the state, the All Progressives Congress (APC) and the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) have continued to trade words over different accusations and allegations.  The Director of Publicity, Research and Strategy for Osun APC, Barrister Kunle Oyatomi has accused the PDP of planning to use money and bags of rice to win Osun’s governorship election on August 9, 2014.
The APC spokesperson alleged the National Chairman of PDP, Alhaji Ahmadu Adamu Muazu, during his visit to Ile-Ife on a courtesy call on a traditional ruler, the Olu of Olode, Oba Olajide Omisore, who is also the father of PDP candidate, Senator Iyiola Omisore assured the monarch that he had nothing to worry about his son’s ambition because the federal government had the power and the money to make him win. However, the APC’s spokesman said the PDP would not succeed in Osun because Osun people are not hungry.  
“The insinuation by the PDP National Chairman that the total value of an Osun voter is a bag of rice and N10,000 constitutes an abominable insult on the Yoruba nation and for that alone, the people of Osun will show the PDP that we are neither hungry nor ready to be slaves.”
He added that “When the National Chairman of the ruling party goes to an old man’s house to boast of power and the illegal use of money and materials to buy votes to win elections, then what further proof do we need to convince us that bandits are in charge in Abuja?”   The APC spokesperson also accused Presidency of stirring religious sentiment against the sitting governor.
In reaction to the APC’s allegations, the Director of Publicity for Omisore Governorship Campaign Committee, who is also the spokesperson of Osun PDP, Prince Diran Odeyemi said APC had no programme and could not convince Osun people on why they should vote for Aregbesola again. He said the PDP was busy with campaign and that the party did not have time for all the unfounded allegations coming from APC.
 “Information at our disposal reveals that APC plans to pay N15,000 per voter in Osun. APC has already stored many bags of rice and cartons of Indomie noodles. They want to give money, rice and Indomie noodles among other things to our people to induce them to vote for Aregbesola. But our people are smart enough to know that APC is full of deceit and lies.
Odeyemi added that nobody can use religion to deceive the people of Osun State as there are Muslims in every Christian family and there are Christians in every Muslim family in the state.
Meanwhile, the diatribe has taken an interesting dimension with latest developments involving the Customs. The APC has accused the Nigerian Custom Service of releasing thousands of bags of expired rice confiscated several months ago from smugglers to the PDP for distribution to voters in Osun, ahead of the August 9 governorship election in the state.
Oyatomi made this allegation while speaking with journalists in Osogbo yesterday, adding that “Osun citizens should therefore be warned that their lives are at risk from PDP poisoned rice. The party recalled that it had warned citizens earlier of PDP’s chairman boast that they will win the election with a bag of rice and at least N10,000 to each voter.”
But, Prince Odeyemi said the confiscated rice was brought into the country by APC.  

Edo: Police help suspended lawmakers into Chambers
In Edo State, the PDP in Abuja has been accused of fuelling the crisis in the State House of Assembly to destabilise ahead of the 2015 elections. The four suspended lawmakers, Hon Jude Ise-Iden, Partrick Osayimwen, Friday Ogieriakhi and one other, who decamped from the APC after the party’s congresses, were alleged to have been given N75million bribe each to work for the impeachment of the governor, Comrade Adams Oshiomole of the APC.
The four embattled lawmakers had sought an injunction from the Federal High Court, Benin, restraining the House from suspending them, but Justice A. M. Liman declined to answer their prayers, saying, “the disciplinary power of the House is not subject to the judicial review of the Court. Accordingly the application to restrain the 2nd Respondent from suspending the applicants from the House is hereby refused.”
When the lawmakers could not get what they wanted through the courts, they resorted to force and security might. The suspended members, along with the Assistant Inspector General of Police, Zone 5, and the Edo State Commissioner of Police, have continued to create tension and chaos in the House of Assembly and its environs by forcefully entering into the premises and chambers of the House of Assembly, aided by numerous thugs and officers and men of the Nigeria Police.
The APC believes that the actions of the suspended members and the Police were at the prodding of the hierarchy of the PDP.
In its own version the PDP explained the crisis actually started because some members of the APC defected to the PDP. The PDP chairman in the state Chief Dan Orbih said the suspension of the PDP members was illegal and cannot stand.  The PDP chairman said: “We wonder how elected members can be said to be forcefully gaining entrance into the ‘premises’ wherein they are elected to represent their constituencies or how can they be seen to be interfering with the sitting activities and other functions of a House wherein which they are elected to represent their constituencies.  
As the war rages on, APC has condemned what it called the acts of impunity, indiscipline and political rascality by members of the PDP in the Edo State House of Assembly, saying that such actions negated the rule of law and must not be seen to be rewarded.
Oyegun on a visit to Governor Oshiomohle had said, “Besides the Rivers State Governor, Rotimi Amaechi, you are the current target of attack in their quest to destabilize APC governors. For this simple reason you are not alone. What the APC has come to realise is a properly mapped-out war by the PDP to destabilise the APC. The rate at which institutions of state, especially security institutions, are being undermined and destroyed can no longer be accepted and tolerated”, he added.
Reacting to the allegations, the  Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), said that it was not interested in the alleged move to impeach Governor Adams Oshiomhole of Edo State, saying that the governor was free to do the work for which he was elected by the people. The party added the allegation by APC that PDP bribed lawmakers with N75million to impeach the governor was unfounded and a figment of “their troubled imagination.”
Reacting to the threats to APC, a chieftain, Alhaji Buba Galadima, in an interview told Sunday Trust that the PDP was executing the plot it designed to take over six out of the 16 states being controlled by the APC, before the 2015 general elections.
He blamed the current plight of the party on its leaders whom, he said, because of the way people were coming into APC, became complacent and were behaving as if they were already in power. “That scared the PDP to its bone marrow and they sat back, strategized and came in full force to destroy the APC. They designed to take over Ekiti through a supposedly ballot box. They have also designed to take over Osun and Edo by force. They were in Edo for weeks just that the governor was stubborn.  They will soon deploy the military to teach him a lesson”.
Galadima said the impeached Adamawa State governor, Murtala Nyako was removed not because he embezzled public money, but for reasons people might not understand.  “If it was embezzlement, I cannot see any governor or the president escaping impeachment.  Nyako was removed because the Presidency accused him of making a compendium of events in the North-East and sent it to the International Criminal Court. This was Nyako’s crime,” he said.
 On the raging impeachment crisis in Nasarawa, he said his party, to an extent, was at fault. “He thought his hand work would bail him out. Unfortunately, in Nigeria it is not how much you put on the ground or how much work you have done that will make you popular. It is how much you give to people to squander that will endear you to them. If not, governors like Kwankwaso, Fashola and Amosun should have been praised by the people for the developments they have carried out in their respective states.”
He also alleged that the PDP and the Presidency were plotting to remove the governor of Borno state.  He said “I heard people talking of Rivers, but Rivers is not on their card. They wanted to use the security situation in Borno because they realize election may not hold there and once they take the state they can sit in Government House to write two million votes for Jonathan in 2015.”
The APC chieftain stated that what APC needs to do is to restructure its strategy and recruit people from all over the country to protect its votes in 2015.
However, speaking with our correspondent, Chief Olisa Metuh, the PDP’s National Publicity Secretary said, the allegations against his party were unfounded. According to him,  “When they lose election, they say we shared rice. At a time when they couldn’t get the majority in the House of Representatives, they said that we gave them money. Every day, they keep on raising one allegation after the other. They are a bunch of noise makers. Have they ever accepted defeat? Has the APC ever accepted defeat for anything?
He added that the “PDP has been humble enough to accept defeat in several areas even in elections. The APC has never accepted defeat in anything. Every single defeat, there must be a factor that is responsible for it. It’s either they claim that we get military support or we buy it. Are they trying to say that the largest party in Africa cannot be accorded due respect publicly? Are they saying that we do not have the capacity to attain any victory?
Chief Metu went further to say that, “On the issue of APC impeachment, we are happy Nyako has said that President Jonathan is not involved. Though the people he had problem with may be PDP legislators, he has problems with an arm of government. The constitution provides separation of powers. The PDP, as a political party, does not meddle in legislative matters. We have no business whatsoever to do with any House of Assembly. Every governor should handle his case very well. That is the problem of the APC. They are playing God in Nigerian politics. They are playing God in the affairs of election. They are playing God in the affairs of Nigeria. They cannot play God. The APC should stop playing God. Only God cannot make mistakes. Only God cannot lose. Political parties lose positions and accept losses. The APC cannot be equated to God.”
However, Mr Okechukwu would not agree that the impeachment of Nyako and the planned ones are natural. He said, “It’s not that I condone corruption of any scale. But what I’m saying is that this one is politically motivated. It’s the same Jonathan that was begging the stakeholders in Adamawa not to touch Nyako. It’s the same Jonathan that aided him to come back for second term. The leadership in Adamawa sat down and begged Jonathan to give them another man, saying he was not even a friend to himself. So, you ask them when they discovered that Nyako had started stealing. I’m not defending him on account that he wasn’t corrupt. What I’m saying is that his impeachment is politically motivated. It was the PDP that imposed him on the Adamawa people. The PDP strongly sustained him. The PDP rigged for him in 2012. I participated in the election in Adamawa in 2012. I went to support General Buba Marwa. I knew what happened on the ground. But immediately he joined the five governors that defected to the APC, he became PDP’s Number One enemy. That is the difference.”