Icheoku says the election has been fought and won without the help of the northern elders forum and despite the overt as well as covert effort by them to sabotage President Jonathan's election victory. Now is the time to discipline those master-minds of anti-Jonathan activities within the Peoples Democratic Party; among which are Ibrahim Badamosi Babangida, Abubakar Atiku, Aliyu Mohammed Gusau and Mallam Adamu Ciroma. These four northern tribal elders and renegade members of the PDP, who not only refused to support the PDP's candidate President Jonathan but went rogue on the party by actively sabotaging President Jonathan's election-effort, joining forces with the opposition parties should be punished.
Election has consequences and now that the election has been won without their help and notwithstanding their active sabotage, Icheoku says let those who made the victory possible send a strong message of their disgust to these miscreant saboteurs that what they did was wrong and unacceptable to the party. Icheoku says these four bitter and unforgiving elderly men are the real enemies within the PDP and they are the most dangerous type to have around; therefore they should be expelled from the party without further delay. It is not a case or question of carrying everyone along or trying to be magnanimous in victory; no, a case as this one presented by these four northern feudalistic apologists, should be specifically treated on its merit and/or demerit. It is imperative that a strong message is sent to other future wanna-be saboteurs of the party, whose personal parochial regional interest may outweigh that of the national interest of the party, that such anti-party activities shall not be tolerated. This will help to encourage those party faithfuls who stuck their necks out despite what was unpopular in their respective regions and worked their butts off to ensure victory for the party's candidate that their good effort as good party faithfuls were noted. Further that the PDP appreciates their loyalty, effort and hard-work which resulted in the resounding victory the party's candidate recorded in the presidential election.
Icheoku says it is simply unacceptable as it is unforgivable that Ibrahim Babangida, Abubakar Atiku, Aliyu Mohammed Gusau and Adamu Ciroma should spend their time campaigning and working against the PDP's presidential candidate and tirelessly worked for the success of other party's candidate - the opposition's CPC Muhammadu Buhari. These four men despite being repeatedly courted by both PDP and President Jonathan's campaign team, still went out of their way to work for the opposition, helping them unsuccessfully to broker an alliance deal between Buhari's CPC with Bola Tinubu's ACN. Their objective and driving force being just to defeat the PDP's presidential candidate President Goodluck Jonathan; and you wonder the type of anti-minorities hatred these foursome have for President Jonathan? If any political activity ever reached the height of what may be appropriately termed a 'treason' against a political party, what these four men did amounts to that act and accordingly they should be held accountable and sanctioned. Icheoku says, they should be tried for their egregious anti-party activity and expel from the party immediately. This should be a mere formality since they have by necessary implication, already expelled themselves from the party by acting against the party's presidential interest. Moreso it has become evidently clear that these men lacked the follower-ship and political goodwill hitherto wrongly associated with them in the north and could be dispensed with without much fallout. Their popularity and influence is so localized and very little such that their expulsion from the party will not adversely impact the party's foundational strength.
These charges are no longer mere accusations and allegations since the national secretary of the ACN, Senator Lawal Shuaibu, personally confirmed these four PDP elders involvement in strengthening the hands of the opposition parties by among other support, negotiating terms of the failed alliance between the ACN and Buhari's CPC. Icheoku asks what manner of true party men would, instead of working to ensure their party's victory in an election, be busy negotiating an alliance for the opposition parties to enable them to be strong enough to defeat their own party's presidential candidate at the polls. This is unacceptable, treasonous, despicable, wicked, mean-spirited, irrational and a gross anti-party for which they must be severely with expulsion from the party forthwith. Icheoku therefore calls on the Peoples Democratic Party to immediately expel the gang of aging tribal champions Ibrahim Babangida, Abubakar Atiku, Aliyu Mohammed Gusau and Adamu Ciroma for actively working against the PDP presidential candidate interest President Goodluck Jonathan; and joining forces with the opposition to ensure Jonathan's defeat at the polls. These four elderly men are not good party men as they refused and did not accept the wish of their party and its choice of a presidential candidate. They also went a step further by proactively working with the opposition against the PDP's candidate in order to defeat President Jonathan and should therefore suffer the consequences of their anti-party activities. Icheoku says, expel these four men from the PDP, now!
EXPEL IBB, ATIKU, CIROMA AND GUSAU FOR ANTI-PARTY ACTIVITIES!
ReplyDeleteIcheoku says that there is no worst anti-party activity than conspiring against a party's nominee in favor of the opponent. Therefore Ibrahim Babangida, Atiku Abubakar, Aliyu Gusau and Adamu Ciroma ganging up with Muhammadu Buhari and Bola Tinubu against President Jonathan is as politically criminal as it gets. It is political party's equivalent of treason and these men are guilty as charged and should be at least suspended or even fired from the PDP for gross anti-party activities. They literally took up arms against the party and her presidential candidate, President Jonathan. Icheoku says, fire these saboteurs now! They are spent forces, they have no tangential following and their expulsion will cause no harm to the party! Just do it - GET RID OF THEM NOW
Fresh trouble for IBB, Atiku, Gusau
ReplyDeleteBy Olusola Fabiyi, Abuja
Saturday, 23 Apr 2011
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Fresh trouble for IBB, Atiku, Gusau
This is not the best of times for the trio of former dictator, Gen. Ibrahim Babangida; former vice-president, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar; and former National Security Adviser, Gen. Aliyu Gusau, as the three of them may soon be punished by the Peoples Democratic Party for alleged anti-party activities.
Also included for punishment was a former Minister of Finance, Mallam Adamu Ciroma.
Three of them were among the presidential aspirants who fought for the party’s ticket, which was won by President Goodluck Jonathan last January.
Jonathan won the presidential election with his running mate, Alhaji Namadi Sambo.
The President had defeated Abubakar at the party’s presidential primaries. Before then, the former VP had emerged as the consensus candidate of the North, having defeated Babangida and Gusau in a shadow election conducted by the Ciroma-led Northern Leaders Political Forum.
However, the four of them, who are still members of the ruling PDP, were said to have been involved in the botched alliance talk between the Action Congress of Nigeria and the Congress for Progressive Change.
The alliance, if it had worked, would have allowed the ACN and CPC to produce a single presidential candidate, who would have confronted President Jonathan in last Saturday’s presidential poll.
The thinking within the leadership of the party at its headquarters in Wadata Plaza, Abuja, is that the aim of the four prominent members of the party was that the opposition should design a means of defeating Jonathan at the poll.
However, the deal did not work as neither the presidential candidate of the ACN, Mallam Nuhu Ribadu, nor that of the CPC, Maj.-Gen. Muhammadu Buhari (retd.), was ready to step down for the other.
But rather than deny their involvement in the alliance talk, which is being considered as an anti-party activity by the PDP, Babangida, Atiku and Gusau claimed through a source that the alliance talk did not fail because of their involvement.
Their source claimed that they got involved in the deal because they “were approached by the CPC and ACN leaders to negotiate the alliance deal.”
They added that their intervention was at the instance of the ACN and CPC leaders, adding that if the talks ultimately collapsed, it had nothing to do with their involvement.
But at the meeting of the members of the National Working Committee of the PDP on Wednesday, the case came up and members agreed that Babangida, Atiku, Gusau and Ciroma had engaged in anti-party activities with their conduct and involvement with the opposition.
The members, one after the other, were said to have said that all of them, with their conduct, had shown that they did not work for the success of the party in the National Assembly and presidential elections.
A member of the NWC, who spoke with our correspondent on the condition of anonymity, said that “members were of the opinion that these men be punished.
“We believe that they are not bigger than the party, and if a minister could be suspended based on anti-party activities, there is nothing stopping us from also dealing with these individuals.”
Asked about the decision that was arrived at the meeting, he said the issue was put aside for further discussion “because some of our members felt that we should approach it with caution.”