By Bisi Ezekiel
The All Progressives Congress (APC), on Monday, through its spokesperson, Yekini Nabena, once again displayed its stock in trade which is telling blatant lies and twisting facts.
Nabena had in a press statement, titled
“APC to Secondus: Opposition PDP Crumbling Under Your Watch
Credible Elections the New Normal Under Buhari”, lied on two facts obviously known to Nigerians, home and abroad.
Everyone knows that it is a lie from the pit of hell to assume that the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) is crumbling under the leadership of Prince Uche Secondus as the National Chairman.
Likewise is it a known fact that elections have been bastardized and rubbished with brazen infractions at polling centres and outright falsification of results under the President Muhammadu Buhari administration, as against claims by Nabena that credible election is the new normal under Buhari.
Nabena and his party need to be reminded that Nigerian democracy has never had it so bad than what we are witnessing under the APC government since 2015.
The party rode to power on the wings of deceit by disparaging the then PDP administration of President Goodluck Jonathan but today Nigerians have seen the difference between the two. Hence, the collective resolve to send Buhari and the APC packing, through the ballot by massively voting Alhaji Atiku Abubakar and the PDP in the 2019 general election.
However, the wish of the electorate was aborted by the corrupt APC government, with the connivance of Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), the biased electoral umpire, compromised security agencies and the judiciary to foist Buhari on the country, once again.
Also, the APC needed to be re-oriented of the brazen robbery of the PDP electoral victories in the Osun, Ekiti, Lagos and Kano states governorship elections.
The number of post-election cases at different divisions of courts from election tribunals to the Supreme Court under this administration attest to how much Buhari and the APC has destroyed Nigeria’s hard won democracy. The PDP won back many legislative seats, both at the national and state assemblies, through the courts.
Nabena goofed again by assuming that the PDP has never had it so bad under Secondus with stakeholders detached from the party activities. He need to be reminded again that, in the history of Nigeria’s party politics, there is no party as fragmented as the APC which, since its disjointed formation in 2013, has been swimming in crisis.
The unmanaged crisis that led to the sacking of Adams Oshiomhole and his NWC, few months back, is a testimony to the fact that the APC cannot survive as a united party beyond 2023 when it will give way for the ‘government of the people’ under the PDP.
What is going on in APC campaign in Edo State potrays it as a party in disarray as only Oshiomhole is seen around his failed candidate, Osagie Ize-Iyamu because other leaders do not want to be identified with a bad product which Ize-Iyamu represents.
Also, Nabena should be enlightened that, just last Saturday, notable campaign committee members, such as Speaker, House of Representatives, Femi Gbajabiamila, Deputy Senate President, Ovie Omo-Agege and Governors Kayode Fayemi, Atiku Bagudu, Dapo Abiodun, Nasir El-rufai and Babagana Zulum as well as serving and former senators and Rep members, boycotted the inauguration of the Ondo State Campaign Council at the APC national secretariat.
If Nabena has been reading recent mind-boggling comments by Dr. Salihu Lukman, the Director-General of the Progressives Governors Forum ( APC governors forum), he will know that, from an insider’s point of view, it is not well with the APC.
So, why would Nabena not face his sinking party and stop disparaging Prince Uche Secondus who, by every standard, is an accomplished politician and a voice to millions of Nigerians, using his party, the PDP, to champion the course for a just and equitable society and entrenchment of norms of democracy.
Today, with the PDP under Prince Uche Secondus, voiceless Nigerians who have been suppressed by the retrogressive Muhamnadu Buhari-led APC administration are regaining their voices and can now boldly challenges anti-democratic practices of the ruling APC
Prince Uche Secondus, National Chairman of the PDP, has, since his days as the PDP chairman in Rivers State, demonstrated that he is an irrepresible force to reckon with.
Unlike Oshiomhole, Secondus’ resilience, forthrightness and sincerity of purpose has seen him through all the wrungs of the party ladder until he became the indefatigable National Chairman. He came into office at a trying period for the PDP, picked the party from the ‘almost ruins’ of dangerous power play, set in motion his dexterity as manager of men and resources and brought back life into the party.
The party, under him, continues to reclaim lost states, expanding into frontiers of core leftist and he made the PDP once again toast of every lover of genuine democracy. Under his leadership, the PDP has gradually being regaining grounds lost to political manipulation and electoral robbery by the APC.
When the APC came to power with its deceitful ‘change’ mantra in 2015, the PDP-controlled stated were reduced to 11 states. But, through the relentless efforts of Secondus, within a short span of four years, five key strategic states were reclaimed from APC. These include Sokoto, Bauchi, Adamawa.
Secondus is a team player who uphold integrity and internal democracy as vital tool for a successful party. In the history of party primaries in Nigerian politics, no one has ever been adjudged the best and less controversial as the PDP presidential primary that produced Atiku Abubakar as the party’s candidate in the 2019 presidential election. It was free, fair and credible. This great feat could only be achieved under an honest leader such as Prince Uche Secondus.
Therefore, Yekini Nabena and his cohorts in the APC should heed warnings from Salihu Lukman, the PGF boss, to find ways of salvaging the already disintegrating APC from the brinks, rather that throwing muds to malign a quintessential politician like Uche Secondus.
Ezekiel writes from Abuja.
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