A former Vice President of Nigeria, Alex Ekwueme, has
lamented that despite being a founding member, he has
been subjected to “humiliation and neglect” by current
leaders of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP.
Mr. Ekwueme, who said this during an interview with the
Sun Newspapers , also asked President Goodluck Jonathan
to accord him his due recognition as a founding member of
the PDP and a former Vice President of Nigeria.
He decried the refusal of the Mr Jonathan to attend his
80th birthday celebration despite being invited; but said his
relationship with the president is cordial.
“It (his relationship with Mr. Jonathan) is cordial, but
maybe he doesn’t appreciate that without my risking my
life there would have been no PDP and the popularity that
made it possible for him to become the President of
Nigeria,” the octogenarian said.
“Okay, I know, for instance, my friend Braithwaite of NAP
had his birthday, the President went to Lagos to celebrate
with him but I had my 80th birthday and he did not
come.”
On whether the president was invited, Mr. Ekwueme said:
“the whole Nigeria was invited. Of course, he was invited
but he did not appear personally at any of the events, even
the ones in Abuja. So, it is a matter of style.”
He said the PDP of today is not the PDP he risked his life
to help to form adding that the party has been hijacked by
people who are not in tune with the original ideal of the
party.
“The truth is that the PDP as it is today was not the PDP
we founded in 1998; that is the truth, I won’t hide it from
anybody. It is not the PDP I risked my life to found in
1998. Now, PDP has been hijacked by people who have no
philosophical or spiritual attachment to the precepts that
informed formation of the party in 1998,” he said.
“What I envisaged for PDP in 1998 was that it would be a
mass movement, satisfying the needs of the masses and
having membership from all over the country.”
While stating that the injustice in the party has chased
prominent members of the party to seek their political
ambitions elsewhere, Mr. Ekwueme said outside his
emotional attachment as the founding member of the party
he has no business remaining in the party in its present
form.
“People who founded and worked for the party are
alienated by poor management of success, and those who
do not have the patience, some of us have decided to find
new channels to fulfil their political ambitions. I, for
instance, the chairman of the party, first chairman of
Board of Trustees, first chairman from the civil society to
G34 and so on, if I was not myself, I’m not bragging, I am
being modest, I have no reason to be in PDP today. All I
have received throughout the years is humiliation and
neglect.”
He said the party only does the bidding of those he
described as “noisemakers” adding the party has an
“unfortunate” habit of neglecting the gentlemen among its
members who desire to play by the rules.
“I told you that I have no business being in PDP today
because I am not a noisemaker. I am not created to be a
noisemaker or to create trouble, they are using it to deny
me whatever is due to me,” he said. “Because you are a
gentleman, you won’t disturb, rather the people who shout
and make noise, they try and accommodate themselves so
that they don’t create problems, I think it is an
unfortunate approach to life. But those who don’t make
noise and don’t create troubles also have feelings as
human beings and they should not have been denied what
is due to them.”
On Mr. Jonathan chances in the South East in the
forthcoming election, Mr. Ekwueme said that the president
is taking the support of the region for granted and this
may cost him votes as he has alienated some of his
supporters in the region.
He said he doubted if the president would be able to
garner block vote in the forthcoming election like he did in
2011, as he feared many of those who voted for the
president then might boycott the election.
“Now, we have election in less than two months, people
are disgruntled. At the last election, the state voted
overwhelmingly for President Jonathan, we had the highest
per cent of all the six geo-political zones for the President.
In less than two months when elections are held, many
people from South-East may not vote for Muhammadu
Buhari for reasons which I will not go into now, but it
does not necessarily mean they will vote for Jonathan
because of how things have evolved.
“Many will not vote at all. Not casting their votes at all is a
minus for the President, so he shouldn’t take the South-
East for granted that it will be the same 99 per cent votes
that will come from the South- East in 2015. It might not
be.”
He said the PDP is in disarray in the South East and for it
to make headway in the election it must make efforts to
reconcile all aggrieved members.
“Well, because the leadership of the PDP in every state in
the South-East does not have coherency, well organised
PDP structure today. Ebonyi is in disarray, Enugu is
abdicated, Abia, Anambra have about six different factions,
Imo is not serious at that, so it requires hard work for PDP
to bring together the South-East to how it was eight years
ago. My worry is that many of them in the leadership of
PDP don’t even realise that there is this danger, they think
it is business as usual, so they take South-East for granted
that they will vote that same way they voted, 90 per cent of
vote to President Jonathan, it may not happen.”

http://www.premiumtimesng.com/news/top-news/174660-ekwueme-explodes-pdp-jonathan-humiliate.html

Sir, please tell them... one more time, pleeeaassee! Come to think of it, is it not a case of talking to a brick wall, Sir? God bless Nigeria.

tanoids come defend ur boss

PDP will look for a way to resolve this small family issue..

Long Live PDP

Long Live GEJ

Long Live Nigeria