• ‘If the chairman becomes a victim of the reforms, so be it’

Chairman of the steering committee of the Peoples Democratic Party Reform Group, Senator Ken Nnamani has said that notwithstanding the non-acceptance of his group’s campaign by those averse to change, it would eventually come.
Senator Nnamani, who was president of the Senate, told Daily Sun in an exclusive interview that while the reform being championed by his group was not targeted at the National Chairman of the PDP, Prince Vincent Ogbulafor, it would, however, not be out of place if the embattled chairman became the first casualty of the desired reforms.

Senator Nnamani described as most unfortunate the perception by some people that the reform was about Prince Ogbulafor, saying the quest was an institutional thing and not targeted against the leadership as was being rumoured in some quarters.

According to Senator Nnamani, “whether you accept what PDP Reform Group said now or not; change would come. If Ogbulafor becomes a collateral damage or becomes a victim of the change, so be it, but it should be understood that it is not aimed at him. That was why I started by saying that it is institutional. The problem we have is that each time we try to personalize things. Vincent and I have never quarreled in any shape or form neither have we ever disagreed on any issue.”

The former Senate president said he advised the PDP National Chairman in writing when he (Ogbulafor) illegally made announcement in Owerri in 2009, dissolving the Imo State executive of the party without recourse to the Constitution of the party and went ahead to announce a caretaker committee.

“I came back here and wrote him a letter, telling him not to do so because it is against the principle of democracy since the executive has a tenure of office and at a campaign rally, he announced that the executive committee was dissolved and unilaterally appointed a caretaker committee. It was a personal letter I wrote and sent to him. So, if you say, ‘how come I have not been having personal discussion with him?’ I have been doing that and this is an opportunity to show this (Gave Daily Sun a copy of the letter he wrote to Ogbulafor).

Nnamani explained that he had no personal ambition of becoming PDP Chairman, stressing that having been number three Nigerian by the grace of God through the sponsorship of the PDP, it was time for him to pay back by showing gratitude to the party to save it from itself. He said the way the party was going, it would destroy itself and he wouldn’t like it.

“Now, what do I mean by this? Primaries conducted by parties are mirrors of general elections and what that means is that if we get the primaries right, the chances of the general elections would be peaceful and successful. So, we think that now that everybody is talking about electoral reforms, it is also appropriate to look at what happens at the political parties.

“Because when you talk about rigging, much of the activities happen before the general elections. For instance, I have been invited to be amongst seven-member team to Tanzania from 16th of May to 22nd to assess the pre-election engagement in Tanzania because they are going to have their parliamentary and presidential elections in October. They want some international observers to go and see as well as to assess how ready the country is for the presidential election.”

The former Senate president said the importance of what happened before the actual election with respect to party activities was very important, adding that such activities include; “How do they campaign, whether the people are free to campaign, the voter register, how parties select their candidates or imposition of candidates on the electorate or if the parties have their own internal democratic way of bringing out a candidate.

“So, there is a whole lot involved in the process. We think that it is also important and timely to think about how the parties operate. You can see the problem which parties cause because it is not all the problems that are caused by INEC. For example, substitution, some people who did not appear for primaries, all of a sudden, the party puts the name of such an individual forward and removing those that participated in the primaries.

For sure those that participated would go to court and the court would give them judgment and throw away the ones that were imposed by the party.
“So all these things are the confusion caused by the parties. Let us be democratic enough in the party. That will help the general election and the country. A party that is as big as the PDP, if it does it right, chances are that other parties might copy and chances are that the country will benefit from it. So it is quite timely.”

Link:

http://www.sunnewsonline.com/webpages/news/national/2010/apr/28/national-28-04-2010-001.htm

Senator Ken, carry go. U are my man, for stopping OBJ's 3rd term agenda.

Let's wait and see where all this will end

Senator Ken has been the best Senate President of my time. Very credible character. Ogbulafor should face it.

yemmight:

Senator Ken has been the best Senate President of my time. Very credible character. Ogbulafor should face it.

i concur.the ogbulafor now had d guts to suspend him, na wa oo