₦airaland Forum

SULE LAMIDO.

Former Speaker of the House of Representatives Alhaji Ghali Umar Na’Abba has dumped the ruling People’s Democratic Party (PDP), saying the party has lost its soul.

He becomes the fifth speaker to dump the PDP. The current Speaker, Aminu Waziri Tambuwal defected to the opposition APC in October. Others before him that dumped the PDP are Aminu Bello Masari, Patricia Etteh, Dimeji Bankole.
Na’Abba announced his resignation in a letter dated March 15, entitled “Notification of Resignation from PDP, Its Organs and Committees”, addressed to his ward chairman, Sharada ward Kano Municipal local government area.
The letter was also copied to the party’s Chairman Kano Municipal; Chairman Kano State; Vice Chairman North West Zone; National Chairman and the Chairman Board of Trustees (BOT).
In his resignation letter, Na’Abba said no administration in the history of Nigeria had used religion and ethnicity to divide Nigerians more than the current administration under Mr. Jonathan.
He said: “You will agree with me that such pervasive political behaviour should under no circumstances be tolerated by all who subscribe to decent and conscionable political practice.
Nigeria, PDP leadership cabalised
He added: “The Country’s and the Party’s leadership have become cabalised to the extent that while Nigerians are aware that they have a President in the person of Dr. Goodluck Jonathan, they are at the same time at a loss as to who governs their country.
“Both Nigeria and the PDP are left to drift,” he said. “It has left us with the conventional wisdom that people cannot succeed in life unless they are ruthless and unprincipled.”
According to him, “It is obvious to me that PDP is both self-destruct and irredeemable.”
For Nigerians to secure a new lease of life, he said, they should “get out this inept leadership that has neither allure nor inspiration.”
He added: “In its place, Nigerians deserve not just a good President, good governors, and other political office holders, but true and exemplary leaders.”
Na’Abba said such leaders must have competence and capacity to govern and a clear vision for the future.
The PDP, he noted, “has become characterized by corruption and impunity in the way and manner candidates for elective positions are being selected to the extent that in almost twenty states, crisis has engulfed the Party over the gubernatorial primaries and the manner other candidates for other elective positions emerged.”
Na’Abba contended that the PDP and the country’s leadership had failed to consolidate democratic gains for sister African Countries and other transition countries to follow.
“Under the current leadership, Nigeria is suffering from loss of esteem, as we are now most often consigned to the back seat of international relations.
“Most worrisome is the current anxiety of most Nigerians as the regime wobbles and tumbles toward the oncoming election.
“It has today become incontrovertible that cartels and shady characters are becoming visible, important and indispensable factors in Nigeria’s governance.
Patriots not respected
“It appears those at the helm of affairs are more comfortable with such characters of easy virtue than with patriotic and altruistic Nigerians.”
Na’Abba who was speaker between 1999 and 2003 expressed concerns that in Nigeria today the quality of governance was going down by the day even as he said critical National Institutions that unified and wielded Nigerians together had been dragged into politics, contrary to wise counsel and political correctness.
“I have relentlessly pushed for reform of the internal policies of the PDP individually and collectively, without success. In fact it is common knowledge that all critical members of the Party have been made irrelevant.”
He noted that members of the party who are pliant and who lack principle and who stand for nothing are always more trusted by the leadership to carry out party assignments because they are said to be “loyal.”
“Such loyalty,” he said, “is nothing but a euphemism for people who stand for nothing.”
Why founding fathers are leaving the PDP
He said it pains most of them that majority of the founding fathers that had died like Chief S.M. Afolabi, Alhaji Muhammad Abubakar Rimi, Chief Solomon Lar, Professor Osammor, Chief S. B. Awoniyi etc all died as a result of their frustration by and with the Party,” he lamented.
However, according to him, even those founding fathers who are still living like Dr. Alex Ekwueme, Malam Adamu Chiroma, Dr Shettima Mustapha, Alhaji Asheikh Jarma Dr, Victor Odili, Mr. Isaac Shaahu and many others “are equally living with such frustration.While others like Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, Alhaji Isyaku Ibrahim, Alhaji Musa Gwadabe, two former National Chairmen, Chief Audu Ogbe and Chief Barnabas Gemade etc had since left the Party. The Party and theadministration clearly possess neither compassion nor empathy.
“I pray that your mind and those of other Patriots would also be illuminated with truth so that you may also act wisely and accordingly.”
Speaking with Daily Trust after releasing his resination later, Ghali said it was necessary for him to leave the PDP because it had lost its soul and the deterioration in the party had become “irredeemable.”
The former Speaker said by resigning few weeks to the election, he is sending “signal’ to his supporters and followers all over the country not to cast their votes for the PDP.
I may join another party
On whether he would join the opposition All Progressives Congress (APC), which has been making gains from the gale of defections in the PDP, Na’Abba said “I may join another party in the next few days and I may decide to do so after the election.”
He alleged that the PDP had been distributing money to aggrieved party members not to defect to other political parties but that “I was not approached because they know that I can’t be bought over.”
The former Speaker said the PDP “has been losing its sons and daughters including so many of its founding fathers and members by the day adding, “I will not stay for the house to fall me.”

Source:http://dailytrust.com.ng/daily/top-stories/49500-na-abba-quits-pdp-says-it-has-lost-soul

Ok

Lamido is an old timer in Nigerian politics.

yazz09:
GEJ TILL 2019

mugu

Flets:
GEJ till 2019!!!!!!!!!

you see! I said it.

I AM QUITING NAIRALAND TODAY BECAUSE ROBOTS THAT ALWAYS WRITE 'GEJ till 2019' HAVE FULLED THE FORUM NOW.

BYE BYE NAIRALAND.

Cc: Seun

GEJ and PDP denting Nigeria's foriegn image since 1999.

Many people who looked at the picture published in several newspapers yesterday of General Muhammadu Buhari visiting former President Shehu Shagari in Sokoto mostly thought of one irony, that the former led the coup that overthrew the latter’s government in December 1983.
That’s just the tip of the political iceberg. There are many more similarities and differences between the two men, mostly the latter.

Buhari visited Shagari less than 24 hours after he returned to the country from a two weeks’ visit to the UK. While the APC presidential candidate was away, Shagari turned 90 years old and President Goodluck Jonathan played a fast one. He rounded up all the living former Nigerian heads of state and took them to Sokoto to pay a congratulatory visit to fellow National Council of State member Shagari. Generals Yakubu Gowon, Ibrahim Babangida and Abdulsalami Abubakar together with Chief Ernest Shonekan went with Jonathan to Sokoto for a great photo op.

 Though Buhari was not there, he sent apologies and he had signed the joint birthday card in advance. The only other living ex-Nigerian ruler, Obasanjo, arrived in Sokoto minutes after the Jonathan-led team departed. He claimed that he was delayed by traffic snarl near the Murtala Mohamed Airport in Lagos but many people thought he didn’t want to be part of the Jonathan-led delegation, given their recent spats.

That Buhari made the visit to Shagari his first public event since his return from UK showed how seriously he viewed Jonathan’s maneuver as well as Shagari’s current standing in Nigeria. A Buhari visit to Shagari inevitably reminded old folks of 1983-85 and all the things the soldiers said and did after they sacked the Second Republic. Shagari, all his ministers and all the state governors of the Second Republic were shepherded into detention and accused of corruption and other crimes. How time changes things. Shagari’s long life has enabled him to witness a tectonic change in his public image. Once derided as the man who led the Second Republic to failure, he is now seen as a man who was personally untainted by the corruption and greed of his contemporaries. Given what happened and is still happening to Nigerian governance since 1983 the NPN men now look saintly in retrospect.

As a candidate in an upcoming presidential election, Buhari’s visit must have reminded Shagari of 1979 and 1983 when he was presidential candidate of the behemoth National Party of Nigeria, NPN. They are very different quantities, these two men. In fact, with respect to many personal character traits Buhari and Shagari are polar opposites. Buhari is the no-nonsense tough guy who finds it difficult to smile and who strikes fear in the hearts of many elite figures with his famed anti-corruption stance. Shagari on the other hand is the benign face of politics. In his heydays he was always well dressed, ever smiling, totally at home with crowds, with ceremonies and with foreign visits.

In the 13 years since he entered the political fray in 2002 Buhari has built for himself the largest and most intense personal following of any Nigerian politician since Obafemi Awolowo. Shagari had nothing of the sort during his three decades plus in Nigerian politics. He did not cultivate a personal following; instead he was an organization man who was content to operate under the huge political shadow of the First Republic NPC leaders Sir Ahmadu Bello and Sir Abubakar Tafawa Balewa. He became president not on his own steam but in continuation of their political legacy.

Buhari is running for president for the fourth time this year entirely on his personal record. APC is the third political party under whose umbrella he is running. In contrast, Shagari didn’t even want to be president. He said in a newspaper interview in 1976 that having been a minister in the First Republic and in the Gowon era, he didn’t want any Executive role again and would vie for a Senate seat. When he was later asked why he reversed himself and sought the presidency, it was Alhaji Aliyu Makaman Bidda, Sardauna’s old deputy, who ordered him to run.

No matter how they arrived at the decision to run, both Shagari and Buhari emerged as candidates out of keenly contested party primaries. NPN’s “nominating convention” of 1978 and APC’s special convention of 2014, both held in Lagos, were some of the most exciting and most transparent party primaries ever held in Nigeria. While Buhari emerged victorious after one ballot, Shagari qualified for a second round of voting alongside Yusuf Maitama Sule and Adamu Ciroma. The two men however graciously withdrew for him.

Shagari and Buhari won their primaries for different reasons. Shagari got the highest number of votes in a six-way race, 900+, partly because many Southern delegates, having zoned the ticket to the North, thought he was more approachable than the others. Buhari did not win the ticket because anyone thought he had a soft image; power broker Asiwaju Bola Tinubu and the APC governors thought that his huge personal following is the party’s biggest asset. While Shagari had the active support of the Northern Establishment [traditional, political, business and clerical] Buhari is supported by the Northern masses because they want him to deal with the greedy Establishment, hence the latter is suspicious of him.

The two men’s political platforms are also very different. NPN was much more harmonious than APC is, since it was a resuscitation of the Nigeria National Alliance [NNA] that fought the 1964 election. APC has no such political history. In fact it bucks history, bringing Northerners and Westerners under one political roof for the first time in Nigeria’s history.  

Buhari faces an election opponent that, despite incumbency, is not above him in political stature. In contrast, Shagari had less political stature in 1979 that three of his election opponents namely Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe, Chief Obafemi Awolowo and Malam Aminu Kano. It was only GNPP’s Waziri Ibrahim that was his equal, since both of them were First Republic ministers. Shagari was also Gowon’s Finance Minister so he had a slight stature edge over Uncle Waziri.

A person coming to power in Nigeria can hardly hope to inherit a country better than the one that Alhaji Shehu Shagari inherited in 1979, succeeding a regime that was described by all observers at the time as “purposeful.” As for Buhari, if he wins this election he will inherit a broken nation only slightly better than the one he inherited in 1983. Some people might in fact argue that Nigeria is worse today than it was in December 1983 but I don’t think so. To recall one small incident, two friends and I went from one end of Sokoto market to the other in December 1983 but could not find rice, milk or bathing soap to buy.

What about party programs? NPN promised Nigerians two main things in 1979, food and shelter. Shagari tried to deliver both through his Green Revolution and the housing estates. Observers derided the former because the regime massively imported Thai parboiled rice. The housing estates that Shagari built in every state were also derided at the time but they have since become an important housing element in many Nigerian cities. APC’s slogan of “Change” is more opaque that NPN’s Food and Shelter, so we must wait to find out what this change is.

How will Buhari fare as party leader vis-à-vis Shagari? NPN was so mighty and Shagari was so mild mannered that he didn’t dominate it. For example, during the election for NPN’s national secretary at Kano in 1981 Shagari supported Alhaji Sulaiman Takuma but the delegates elected Senator Uba Ahmed instead. These days PDP’s “leader” single handedly selects who he wants as the party chairman. If Buhari were to become president how will he relate with APC and other party figures? Will he permit powerful figures to shine the way Shagari allowed Umaru Dikko, Adisa Akinloye and Olusola Saraki to dominate the scene? Right now, the potential APC Dikkos and Akinloyes are Bola Tinubu and Rotimi Amaechi with others lurking in the background. We must wait to find out.

Source: http://dailytrust.com.ng/daily/columns/monday-columns/48918-between-buhari-and-shagari

Late Musa Yar'adua, then Minister of Lagos Affairs and then Oba of Lagos, Late Oba Adeyinka in 1965.

of the Economy, Dr Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala on
Thursday sneaked into Chibok, the famous town
where 276 girls were abducted by the Boko
Haram in April, last year and laid the foundation
stone for the rebuilding of the school where the
girls were abducted.
However, it was gathered that the minister,
accompanied by some senior federal government
officials, boycotted Borno State officials and
landed at the Yola Airport before proceeding to
Chibok amidst heavy security.
“We were appalled when we saw the minister in
Chibok with the intention of laying foundation for
the rebuilding of the ruined school. We were really
surprised because we never expected something
like this,” said Ayuba Aisami, a parent of one of
the abducted girls.
Another parent, James Mbalala said nobody told
them of any event in Chibok.
“We just saw large contingent of soldiers and
some civilians and they told us to gather at the
village square,” he said.
“Honestly, we were shocked and we are still
asking ourselves if really the Federal Government
is serious about rebuilding anything here. Since
the day our daughters were taken away, the Boko
Haram insurgents have terrorized us severally but
nobody cares to come until now, we really see
political motive behind the desperate move,”
Mbalala said.
Our correspondent gathered that though the
Government Girls Secondary School, Chibok
belongs to the Borno State Government but
nobody from the state ministry of education or
the Government was invited.
Only the principal of the school, Hajiya Asabe
Kwambura, was directed to report at Chibok even
as the attack on the school on April 14, 2014, the
facility had remained closed.
Other sources in Chibok attributed the recent
attention on the community to the forthcoming
elections.
“The attention is unusual but it is rather
unfortunate that the federal authorities are
boycotting the state government. And let me tell
you the fact, the foundation laying ceremony is
just for ceremonial purposes because no builder
or engineer will dare stay here for long, the
terrorists are still on the prewl,” Joshua Inuwa, a
youth in Chibok said.
Speaking on the impromptu visit to his senatorial
district, Senator Mohammed Ali Ndume told
correspondent that the foundation-laying
ceremony for rebuilding the college may have a
political motive behind it.
“At the moment, our major concern is not how to
rebuild the school, “ the senator said. “We’re
concerned about the rescue of the girls. If the
girls are rescued, the task of rebuilding the school
is easy. The state government has the capacity to
do it. What the minister has done is nothing other
than putting the cart before the horse.”
According to the senator, there were over 1,000
girls in the college when Boko Haram attacked it,
most of whom have been placed in other
institutions in the country to ensure their
education is not truncated. “That has been done
by the state government, not the Federal
Government. What Dr Okonjo-Iweala has done is
for political reason; it’s because elections are
around the corner. How can you talk about
rebuilding GGSS, Chibok without involving the
senator, House of Representatives and House of
Assembly members from the area. It’s pure
politics.”
Senator Ndume accused the Federal Government
of abandoning the people to their fate, saying,
“After the abduction of the girls, the villages
around Chibok have been attacked six times. Only
last week 18 persons were killed. The Federal
Government said nothing about these attacks.
Security agencies and local hunters are keeping
the place safe, but government is not doing much
to help them.”
In his own reaction, one of the organisers of the
Bring Back Our Girls protest, Dr Emman Shehu,
told Sunday Trust last night that the visit to
Chibok by the minister was odd.
“The girls have been in captivity for 326 days
before the minister decided to visit Chibok,” he
noted. “The Federal Government set up a fact-
finding committee to visit Chibok. It’s report has
not been released. What Nigerians expect from
government is the status of the rescue operation
of these girls. The greatest irony of it all is that
the woman flew in a helicopter to Chibok with a
huge complement of soldiers. That tells you that
there is no security there. No school in the North-
East is safe, yet she’s gone there to lay a
foundation for rebuilding the college. Everything is
being done just to secure votes.”
In a related development, Mallam Isa Gusau, the
Special Assistant to Borno State Governor, told
our reporter that his boss was not aware of the
foundation-laying ceremony performed by Dr
Okonjo-Iweala.
Mallam Gusau said, “Governor Kashim Shettima
wasn’t aware of that foundation laying ceremony.
He was actually on tour of seven local
government areas in southern parts of Borno
State, launching free food distribution to citizens
to ease hardships arising from security challenges
that adversely affected farming in 2014 cropping
season all over the state. He was supposed to
visit Chibok before he cut short the trip on
Saturday following the bomb attacks in
Maiduguri. Governor Shettima surprisingly heard
about the foundation laying ceremony, even
though in took place in his own state while he
was in the state and at a secondary school
belonging to the state government. The governor
certainly welcomes any effort from the Federal
Government or any private institution or
individual towards advancing education in Borno
State. He is happy with any support, be it in
Chibok or anywhere in the state. However, it is a
general expectation that things should follow
proper steps so as to give room for doubts about
sincerity of any project. Governor Shettima has
been working with the Finance Minister, Ngozi
Okonjo Iweala, since 2014 over the safe school
initiative. When the Minister came to Maiduguri in
2014, the governor drove her around for about
three hours to ensure successful take-off of the
programme and they continued holding meetings
in Abuja. It surprising that she came to Borno
State for the second time unnoticed and to
perform a function in a school belonging to the
state government.”

source: http://dailytrust.com.ng/sunday/index.php/news/19851-chibok-leaders-say-okonjo-iweala-s-project-in-ggss-is-political

Nice one,

Mods fp please.

Cc: Seun

Check out GMB picture as he returned this morning. I bet some of you that are 40 years or below walk bending unlike Buhari who walks actively at 73.

Ok

richol:
GEJ TILL BUHARI CAN WIN 20METRES SNAIL RACE

can you run?lets try it. Thats why I opened an account on Nairaland to challenge people like you. I just returned from London. Tell Fayose and FFK am back.

U are right Gen. Agwai.

GEJ your re-election is almost impossible. The worst president ever in Nigeria's political history.

By now Jonathan must be thinking of where to stay after leaving office on 29th May 2015.

The safety and health of these kids are at stake,let alone the learning environment. This is a serious matter.

Any Nigerian in his right senses will not vote for PDP and GEJ come March 28.

Enough of PDP's 16 year misrule.

M

The match might end in goaless or 1-1 draw.

Atleast she is better than PEJ.

udy4real:
But they can't win

Common English grammer you dont know. I said 'if'

egift:
www.nairaland.com/attachments/2161962_2046148ffkmole2jpegbb2905a807e1d78fecd4dca3d306fea1_jpeg4932a603de2ad55dde1200bc6d3234cc

The same guy, abi?

buhahahahahaha

If APC wins, FFK and Ayo Fayose are going to commit suicide. Doyin 'the bastard' Okupe will go on exile.

SAI BUHARI! come March 28 2015.

Nigeria must be liberated from PDP's injustice.

I have this observations:

1. What happened to the Northern states, it seems none of the new univeristies is situated in the north.
A huge challenge for the Northern elites if the issue of Boko Haram and poverty must be eradicated education must be given a priority.
Education in the north must be promoted at all cost.

2. VP Namadi Sambo representing the North is not helping matters. he is just there like a puppet.

.