A chieftain of the All
Progressives Congress (APC), SKC Ogbonnia, has lambasted the party’s national
leader, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, for endorsing automatic 2019 ticket for President Muhammadu
Buhari.
In a letter on Wednesday entitled
‘Asiwaju Tinubu, What Has Buhari Promised You This Time?’, he recalled that the
former Lagos governor once admonished the governor of Imo State, Rochas
Okorocha for once saying “there is no other alternative to President Buhari.”
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Ogbonnia, who last week said
there was foreign opposition to Buhari’s second term ambition, wrote: “In your
words, ‘No governor can appropriate the power of endorsement to themselves
because President Muhammadu Buhari himself believes in due process and rule of
law’. That was last November.
“Your view, then, is consistent
with the communique at the end of the Southwest APC Stakeholders meeting in
Ibadan October 2018, where Bisi Akande, former interim national chairman of the
APC, made it clear that “anybody in the APC was free to be the standard bearer
of the party in the 2019 presidential election.”
“This apparent consensus within
the leadership of the party at the time helped to spur some party patriots,
including my humble self, to declare to seek the office of the president under
the platform of APC. But, more importantly, the posterity beckons for change at
the presidency, especially considering Buhari’s furrows of failures. These
failures, remember, prompted you (Asiwaju Tinubu) to also take several swipes
at the president, reminding in one occasion that, “We have to criticise
ourselves when it is necessary, speak truth to power. We are the power.”
“Consistent with that truth to
power, I can state without mincing words that your degree of inconsistency on
the issue of automatic tickets is beginning to trouble me. For example,
immediately after our national convention this June in Abuja, you said to
Buhari: “Mr. President, you will win in 2019. They can’t stop you.”
“Asiwaju Tinubu, who are the
“They” you were referring to above? As an APC presidential aspirant, I felt
dumbfounded with such gross partiality from the national leader of our party.
But I would later forgive the remark as a green gaffe, believing that you were carried
away with the euphoria of the reunion with the president in the open glare of
both friends and foes.
“Regrettably, the pattern of
partiality has continued. As recent as August 14, 2018, you were caught on tape
at the Lagos State Stakeholders meeting of the party, where you stated as
follows: “Our president, President Muhammadu Buhari, has done well. He deserves
another term, and we will support him to win because he is our man.”
Interestingly, this latest round of ballyhoo came the same day, the same event,
and in the same breath and breadth with your compelling admonition that the
concept of automatic tickets is alien to the vision of the APC and must not be
allowed, using Lagos State as example.
“And you are not done. Few days
later, August 19, 2018 to be exact, you lambasted some party leaders who
defected to the opposition in recent weeks, including Bukola Saraki and Aminu
Tambuwal, charging that they “left the party to return to a motley
agglomeration that would promise them what true democracy could not: automatic
tickets…”.
“Sir, why do you appear to be
promoting automatic ticket at the presidential level while at the same time
projecting an opposite view at the states? Why the teetering contradictions?
So, where art thou?
“Mr. Tinubu, it is no longer news
that the political romance between you and Mr. President rekindled when he took
you along on a trip to ECOWAS function in Cote d’ Ivoire last year where he
cajoled you once again with the title “National Leader” after a long wave of
ridicule. Buhari followed by gracing your birthday, which you embraced like a
child warming up to a Father Christmas, ostensibly to paint a picture of a
united party. I endorsed the move and style!
“But there comes a time political
shenanigans, regardless of the intentions, must give way to common good.
“The cardinal crest of common
good is the truth. The objective truth in this case is that God used APC and
Muhammadu Buhari to rescue Nigeria in 2015 from the ruins under PDP; but,
today, while the APC remains a beacon of hope for the Nigerian future, Buhari’s
vision has become polar opposite to that future. Worst of all, his balloon of
public trust, initially inflated by a hybrid of modesty and anticorruption
cover, has been deflated by a series of unjust practices and broken promises.
“None of these broken promises
has created more crises in our party than Mr. Buhari reneging on his pledge to
serve only one term, which is central to the mass defection that rocked our
party. As if that is not enough, the party is facing another bad omen in a new
chairman, Adams Oshiomhole, who is so desperate to circumvent internal party
democracy to ensure automatic ticket for the same Buhari.
“So, why the undue prejudice
against other APC presidential aspirants who are much better than Buhari? So,
what is Muhammadu Buhari promising this time that he did not promise before but
reneged? What is he promising that is making you to toy around with a central
tenet of our great party?
“I said in a recent interview
that some of the people promoting Buhari for second term, including you,
Tinubu, el-Rufai, and Okorocha, inwardly wish that the president can respect
nature and withdraw so they can take a shot at the Aso Rock now. I have also
lived for months with the tittle-tattle that Buhari promised to endorse your
presidential ambition, come 2023. But, please, don’t buy the gambit!
“Do not allow yourself to be in a
vain competition with the Buhari’s “wise” minions from the East, who are going
around spewing a similar nonsense that the same man will make them president in
the same 2023. Common sense dictates that a sitting president that professes
injustice and impunity while seeking second term in office is most likely to do
worse as a lame duck.
“Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, to
whom much is given, much is expected. Please lead. Instead of exerting much
energy on defectors, let us focus on the future of our party. It calls for true
internal democracy. A bold step forward is to persuade President Buhari to
emulate other progressive democracies and accept my standing challenge for a
presidential debate on our visions for Nigeria.
“Moreover, you, as the national
leader of our party, ought to recognize the mood in the country. Nigerian
masses are yearning for a dynamic, charismatic, knowledgeable, detribalized,
and modern leader who has the willpower and the energy to make Nigeria great
for all. Muhammadu Buhari is not that leader”.
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