Godwin Obaseki is a threadmill betwen the young and old
generation of our time, belonging to, and in midst of these two
hegemonies.
A close contact with the man called Godwin Obaseki reveals a very high perplex of a visionary personality.
A man passionately and politically motivated to create employment and industrialization in Edo State,
thereby willing to server in a state in dare need of economic prosperity.
Government, Governance and Politics to Godwin Obaseki means selfless service to once father land and
he has proven it going by the development in Edo State the last 7 years.
He has paid his own way and made us all proud as Edo People. Since he is offering himself as to our
generation, in an attempt and effort with the help of us all trying to lay the groundwork for real
sustained and workable public delivery system,near those you find overseas.
Godwin Obaseki needs our support to achieve all these.
This period of economic down turn and global chaotic
financial instability in Nigeria, where Edo State is not
immune to it, its of necessity and vitality to support a
financial expert to pull us all out from this unforeseen
negative economics.
Unlike many that has come and gone, Mr Godwin Obaseki is directly working with progressives
in the state to hasten developments aiming to nurture a new political order, so that when
the transition comes “we don’t end up in the same place as we did in the past.
when the Soviet Union collapsed”,it was the lack of real leaders with economic experience.
As for what might bring about that change, Mr Godwin Obaseki does think it will be putting
the right pegs in right holes. Either Oshiomile or the party will anoint a successor or not,
Godwin Obaseki doesnt think or percieve democratic participation in that light.
Mr Godwin Obaseki is of the illusion that the most credible persons in our society should
be put forward for leadership and should not be a do or die illusion.
How long his vision might take does,nt mean much to him, as long as we just hit the road with action.
This is why he,s working with anyone who genuinely has the good interest of Edo State.
Godwin Obaseki thinks about the future of Edo State: “
My Chat with Godwin Obaseki has renewed my thinking and commitment that this gentleman
wants to have a seat at a virtual round table about the future of Edo State and the
return of Indutries to our dear state, and he,s prepared to work with anyone to achieve
this.He,s so passionate about what Edo State would look like after now .”
Mr Godwin Obaseki spoke so commitedly the return of our
lost values and the synergy between our old and young generation.
He wants many of the young people who might be thinking of leaving the country, to stay put
and lets all join hands to develop our state, so as to avoid brain drains in Edo State.
He nicknamed his vision an exodus to Industrial reawakening in Edo State.
Shortly before ending the chat, Mr Godwin Obaseki said he did wish to support
every hard working Edo State Indegene a Government of accountability, where the
most hard working persons are not ignored.
Hard work from my perception about Mr Godwin Obaseki simply is the story of
Eduard Uraskulov, a 30 year old, who was born in the small North Caucasus
republic of Karachavo-Cherkessia in Russia. He considers himself a Russian,
wearing his nationality as lightly as his German, French or Brazilian peers.
His road to London’s City started with a degree at Moscow’s prestigious New
Economic School, then headed by Sergei Guriev, one of the country’s top economists.
In 2013 Mr Guriev, who had advised Mr Eduard to study hard,now a professor in Paris,
he has just been appointed chief economist at the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development.)
Nancy
Reagan, the influential and stylish wife of the 40th president of the
United States who unabashedly put Ronald Reagan at the center of her
life but became a political figure in her own right, died on Sunday at
her home in Los Angeles. She was 94.
The cause was congestive heart failure, according to a statement from Joanne Drake, a spokeswoman for Mrs. Reagan.
Mrs.
Reagan was a fierce guardian of her husband’s image, sometimes at the
expense of her own, and during Mr. Reagan’s improbable climb from a
Hollywood acting career to the governorship of California and ultimately
the White House, she was a trusted adviser.
“Without
Nancy, there would have been no Governor Reagan, no President Reagan,”
said Michael K. Deaver, the longtime aide and close friend of the
Reagans who died in 2007.
President
Obama said on Sunday that Mrs. Reagan “had redefined the role” of first
lady, adding, “Later, in her long goodbye with President Reagan, she
became a voice on behalf of millions of families going through the
depleting, aching reality of Alzheimer’s, and took on a new role, as
advocate, on behalf of treatments that hold the potential and the
promise to improve and save lives.”
Mrs.
Reagan helped hire and fire the political consultants who ran her
husband’s near-miss campaign for the Republican presidential nomination
in 1976 and his successful campaign for the presidency in 1980.
She
also played a seminal role in the 1987 ouster of the White House chief
of staff, Donald T. Regan, whom Mrs. Reagan blamed for ineptness after
it was disclosed that Mr. Reagan had secretly approved arms sales to
Iran.
Behind
the scenes, Mrs. Reagan was the prime mover in Mr. Reagan’s efforts to
recover from the scandal, which was known as Iran-contra because some of
the proceeds from the sale had been diverted to the contras opposing
the leftist government of Nicaragua. While trying to persuade her
stubborn husband to apologize for the arms deal, Mrs. Reagan brought
political figures into the White House, among them the Democratic power
broker Robert S. Strauss, to argue her case to the president.
Mr.
Reagan eventually conceded that she was right. On March 4, 1987, the
president made a distanced apology for the arms sale in a nationally
televised address that dramatically improved his slumping public
approval ratings.
His
wife, typically, neither sought nor received credit for the turnaround.
Mrs. Reagan did not wish to detract from her husband’s luster by
appearing to be a power behind the presidential throne.
In
public, she gazed at him adoringly and portrayed herself as a contented
wife who had willingly given up a Hollywood acting career of her own to
devote herself to her husband’s career. “He was all I had ever wanted
in a man, and more,” she wrote in “My Turn: The Memoirs of Nancy
Reagan,” published in 1989.
He
reciprocated in kind. “How do you describe coming into a warm room from
out of the cold?” he once said. “Never waking up bored? The only thing
wrong is, she’s made a coward out of me. Whenever she’s out of sight,
I’m a worrier about her.”
In
truth, she was the worrier. Mrs. Reagan wrote in her memoirs that she
sometimes became angry with her husband because of his relentless
optimism. He didn’t worry at all, she wrote, “and I seem to do the
worrying for both of us.”
It
was this conviction that led Mrs. Reagan to take a leading role in the
Regan ouster and in other personnel matters in the White House. “It’s
hard to envision Ronnie as being a bad guy,” she said in a 1989
interview. “And he’s not. But there are times when somebody has to step
in and say something. And I’ve had to do that sometimes — often.”
She
did not always get her way. Mr. Reagan ignored her criticism of several
cabinet appointees, including Defense Secretary Caspar W. Weinberger.
In 2001, seven years after her husband announced that he had Alzheimer’s disease, Mrs. Reagan broke with President George W. Bush and endorsed embryonic stem cell
research. She stepped up her advocacy after her husband’s death on June
5, 2004. “She feels the greatest legacy her family could ever have is
to spare other families from going through what they have,” a family
friend, Doug Wick, quoted Mrs. Reagan as saying.
Years on Camera
Born
Anne Frances Robbins on July 6, 1921, in New York City, Nancy Davis was
the daughter of Edith Luckett, an actress, and Kenneth Robbins, a car
dealer who abandoned the family soon after her birth. Ms. Luckett
resumed her stage career when her daughter was 2 and sent the child to
live with relatives in Bethesda, Md. In 1929, Ms. Luckett married a
Chicago neurosurgeon, Loyal Davis, who adopted Nancy and gave her the
family name.
Almost
overnight, Nancy Davis’s difficult childhood became stable and
privileged. Throughout the rest of her life, she described Mr. Davis as
her real father.
Nancy Davis graduated from the elite Girls’ Latin School in Chicago and then from Smith College
in 1943. Slender, with photogenic beauty and large, luminous eyes, she
considered an acting career. After doing summer stock in New England,
she landed a part in the Broadway musical “Lute Song,” with Mary Martin
and Yul Brynner. With the help of a friend, the actor Spencer Tracy, her
mother then arranged a screen test given by the director George Cukor,
of MGM.
Cukor,
according to his biographer, told the studio that Miss Davis lacked
talent. Nonetheless, she was given a part in the film she had tested
for, “East Side, West Side,” which was released in 1949 starring Barbara
Stanwyck, James Mason and Ava Gardner. Cast as the socialite wife of a
New York press baron, Miss Davis appeared in only two scenes, but they
were with Miss Stanwyck, the film’s top star.
After
her husband went into politics, Mrs. Reagan encouraged the notion that
her acting interest had been secondary, a view underscored by the
biographical information she supplied to MGM in 1949, in which she said
her “greatest ambition” was to have a “successful, happy marriage.”
But
this was a convention in a day when women were not encouraged to have
careers outside the home. In his book “Reagan’s America: Innocents At
Home,” Garry Wills disputed the prevalent view that Miss Davis had just
been marking time in Hollywood while waiting for a man. She was “the
steady woman,” he wrote, who in most of her 11 films had held her own
with accomplished actors.
The
producer Dore Schary cast Miss Davis in her first lead role, in “The
Next Voice You Hear” (1950), playing a pregnant mother opposite James
Whitmore. She received good reviews for her work in “Night Into Morning”
(1951), with Ray Milland, in which she played a war widow who talked
Milland’s character out of committing suicide. Mrs. Reagan thought this
was her best film.
Mr.
Wills wrote that she was underrated as an actress because she had
become most widely associated with her “worst” and, as it happened, last
film, “Hellcats of the Navy” (1957), in which Ronald Reagan had the
leading role.
Photo
The Reagans at a premiere party for the film “Moby Dick” in 1956.Credit
Hulton Archive/Getty Images
How They Met
As she so often did in life, Nancy Davis took the initiative in meeting the man who would become her husband.
In
the late 1940s, Hollywood was in the grip of a “Red Scare,” prompted by
government investigations into accusations of Communist influence in
the film industry. In October 1949, the name “Nancy Davis” appeared in a
Hollywood newspaper on a list of signers of a supporting brief urging
the Supreme Court to overturn the convictions of two screenwriters who
had been blacklisted after being found guilty of contempt for refusing
to cooperate with the House Un-American Activities Committee.
Such
newspaper mentions could mean the end of a career, and Nancy Davis
sought help from her friend Mervyn LeRoy, who had directed her in “East
Side, West Side.” LeRoy found it was a case of mistaken identity:
another Nancy Davis had worked in what he called “leftist theater.” He
offered to call Ronald Reagan, president of the Screen Actors Guild, to
make sure there would be no problems in the future. Instead, Miss Davis
insisted that LeRoy set up a meeting with Mr. Reagan.
The
meeting took place over dinner at LaRue’s, a fashionable Hollywood
restaurant on Sunset Strip. Mr. Reagan, recovering from multiple leg
fractures suffered in a charity baseball game, was on crutches. Miss
Davis was immediately smitten.
Mr.
Reagan, though, was more cautious. According to Bob Colacello, who has
written extensively about the Reagans, Mr. Reagan still hoped for a
reconciliation with his first wife, the actress Jane Wyman, who had
divorced him in 1948.
After
dating several times in the fall of 1949, Mr. Reagan and Miss Davis
drifted apart and dated others. But they began seeing each other again
in 1950. Miss Davis had been accepted on the board of the Screen Actors
Guild, and she and Mr. Reagan began having dinner every Monday night
after the meetings, often with the actor William Holden, the guild vice
president, according to Mr. Colacello.
Mr.
Reagan and Nancy Davis were married on March 4, 1952, at a private
ceremony at The Little Brown Church in the Valley, in Studio City. Mr.
Holden and his wife, Ardis, were the only witnesses.
After
their marriage, the Reagans bought a house in the Pacific Palisades
area of Los Angeles, where their daughter, Patricia Ann, was born — “a
bit precipitously,” Mrs. Reagan wrote in her memoirs — on Oct. 21, 1952.
She is known as Patti Davis professionally. The Reagans also had a son,
Ronald Prescott, on May 28, 1958.
Besides
her son and daughter, survivors include Mrs. Reagan’s stepson, Michael
Reagan, and her brother, Dr. Richard Davis. A stepdaughter, Maureen
Reagan, died in 2001.
At
the time of their marriage, Mr. Reagan’s film career was, as his new
wife put it, at a “standstill.” Although Nancy Reagan had vowed not to
be a working wife, she made a low-budget science-fiction movie,
“Donovan’s Brain” (1953), with Lew Ayres. Her working was “a blow to
Ronnie,” Mrs. Reagan observed in her memoirs, “but quite simply, we
needed the money.”
The
money worries ended early in 1954, when Music Corporation of America,
the entertainment conglomerate, offered Mr. Reagan a television contract
for $125,000 a year to be the host of “General Electric Theater.” It
had a long run, broadcast on Sunday nights until 1962, and Mrs. Reagan
herself acted in a few of its episodes.
Indeed,
when her film career was over, she continued to work sporadically in
television, in episodes of “Zane Grey Theater,” “The Dick Powell Show”
and, as late as 1962, “Wagon Train.”
A Loyal Supporter
By
then, Mr. Reagan had changed his partisan affiliation from Democratic
to Republican and was giving political speeches. In Hollywood, Mr.
Reagan’s shift toward the right was often attributed to Mrs. Reagan and
her father, Loyal Davis, a staunch conservative. Both the Reagans denied
this; she was barely interested in politics at the time, they said.
Ironically, when President Reagan began to negotiate with Soviet
leaders, conservatives accused Mrs. Reagan of pushing him in a liberal
direction. Evidence is lacking to support either suspicion. As Mrs.
Reagan put it: “If Ronnie hadn’t wanted to do it, he wouldn’t have done
it.”
Though
Mrs. Reagan was not at first keen on her husband’s entry into politics,
she loyally supported him. His career took off when he made a rousing
nationally televised speech for the Republican presidential candidate
Barry Goldwater on Oct. 27, 1964. The following year a group of wealthy
people from Southern California approached Mr. Reagan about running for
governor of California. He was interested.
From
the first, Mrs. Reagan was part of the campaign planning. “They were a
team,” said Stuart Spencer, who with Bill Roberts managed the Reagan
campaign. New to politics, she said little at first. But Mr. Spencer
found her “a quick learner, always absorbing.” Before long she was
peppering Mr. Roberts and Mr. Spencer about their strategy and tactics.
Mr.
Reagan won a contested Republican primary and then a landslide victory
in November against the Democratic incumbent, Gov. Edmund G. Brown. For
the Reagans, that meant a 350-mile move to the state capital,
Sacramento.
Mrs.
Reagan was not happy there. She missed friends and the brisker social
pace and milder climate of Southern California. And she hated the
governor’s mansion, a dilapidated Victorian house on a busy one-way
street. So she persuaded her husband to lease, at their own expense, a
12-room Tudor house in a fashionable section of eastern Sacramento. Mr.
Reagan’s wealthy Southern California supporters later bought the house
and leased it back to the Reagans.
The
mansion episode, and Mrs. Reagan’s unalloyed preference for Southern
California, aroused parochial resentment in Sacramento. She in turn
disliked the city’s locker-room political culture, which required her to
socialize with the wives of legislators who had insulted her husband.
She bristled at press scrutiny, which became more intense after Joan
Didion and her husband, John Gregory Dunne, wrote an unflattering
article, “Pretty Nancy,” in The Saturday Evening Post in 1968. The
article described Mrs. Reagan’s famous smile as a study in frozen
insecurity.
Mrs.
Reagan, who thought she had made a good impression on Ms. Didion, was
crushed by the article. Katharine Graham, the longtime publisher of The
Washington Post and later a friend of Mrs. Reagan’s, said the article
set the tone for other unfavorable ones.
But
not all the press coverage was unflattering. A few months later, The
Los Angeles Times published an article whose tone was telegraphed by its
headline: “Nancy Reagan: A Model First Lady.” She also received
positive publicity for welcoming home former prisoners of war from
Vietnam and taking an active role in a Foster Grandparents Program for
mentally disabled children.
Governor
Reagan left office in 1975. With President Richard M. Nixon enmeshed in
the Watergate scandal, the Reagans had already begun planning their
next political move. In May 1974, they met with supporters at their home
in Pacific Palisades. Among them was John P. Sears, a Washington lawyer
who had worked for Mr. Nixon’s presidential campaign in 1960. Mr.
Sears, alone of those who attended the meeting, predicted the Nixon
resignation. That made an impression on Mrs. Reagan.
After
Nixon resigned and was succeeded by Gerald R. Ford, Mr. Reagan began
planning to challenge Mr. Ford for the 1976 Republican presidential
nomination. Mrs. Reagan recommended hiring Mr. Sears to direct the
effort, which Mr. Reagan narrowly lost. (Mr. Ford was then defeated by Jimmy Carter.)
Four
years later, as Mr. Reagan again sought the nomination, Mrs. Reagan
played a leading role in the firing of Mr. Sears. The campaign had just
won the New Hampshire primary, but Mrs. Reagan nevertheless came to
believe that Mr. Sears was a disruptive influence. She also had a hand
in the hiring of his replacement as campaign manager, William J. Casey,
whom Mr. Reagan later named director of central intelligence.
But
after Mr. Reagan won the nomination and got off to a flustered start in
his campaign against President Carter, Mrs. Reagan became critical of
Mr. Casey and urged her husband to bring in Stuart Spencer, who had run
Mr. Reagan’s first campaign for governor. Mr. Spencer was persona non
grata in the Reagan camp because he had managed Mr. Ford’s campaign in
1976. But Mr. Reagan followed his wife’s advice. Mr. Spencer joined the
campaign and ran it smoothly.
Not
all of her advice was equally good. For instance, she opposed Mr.
Spencer’s proposal that her husband debate President Carter. Mr. Reagan
decided to debate and did so well that he surged ahead in the polls and
won convincingly a week later.
Photo
Mrs. Reagan, wearing a dress by the designer Oscar de la Renta, left, in 1989.Credit
Bill Cunningham
A Sophisticated Turn
As
first lady, Mrs. Reagan was glamorous and controversial. The White
House started serving liquor again after the abstemious Carter years.
Mrs. Reagan reached out to Washington society. More sophisticated than
she had been in Sacramento, Mrs. Reagan also reached out to politicians,
Democrats as well as Republicans. She became friends with Millie
O’Neal, wife of the House speaker, Thomas P. O’Neill, who was a
political foe of President Reagan by day and a friend after hours.
During one period in 1981, when Mrs. Reagan was getting “bad press,” as
she recalled, Mr. O’Neill leaned across at a luncheon and said, “Don’t
let it get you down.”
Mrs.
Reagan’s critics said she had brought the bad press on herself. After
one look at the White House living quarters, Mrs. Reagan decided to redo
them. She then raised $822,000 from private contributors to accomplish
this. Another contributor put up more than $200,000 to buy a set of
presidential china, enough for 220 place settings; it was the first new
set in the White House since the Johnson administration.
With
a slim figure maintained by daily exercise, Mrs. Reagan looked younger
than her years and wore expensively simple gowns provided by Galanos,
Adolfo and other designers. One best-selling Washington postcard
featured Mrs. Reagan in an ermine cape and jeweled crown with the label
“Queen Nancy.” It touched a nerve with Mrs. Reagan, who had been
surprised at the press criticism of the china purchase and the White
House redecoration. But the rest of the country was kinder. In 1981, a
Gallup poll put Mrs. Reagan first on the list of “most admired women” in
the nation. She was in the top 10 on the list throughout the Reagan
presidency.
White
House image-makers, aware that President Reagan was generally well
liked for his self-deprecating humor, urged Mrs. Reagan to use humor as a
weapon against her critics. She did so spectacularly on March 29, 1982,
at the Gridiron Dinner, an annual roast by journalists, where, to
standing ovations, she made sport of her stylish if icy image in a
surprise on-stage appearance as “Second Hand Rose,” wearing feathered
hat, pantaloons and yellow boots and singing a parody of “Second Hand
Clothes.”
Mrs.
Reagan’s darkest memory was of March 30, 1981, when she received word
that her husband had been shot by a would-be assassin outside the
Washington Hilton Hotel. She rushed to the hospital, where her husband,
although fighting for his life, was still wisecracking. “Honey, I forgot
to duck,” he said to her, borrowing a line that the fighter Jack
Dempsey supposedly said to his wife after losing the heavyweight
championship to Gene Tunney in 1926. But Mrs. Reagan found nothing to
laugh about. “Nothing can happen to my Ronnie,” she wrote in her diary
that night. “My life would be over.”
After
the assassination attempt, Mrs. Reagan turned to Joan Quigley, a San
Francisco astrologer, who claimed to have predicted that March 30 would
be a “bad day” for the president. Her relationship with Ms. Quigley
“began as a crutch,” Mrs. Reagan wrote, “one of several ways I tried to
alleviate my anxiety about Ronnie.” Within a year, it was a habit. Mrs.
Reagan conversed with Ms. Quigley by telephone and passed on the
information she received about favorable and unfavorable days to Mr.
Deaver, the presidential assistant, and later to the White House chief
of staff, Donald Regan, for use in scheduling.
Mr.
Regan disclosed Mrs. Reagan’s astrological bent in his 1988 book, “For
the Record: From Wall Street to Washington,” asserting that the Quigley
information created a chaotic situation for White House schedulers. Mrs.
Reagan said that no political decisions had been made based on the
astrologist’s advice, nor did Mr. Regan allege that any had been.
But
the disclosure was nonetheless embarrassing to Mrs. Reagan; she and
many commentators saw it as an act of revenge for the role she had
played in forcing Mr. Regan out after the Iran-contra disclosures. Mrs.
Reagan’s low opinion of Mr. Regan was well known; she had said tartly
that he “liked the sound of chief but not of staff.” In fact, however,
Mr. Regan’s resignation had also been demanded by powerful Republican
figures, and the president had agreed to it. When Mr. Regan saw a report
of this on CNN, he quit and walked out of the White House.
Within
the White House, Mrs. Reagan was known as a meticulous taskmaster. Some
staff members feared incurring her disfavor. The speechwriter Peggy
Noonan was wearing walking clothes in the White House the first time she
passed by Mrs. Reagan, who looked at her with disdain. “The next time I
saw her I hid behind a pillar,” Ms. Noonan wrote in the book “What I
saw at the Revolution: A Political Life in the Reagan Era.”
Other
staff members found Mrs. Reagan more approachable than her husband. One
of these was the speechwriter Landon Parvin, who worked with Mrs.
Reagan when she was engineering her husband’s recovery from the
Iran-contra scandal and drafted the apology in the president’s televised
speech.
Photo
The first lady with students of the Second Genesis drug rehabilitation agency in Upper Marlboro, Md., in 1981.Credit
Charles Tasnadi/Associated Press
Her Own Causes
As
first lady, Mrs. Reagan traveled throughout the United States and
abroad to speak out against drug and alcohol abuse by young Americans
and coined the phrase “Just Say No,” which was used in advertising
campaigns during the 1980s.
In
speeches about drug abuse, Mrs. Reagan often used a line from the
William Inge play “The Dark at the Top of the Stairs,” in which a mother
says of her children, “I always thought I could give them life like a
present, all wrapped in white with every promise of success.” Mr.
Parvin, in an interview, said she had become emotional when she read
this line, “as if it had a power that went back to her own childhood.”
On
Oct. 17, 1987, a few days after cancer was detected in a mammogram,
Mrs. Reagan underwent a mastectomy of her left breast. Afterward, she
discussed the operation openly to encourage women to have mammograms
every year.
After
the presidency, the Reagans returned to Los Angeles and settled in a
ranch house in exclusive Bel Air. In 1994, Mr. Reagan learned he had
Alzheimer’s disease and announced the diagnosis to the American people
in a poignant letter, which Mrs. Reagan had helped him write.
For
the next decade, Mrs. Reagan conducted what she called a “long
goodbye,” described in Newsweek as “10 years of exacting caregiving,
hurried lunches with friends” and “hours spent with old love letters and
powerful advocacy for new research into cures for the disease that was
taking Ronnie from her.”
At
Mr. Reagan’s funeral, at the National Cathedral in Washington, she
remained in tight control of her emotions. Then she flew west with the
coffin for a burial service at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in
Simi Valley, Calif., where Mrs. Reagan will also be buried. At the
conclusion of the ceremony, at sunset, soldiers and sailors handed Mrs.
Reagan a folded American flag. She held it close to her heart, put it
down on the coffin, and at last began to cry.
Lou Cannon is the author of
five books about Ronald Reagan and was White House correspondent for The
Washington Post during the Reagan administration.
Following the failure to secure a safe
landing for Senate President Bukola Saraki at the Code of Conduct
Tribunal penultimate week, members of the upper chamber of the National
Assembly appear to be closing in on a successor in case the inevitable
happens, SUNDAY ABORISADE reports.
The Senate President, Bukola Saraki and his army of supporters across
the two main political parties in the red chamber, the Peoples
Democratic Party and the All Progressives Congress, would definitely had
wished that the cup of this week should pass over them. The Code of
Conduct Tribunal has fixed March 11 to start the trial of the number
three citizen of Nigeria who is the head of the federal parliament.
The Code of Conduct Bureau is prosecuting Saraki for alleged false
declaration of his assets. Virtually all legal and political steps taken
to stop Saraki’s trial by the Danladi Umar-led trial appeared to have
hit the rocks.
For instance, a last-minute hope of securing a judicial remedy
through an Abuja Federal High Court after a devastating blow from the
Supreme Court which allowed the CCT to continue with the trial, was
dashed penultimate week, when the court failed to heed a fresh prayer
seeking to stop the trial.
The Senate President had sought an order quashing his trial before
the CCT on ground, among others, that he was denied fair hearing in the
course of investigations leading to the charges preferred against him.
While necessary judicial solutions were being explored by the
Saraki’s team of legal experts, his friends and political associates
within and outside the National Assembly had equally intensified efforts
to lobby the presidency to prevail on the CCT to stop the case.
Part of the thinking of Saraki’s lobby team was that since an
outright dismissal of the case would generate serious public outcry,
especially when the case involved an alleged act of corruption, a
deliberate delay through long adjournments of hearing dates could make
Nigerians and the international community lose interest in it, while the
Senate President enjoys his tenure. But feelers from some heavyweight
politicians involved in the lobby showed that major political actors in
the presidency claimed that their hands were tied on the matter because
all facts were already in the public domain.
A senator who claimed to be privy to the lobby option told SUNDAY
PUNCH on condition of anonymity that Saraki’s emissary to the presidency
said attempting a political solution at this stage would cause a
setback for President Muhammadu Buhari’s anti-corruption crusade.
A presidency source had said, “If Saraki’s hands were not tied when
he rejected the party’s nominations for the principal offices of the
National Assembly, perhaps the rope would not have been tied tightly on
our own hands at this moment too.”
Saraki’s loyalists in the Senate, however, saw an opportunity to save
their colleague when Umar appeared before the Senate Committee on
Judiciary to defend the 2016 budget of his tribunal penultimate week.
A senator, who would not want his name mentioned, confided in our
correspondent that the Senate committee raised some issues in Umar’s
budget and gave him a date to come back to defend the queries.
The senator however said the plan failed when Umar refused to show up
for the budget defence until the deadline for the submission of
committee reports on MDAs budgets lapsed last Monday.
Since the grand plot to bring Saraki and Umar together at the upper
chamber failed, Saraki’s loyalists at both chambers are now allegedly
mounting pressure on the House of Representatives’ Committee on Ethics
and Public Petitions to intensify its probe of the alleged bribery
allegation against Umar.
Both chambers of the federal parliament had asked their ethics
committees to investigate an allegation contained in a petition by the
Anti-Corruption Network that the CCT boss allegedly demanded and
collected a N10m bribe.
The Chairman, Senate Committee on Ethics, Privileges and Public
Petitions, Sen. Samuel Anyanwu, told our correspondent last week that
his panel would await the outcome of the House committee, which had
already started work on the petition.
But the spokesperson for the camp loyal to Sen. Ahmad Lawan, Saraki’s
main opponent for the senate presidency seat, Senate Unity Forum, Sen.
Kabir Marafa, said in an interview with our correspondent that the trial
of Umar was politically motivated.
He therefore reiterated his call for the resignation of the Senate President in order to enable him to attend to his case.
It was learnt that part of the strategies of the SUF members was to
constantly attack Saraki’s leadership, using the proposed purchase of
exotic cars at a time when the Federal Government was finding it
difficult to pay theN5, 000 meant for jobless Nigerians.
But the Special Adviser to Saraki on Special Duties and
Intra-Parliamentary Affairs, Mr. Moshood Mustapha, described the public
outcry over the reported purchase of some vehicles by the National
Assembly for security operatives in the convoy of principal officers of
both chambers of the legislature as “unnecessary.”
Mustapha said critics of the project vehicles were not being fair to
the federal parliamentarians, arguing that nobody was raising eyebrows
when the political office holders in the executive arm of government
were allocated at least two vehicles each.
He said Saraki, for instance, had been using his personal cars since
he was inaugurated as President of the Senate. He also cited instances
where some of the vehicles he inherited in the convoy of his predecessor
developed serious mechanical faults.
The pro-Saraki lawmaker said the car transaction was purely between
the National Assembly management and the beneficiaries of the vehicles
who are not even lawmakers.
Mustapha said Saraki was entitled to two vehicles but that only one
was replaced in his convoy and that he chose so, on his own, because of
the economic situation of the country and to minimise government
expenses.
Mustapha also said Saraki saved the country N5bn when he rejected the
N6bn put in the budget of the Federal Capital Territory to build his
official residence and reduced it to N1bn just to exhibit prudence.
“Left to other people, they would have allowed it to go. As an
individual, he doesn’t believe in that project but because a lot of
money had gone into it; he believed that having N6bn in his official
residence is a waste and decided on his own to take away N5bn from this
project and put only N1bn.
“So, what is the N200m used to buy vehicles for security personnel
and protocol compared to the N5bn he had saved the nation. I wonder why
people are talking as if the vehicles are his personal property or for
his children.”
He also said no form of bribery took place at the upper chamber
during the screening of the ministers, contrary to insinuations in
certain quarters. He added that no form of corrupt practice took place
during the recently concluded budget defence by federal government
agencies.
Mustapha said, “Bukola Saraki had created the most democratised,
participatory and rigorous budgeting process as we have all seen, this
is perhaps the most disciplined senate since 1999. We have ministerial
screening and budget approval process without bribery and other forms of
corruption. It is a scandal free budget process. Nobody has ever said
anybody brought money or anything.
“Everybody has been busy doing his work and it was through this
painstaking process that we were able to discover errors in the budget
and even the president himself had said it that there are errors and
that he would hold the culprits responsible.”
Neverthless, having considered the sensitive nature of the case
before the CCT, some senators were said to have been making frantic
efforts to shop for Saraki’s successor.
Findings by our correspondent showed that members of both the SUF and
pro-Saraki senators under the aegis of Like Minds Senators had started
making contacts on how to agree on an acceptable candidate.
Some senators were also said to have agreed that the Deputy Senate
President, Sen. Ike Ekweremadu, would not be affected by the change as
he would be allowed to continue in office.
“However, senators from the anti-Saraki’s SUF group were advocating
the change of the principal officers to reflect the position of the
leadership of APC,” one of those privy to the plan had told SUNDAY
PUNCH.
If the SUF members should have their way, the implication is that
Lawan would take over from Sen. Ali Ndume as Senate Leader, while Sen.
Bala Ibn N’Allah might lose his Deputy Leader seat to Sen. George Akume,
who has not been attending activities in the Senate for some time. The
newcomer from Edo State, Sen. Francis Alimikhena, might also be asked to
vacate his seat as Deputy Whip for Sen. Abu Ibrahim.
It is still not clear how the issue of principal officers would be
resolved but one of the Like Minds Senators said Saraki’s successor
might come from his state or from the neighbouring Nasarawa State.
He said, “Both the SUF and Like Minds Senators had agreed to support
the emergence of somebody from the North-Central geopolitical zone, a
Muslim, who will be a bridge builder and acceptable to every senator.”
He also said the Saraki loyalists, who were in the majority at the
upper chamber, had insisted that his successor must also be a member of
the ‘New PDP’, a breakaway faction of the PDP which joined the APC at
its formation.
The lawmaker said, “This issue had gone beyond SUF or LMS. We are
coming together as one to ensure a rancour free arrangement that would
lead to the emergence of a new senate president. Most of the people that
we have consulted agreed that another senator from Kwara North should
take over the mantle of leadership.
“It has been agreed that with this, the people of Kwara would not
feel too bad, while the current arrangement in the red chamber will
remain as it is. ”
Close watchers of the development at the senate were of the opinion
that the resumption of Saraki’s trial at the CCT this week will
obviously shape the nation’s political history.
Saharareporters
Mr. Godwin Obaseki was born in Benin City,
Nigeria to the famous and illustrious Obaseki family. He had his early
education in St. Matthews Anglican Primary School Benin City from where
he proceeded to Eghosa Anglican Grammer School, Benin City for his
secondary schoool eductaion. He attended the University of Ibadan where
he obtained a BA in Classics. Mr. Obaseki attended the Columbia
University and Pace University in New York and has an MBA in Finance and
International Business. He is also a Fellow of the Chartered Institute
of Stock Brokers, Nigeria and an alumnus of the Lagos Business School
Chief Executive Program. He was nominated a Global Leader for Tomorrow (GLT) by the World Economic Forum in 2001. Career
Godwin Obaseki began his career over 30 years ago and has established
track records in Investment Banking, Asset Management, Securities
Trading and the Public Sector both internationally and in Nigeria.
He started out in 1983 with Capital Trust Brokers Limited Lagos as a
stockbroker where he excelled and subsequently worked with International
Merchant Bank (an affiliate of First Chicago Bank). In 1988 he joined
AVC Funds Limited, Lagos where he served as a Project Manager and led
the core team that set up two of the new generation banks which
eventually reshaped the face of the banking industry in Nigeria. Between
1993 and 1995 he worked in New York as a principal of Equatorial
Finance Co, a Financial Advisory firm with a focus on Africa and
providing Structured Trade Finance for African related transactions
through credit, financial advisory and risk insurance. He Founded
Afrinvest West Africa Limited (formerly Securities Transactions &
Trust Company Limited (SecTrust)) in 1995 as the pioneer Managing
Director. The firm has since grown to become a leading Investment
Banking and Investment Management firm in Nigeria. In 1995 SecTrust was
appointed the correspondent stockbroker for Nigeria by the International
Finance Corporation (IFC). In 1996, SecTrust established the first
derivative product, the Nigerian International Debt Fund (NIDF) on the
Nigerian Stock Exchange, which allowed Nigerians invest local savings in
US Dollar instrument. This fund has outperformed projections on
returns. SecTrust pioneered and was local adviser on the first
global offering by a Nigerian bank through the issuance of Global
Depositary Shares (GDS) to raise UD$50 million from the international
Capital market. Afrinvest has acted as advisers on some of the largest
and most significant transactions in the Nigerian capital market since
2005. Afrinvest is one of the most trusted advisory firms in the
domestic corporate finance market, pioneering major innovations and
providing leadership in the Nigerian Securities market. The Firm has
advised on numerous landmark transactions including the first Eurobond
Issue by a Sub-Saharan Africa Corporate (outside South Africa); the
first ever simultaneous merger and tender offer transaction in
Sub-Saharan Africa and the largest ever listing on the Nigerian Stock
Exchange. Afrinvest has been ranked as a major Investment Research firm
which is at the forefront of playing instrumental roles in the
introduction of new financing products such as Eurobonds and Global
Depository Receipts to Nigerian Companies. Mr. Obaseki is presently
the Chairman of the Board of Directors of the firm which won the Best
Asset Management Firm in Nigeria (2014) Award by the Wealth &
Finance International Magazine Finance Awards. Mr.Godwin Obaseki
currently serves as the Chairman of the Edo State Government's Economic
and Strategy Team (EST), a position he has held since March 17, 2009 Pro
bono publico. Key achievements as chairman of the economic team of Edo state Government include:
Documentation of State Economic Development framework through Sectors'
Strategic Planning which is reviewed and updated on an ongoing basis;
Introduction and enculturation of retreats as a platform to ensure all
parties engagement not only in planning and executing state development
initiatives but also in monitoring and evaluation of outcomes; N25 Billion Infrastructure Development Bond from the Nigerian Capital Market in 2010; $225 Million Concessionary rates Development Loan from the World Bank with the 1st Tranche of $75 Million already accessed;
Successfully hosted Sector based Economic Summits and Policy Dialogue
Series including the Power Round Table in 2010, 2011 Education Round
Table and 2012 Agribusiness Round Table. These summits have translated in measurable and desired outcomes including: i. Azura-Edo IPP project with over $1 billion in FDI currently under development in Ihovbor, Uhunwode LGA
ii. Education Reforms which have translated to significant improvement
in Educational Infrastructure and student performance in WAEC and other
Exams. iii. Following the 2012 Agribusiness Summit, the state has
attracted investment in the Rubber Sub-sector for the development of the
single largest Rubber Plantation project in Nigeria in Sokponba in
Orhiomwon LGA under a privately developed and financed initiative;
iv. A framework for Local Economic Empowerment through out-growers
schemes is being finalised to attract funding into the development of
key crops for which Edo State has natural endowment including Oil Palm,
Rubber, Cassava, Cocoa, Rice and other grains Other Committee activities in Edo State Government 1. Tax Assessment Review Committee for Edo State Internal Revenue Service (TARC) - Chairman 2. Committee on Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSME) - Chairman
3. Committee on the Implementation of the Law Establishing the Edo
State University of Science and Technology, Uzaire - Secretary 4. Committee on Contributory Pension Scheme - Member 5. Edo SEEFOR/DPO Steering Committee - Member 6. Committee on the Report of the Audit of the Credentials of Teaching Staff in Public Schools in Edo State.
7.State Steering Committee on the European Union Assisted Niger-Delta
Support programme (NDSP) Component 3 (Development of Edo State Water
& Sanitation Policy and Law. Professionally, Mr. Obaseki has
served on the Presidential Committee on the Reform of the Nigerian
Pension System. He also served on the Nigerian Securities and Exchange
Commission Committee on the Re-activation of the Nigerian Bond Market
and the review of the Investment and Securities Act. He served as a
member of the Nigerian Stock Exchange Council between 2006 and 2009. He
also serves on the board of some companies such as Dorman Long
Engineering Limited, Pillar Oil Limited, Seric Impianti International
Limited. He was the founding secretary of a New York based US Africa
Chamber of Commerce in 1992, which promoted US organisations doing
business in Africa. He was a Director in Junior Achievement of Nigeria -
the local affiliate of the worldwide Not for Profit organisation which
trains students to appreciate market economy values. He also
participates actively and serves as Trustee, in the Dr. Jackson Owen
Obaseki Foundation, a family owned NGO which is involved in providing
free educational and health services to the less privileged. He has
been a card carrying member of the All Progressive Congress (APC) since
xxxx and has participated actively in all elections since 2009 and was
Chairman Fund Raising Committee for the Oshiomhole-Odubu re-election bid
in 2012.
By Alemma-Ozioruva Aliu, (Benin City) and Debo Oladimeji, (Lagos) on February 29, 2016
Edebiri
AHEAD of the Edo State governorship elections, aspirants
from the All Progressive Congress (APC) and Peoples Democratic Party
(PDP) are positioning themselves for relevance to get the electorates’
attention.
But while more aspirants are springing up from the ruling
APC, fewer persons appear to be showing interest from the opposition
parties including the PDP. Still others like Odia Ofeimun are yet to
indicate which platform they want to use to get to the Dennis Osadebey
House.
Chief Solomon Edebiri of the PDP believes that human
capacity development and a resuscitation of the industrial sector hold
the key to the hearts of the Edo people, while Arch Ilenre Austin Emuan
and Comrade Peter Esele of the APC are focusing on an economic blueprint
anchored on welfarism; and education, agriculture and culture
respectively.
Ofeimun on the other hand wants to modernise Edo through
cultural civility and technological proficiency within a period of 40
months.
In an interactive session with journalists, in Lagos, Edebiri said
that human capacity development and industialisation have been neglected
by successive administration in the state noting that the state lacked
the required foundation for growth and development.
According to him, the graph of growth and development has been
declining since the end of Dr. Samuel Ogbemudia’s administration
stressing that economically virtually all the industries that made the
state robust have become moribund.
“Delta Line, Bendel Brewery, Bendel Wood Treatment plant, Bendel
Printing press, Afuze sports complex, the Agbede Wareke farms, Bendel
Insurance, etc. are dead. As the industries get castrated so our people
began to loose their jobs. As they loose their jobs, the resultant
effect was that the young ones went into crimes and the young ladies
started finding their ways out of the country”, he stated.
Edebiri said he was stepping into the gap to provide the foundation
for growth and development of the state. He acknowledged that the state
governor did well in the construction of some roads, which would be
built on.
“We need a man who is liberal who understands the business of the
state, who knows how to run the state as a business entity and turn it
around for good. That is where I come in,” he disclosed stressing that
he would localize crops in their local government area of advantage
along with their identified natural resources to grow the state’s
economy.
“The principle of one local government one commercial crop syndrome
with each local government area concentrating on the area of advantage
will be adopted with the attendant agro-industry established,” he said.
Edebiri promised to de-emphasise taxing the citizens, grow the
revenue base of the state to make it an export hub as against the
current import hub.
Esele of the APC said he would focus on education, agriculture and culture if he becomes governor Esele
On why going into the race despite rumours that the governor has his
preferred candidate, he posited, “I think the governor has every right
to support any candidate of his choice. But I also have my right to
contest. It doesn’t have to do with whether the governor has a preferred
candidate or not. But again, it is the delegates that will determine
who bears the party’s flag. I think we should be open to discussion and
ideas to broaden the space. And I think that is the biggest problem.”
“The bottom line, which I think, is a matter of ideas, considering
what Oshiomhole has done in the last seven years. It is a matter of
telling ourselves the truth; moving beyond ethnic politics and not
queuing behind somebody that is not going to add value. It is all about
building beyond what we have today. That is why I am into the race
today,” he added.
Emuan, a development expert explained that his passion for
development generally informed him asking why do nations failed and that
this stimulated the interest in international relations that eventually
prompted him to join politics.
He said he would democratize development and investment process with
25 years solid economic development plan that will enable Edo State
become one of the most industrialised economies and investment
destination in Nigeria.
According to him, Edo would be modernise and provided with
infrastructure that will offer Edo people wherever they are located in
the world to grow themselves economically, adding: “The philosophy of
this vision is hinged on co-ownership and participatory democracy.”
He said that he belonged to the neo structuralism ideology where
credit is given to welfarism of the state in line with the ideology of
the APC. “The only way to go about this thing that I am talking about is
to create the Economic blue print of Edo State that is quite peculiar
to Edo State. It is a very unique model that will be used to develop Edo
economy.” Emuan
Besides, Emuan promised to introduce a policy he called vernacular
education at the formative stage designed to empower the people to
study, learn, innovate and communicate in their language.
His words: “We need to develop the next generation such that they can
think, write and innovate and communicate in their own language because
culturally if we don’t do that we can go extinct. Any people that loses
her language loses their identity.”
Ofeimun who said he was interested in only one term in office,
promised that in forty months he would have turned Edo around and laid
the foundation for a “Singapore” within the Nigerian nation.
“I am determined to prove that within the particularity of one
nationality, Edo, and the fold of a multinational state, Nigeria, it is
possible to achieve high feats of modernity, cultural civility and
technological proficiency comparable to that of any other country in the
world,” he stated.
The renowned poet and polemicist said if he makes it to the office of
the governor, he would create money, investible and welfare funds,
through aggressive solid minerals, gas and agro-allied industries as
well as eliminate punitive taxation, waste, and improper expenditures.
Odigie-Oyegun
CHIEFTIANS of the ruling All Progressive Congress (APC)
across the country are at loggerheads over the sharing of positions on
the boards of government parastatals and agencies.
The problem, which has the prospect of tearing the party
apart, had been on ground even before President Muhammadu Buhari sacked
the heads of no fewer than 26 heads of parastatals and agencies of
government.
Trouble started after Chief John Odigie-Oyegun leadership of
the party mandated chairmen and vice chairmen of the 36 States chapters
of the APC to come up with a list of fifty nominees from their
respective States that would form the pool of those to be considered for
board appointments.
Rather than call a meeting of stakeholders of the party, The
Guardian was reliably informed that most of the states chairmen and
vice chairmen opted to pick their cronies and relatives as their
preferred nominees for board appointments into agencies and parastatals
of government.
The situation was further compounded by claims that members of the
Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) who recently defected to the APC and were
keen on getting board appointments, induced some party chieftains with
monies in a desperate bid to get on the list of the nominees for boards
appointments.
Expectedly, the development led to series of complaints and petitions
from aggrieved members of the party from across the country, forcing
the presidency, which was piqued over the issue to come to the rescue of
the ugly situation.
The source who asked not to be named said: “The truth is that most
our party chairmen in the states in conjunction with some states
governors settled for their relatives, wives, friends and cronies. The
worst side of it was that the mode of selection actually negated the
goal of Mr. President who wanted men and women that he could work with
to move the country forward.”
However, it was learnt that a committee led by the Secretary to the
Government of the Federation (SGF), Mr. Babachir Lawal has been
constituted to correct noticeable anomalies and hold due consultations
with aggrieved members of the party in a bid to arrived at an amicable
resolution on the issue.
The committee which comprised Oyegun, the National Secretary of the
party, Mr. Mai Mala Buni, and the six zonal vice chairmen of the party
have been mandated to meet with the states
chairmen, secretaries, factional heads of the party in the states so as
to ensure that those deserving of appointments into boards of agencies
and parastatals were given due considerations.
States believed to be hit most by the crisis were Kaduna, Kano, Enugu, Imo, Anambra, Lagos, and Oyo States.
A growing number of politicians are
making moves for a realignment of political power in Nigeria towards a
new political party, THISDAY has learnt. This is amid crisis in the main
opposition party, Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), and conflicting
interests in the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC).
It was gathered that discussions among
politicians from the two leading parties towards the floating of a new
party started in earnest some months ago, and it was fast gathering
momentum. Insiders said the new political move had the support of some
serving governors from both the APC and PDP, key principal officers of
the National Assembly, and some aggrieved political leaders across the
six geo-political zones. A former senate president, Ken Nnamani, is
being prevailed upon to act as the arrow-head of the emerging party, it
is gathered.
Nnamani announced his resignation from
PDP on February 6, saying, the party had abandoned “the path of its
noble vision and values”. He was elected Senate President in 2003. In
his statement titled, “PDP, the Burden and My Conscience,” Nnamani said
he was fed up with the state of things in the party. But said he was
quitting “without any iota of bitterness.”
He stated, “I do not believe I should
continue to be a member of the PDP as it is defined today. This is
certainly not the party I joined years ago to help change my country. I
do not also believe that the PDP, as it is managed today, will provide
an opportunity for me to continue to play the politics of principles and
values, which I set for myself as a young man on leaving graduate
school and working for a large multinational in the United States in the
70s and 80s.”
Nnamani did not announce an intention to join any political party, but he promised to remain politically active.
A former Senate Chief Whip, who chose not to be named, confirmed the
emerging political moves. He said, “Go and talk to many political elites
across the country today, you will hear and confirm huge frustration
among them. Nobody seems to be happy with what is happening in the APC
and the PDP. And some of us have come to a conclusion that there is
urgent need to have a new and credible platform to save this country.
“You will be shocked to know that the
agitation for a new political platform is more pronounced in the North,
in spite of the fact that we currently have a sitting president from the
North. It shows how frustrated people are in the country today.”
Another enthusiast of the emerging
political grouping, who is a prominent leader of APC, also told THISDAY
in confidence, “The hope that things will change for the better, with
President Muhammadu Buhari in power, is being dashed by the day. As I
speak with you today, the soul of the APC is gone. Go to the national
secretariat of the party, they will tell you.”
It was learnt that some desperate
efforts recently by concerned leaders of APC to iron out things among
themselves were frustrated by the political hawks around Buhari, who are
already strategising for 2019.
“What you are likely to have in the
coming months is a congregation of old PDP members in the APC pulling
out to form a formidable political party with some progressive-minded
members of the present PDP,” the APC leader said last night in Abuja.
The special caucus meeting held last
week by APC was said to be part of the measures to halt the tide of
disenchantment, which promises to seriously threaten the ruling party.
Very little was achieved by the meeting following the absence of
President Muhammadu Buhari, who was unavoidably absent. But another
meeting is being contemplated for this week, where aggrieved APC members
would be expected to table their grievances before the party and the
government.
Many APC members are said to be calling
for the removal of the national chairman, John Odigie-Oyegun, citing
poor leadership. It is suspected that the replacement for Odigie-Oyegun
would come from the North as part of a grand plan to put the president
in a position of comfort as far as party administration is concerned.
But that is expected to meet with resistance, as party leaders from
other parts of the country are likely to oppose the idea. Generally,
many leaders of the party are said to be unhappy with the current status
of the party and the government, having been shut out of the
decision-making process, despite their commitment to the success of the
party.
One of the problems believed to be
delaying the manifestation of the idea of a new party, according to the
promoters, is the question of the personality around which the party
will be built. They want a personality that would sell, like Buhari did,
for the APC.
Indications of how the politicians are
readjusting towards the eventual formation of a new party are clearer in
PDP. The party has lurched from one crisis to the next since it lost
the general election to APC last year. The high turnover of PDP national
chairmen since the election is symptomatic of the crisis within.
Adamu Muazu resigned under pressure as
PDP national chairman on May 20 last year, accused of leading the former
ruling party to a devastating defeat at the polls. He was replaced by
Haliru Bello, who was appointed acting national chairman on May 25 last
year and was sacked on February 10 this year. Bello was succeeded by the
PDP deputy national chairman, Uche Secondus, who worked in acting
capacity until February 16, when he handed over to the newly-appointed
national chairman, Ali Modu Sheriff. Sheriff’s appointment has been
enmeshed in controversy.
Though, PDP says it has resolved its
leadership crisis following an agreement to let Sheriff run the affairs
of the party for three months, until the national convention, when a new
national leadership of the party would be elected. There are fears that
PDP may come out of the national convention more divided than it went
in. This is due to the very huge likelihood of a clash between the PDP
governors, who were the main force behind Sheriff’s emergence as
national chairman, and other groups and interests in the party that had
opposed his choice.
In recent times, some prominent PDP
members have resigned from the party without joining other parties, in
what is seen as a strategic move to help nurture the expected new
political platform. Besides Nnamani, Samuel Ogbemudia and Dalhatu Sarki
Tafida have recently left PDP, but did not defect to other parties.
In APC, the National Assembly has been
the main theatre of war. Senate President Bukola Saraki and House of
Representatives Speaker Yakubu Dogara won their positions last June
against the wish of the party, in connivance with PDP legislators.
Sources say Saraki’s current trial by the Code of Conduct Bureau may
prepare the ground for the consolidation of the moves towards a new
party. Both Saraki and Dogara belong to a bloc within the party, the New
PDP, which believed they needed to be compensated for their
contributions to the victory of APC.
