{"id":419800,"date":"2011-05-09T06:00:00","date_gmt":"2011-05-09T06:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.ghanamma.net\/2011\/05\/09\/killing-opposition-parties-in-the-name-of-gnu\/"},"modified":"2011-05-09T06:00:00","modified_gmt":"2011-05-09T06:00:00","slug":"killing-opposition-parties-in-the-name-of-gnu","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2011\/05\/09\/killing-opposition-parties-in-the-name-of-gnu\/","title":{"rendered":"Killing opposition parties in the name of GNU"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n<\/p>\n

The Action Congress of Nigeria and the Congress for Progressive Change last week rejected President Goodluck Jonathan\u2019s invitation to participate in the Government of National Unity. OLUSOLA FABIYI examines the fate of political parties who jumped at similar offer in the past<\/span><\/p>\n

Very few Nigerians hold the view that those in government are there to serve the interest of the populace. Credence was lent to this hypothesis when a former Internal Affairs Minister, late Chief Sunday Afolabi informed the public that the late Chief Bola Ige (SAN), was invited to the federal cabinet to \u201ccome and chop,\u201d and therefore he had no business criticising the policy of the government of which he was serving. Of course, Ige, who was then the Attorney-General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, said he did not know that Afolabi and company were \u201cchopping\u201d in government and that in anyway, he was in government to serve and not to \u201cchop.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

As at the time when Afolabi, who was later put on trial for corruption by the same government before he died, was making this statement, Ige was a dedicated member on the now bed-ridden Alliance for Democracy, which was the dominant political party in the South-West at that time. The desire of the ruling party, which produced former President Olusegun Obasanjo to break the ranks of the members of the AD led to the appointment of Ige, who was a former governor of old Oyo State and a prominent member of the party. The strategy worked because at the end of the day, the PDP was able to snatch five of the six states during the following governorship election the South West. Only the former governor of Lagos State, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, was able to escape the onslaught of the PDP. Now, the AD is not known to be a serious political party in the country as it did not win any seat, both at the state and federal level during the last national elections.<\/span><\/p>\n

Those in government, especially at the national level, seemed to have perfected the act of inviting members of the opposition to government to \u201ccome and chop\u201d in order to weaken their ranks. When the former chairman of the All Nigerian Peoples Party, Chief Edwin Ume-Ezeoke assumed the leadership of the party, he inherited a vibrant opposition party. It was in the premise of this and the belief that the party had the potential to form the government at the centre that he accepted to be the running mate to Maj.Gen. Muhammadu Buhari (retd.) during the 2007 presidential election.<\/span><\/p>\n

But as soon as the elections were over, Ume-Ezeoke began surreptitious moves to join Buhari\u2019s foe\u2019s government headed by late President Umaru Yar\u2019Adua.<\/span><\/p>\n

The former Speaker of the House of Representatives went ahead to nominate his own son, Chineme, who later became the presidential adviser on civil society matters to the president. As if that was not enough, Ume-Ezeoke, who was desperate to do the biddings of his masters in the PDP, later castigated Buhari for going ahead with the case when his party had said it was no longer interested.<\/span><\/p>\n

Political analysts are of the opinion that the decision to join the GNU by the Ume-Ezeoke-led ANPP, contributed to its misadventure in the Nigerian electoral system. Before he assumed office in 2006, the ANPP was in control of six states, namely Kano, Yobe, Borno, Zamfara, Sokoto and Kebbi. But by the time he left, the party was controlling only three states \u2013 Kano, Yobe and Borno. Kebbi and Sokoto States fell into the hands of the PDP during the 2007 elections while the governor of Zamfara, who won the election on the platform of the ANPP, has since jumped into the PDP boat. The same goes for Isa Yuguda of Bauchi State, the only state the Ume-Ezeoke led ANPP took from the PDP during 2007 polls. During the last governorship election, Kano also fell into the waiting hands of the PDP.<\/span><\/p>\n

For the members of the opposition, the allure in the ruling party is too inviting to ignore. This was why the only elected member of the Accord Party in the Senate, Senator Patrick Osakwe left the party for the PDP, which he described as \u201ca party of milk and honey.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

When the current Chairman of the ANPP, Dr. Ogbonnaya Onu assumed office, he had the intention of strengthening the party. One of his strategies was to ask members of the party who were serving in the GNU to resign and return to the party. But the ministers did no longer found the corn, which is the symbol of the party, tasteful enough to attract them as exemplified by their actions. One of them, Minister of State for Foreign Affairs, Hajia Salamatu Suleiman, bluntly declined, saying she was not \u201caware of the party\u2019s directive.<\/span><\/p>\n

Also, the second ANPP person and minister of State for Finance Hajia Yabawa Lawan Wabi is still in the government. Wabi was nominated by Sherif, her brother-in-law.<\/span><\/p>\n

The trend of sit-tight of those who supposed to be passersby in government and the insistence of the government to use this mode of operation to muzzle the opposition could have probably made the leadership of the ACN and CPC to have rejected the call for them to be part of the proposed GNU of the president-elect, Dr. Goodluck Jonathan, when he takes office on May 29. Those in favour of the arrangement had reasoned that the GNU was necessary to knit the country together after what they called the bitter presidential campaigns.<\/span><\/p>\n

Perhaps learning from the mistakes of the past, the two leading opposition parties said a unity government at this moment would not bolster democracy in the country. The ACN\u2019s National Publicity Secretary, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, said the party\u2019s rejection of the plan was to dispel the rumours that the ACN had been contacted and that it was in negotiations for a share of ministerial appointments.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u2018\u2019Our stand against the so-called Government of National Unity is that it stifles democracy by compromising virile opposition which is a key ingredient of a vibrant democracy, thereby encouraging the emergence of a one-party state. It also stunts development and promotes complacency.<\/span><\/p>\n

We hope this clarification will silence those who have been peddling the lies that our party sold out to the PDP during the presidential election,\u2019\u2019 it said.<\/span><\/p>\n

The National Chairman of the party, Chief Bisi Akande, agrees. He said his party could not form any unity government with the PDP-led government, as it would amount to bringing light and darkness together. Also, the CPC said its major preoccupation was to challenge Jonathan\u2019s victory in court. Its National Publicity Secretary, Mr. Rotimi Fashekin, said his party had no such thing as GNU in its agenda, adding that the CPC would not participate in such arrangement.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThe CPC wishes to state, quite unequivocally, this is a no-brainer for us; we shall not be part of this impending arrangement. As a party, we believe the presidential election that gave the PDP the impetus to make this call was one of the worst ever experienced in the country with new rigging technologies put to test. We have resolved, based on the collated evidence, to seek judicial redress of the monumental fraud that the election was,\u201d he added.<\/span><\/p>\n

Pushing the party\u2019s position further, Fashekin said there was no basis for collaboration with a PDP-led government since it shares no common value with the CPC. \u201cAs a party that is intrinsically driven by principles, our interactions with other political associations must necessarily be predicated on shared values which, unfortunately, cannot succinctly be the case. Without any modicum of prejudice, we wish well any political party that will partake in the GNU,\u201d he added. With this, the two major political parties, who are expected to give the PDP a run for its money during the 2015 general elections, seem to have learnt their lessons.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/p>\n

See the article here:
\nKilling opposition parties in the name of GNU<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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