…As nPDP Meets APC Over Looming Exodus From Party
‘Dotun Akintomide
The presidency on Sunday came down heavily on the opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), suggesting that the party’s campaign slogan: ‘Changing the Change’ is an attempt to reverse all the progress made under the current administration and to open the door for another circle of corruption.
In his opinion piece, Garba Shehu, Senior Special Assistant to the President on Media and Publicity, said anything that causes President Muhammadu Buhari to lose in 2019, would mean corruption has fought back
He said only discerning minds can understand this.
Shehu said even Buhari fell victim of his own war against graft in the 80s and that it was only when the authorities learnt of his mother’s death that they let him out of the net.
“Top opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) members have been granting press interviews and addressing zonal political rallies talking about ‘Changing the Change’ in next year’s general elections, without defining what exactly that means.
“As the governing All Progressives Congress (APC) gears up to celebrate the completion of three years of the Buhari government at the centre on May 29, Nigerians need to be reminded of what the reversal of the achievements of this administration will amount to.
“The real meaning and cost of the ‘Changing the Change’ is that if they win the next election, they will not take us back to where we were in 2015, they will mostly reverse the progress the APC has brought to the nation.
“The main reason for the defeat of the PDP in 2015 was corruption. The present administration at the centre led by President Muhammadu Buhari has so far presented a corrupt-free image of itself.
“It has also succeeded in abolishing grand corruption at the top and as attested to by the American President Donald Trump.
“The government has significantly brought down the level of corruption in the whole country. It has, however, warned over and again that corruption was fighting back.
“Many who are discerning would have read this from President Buhari’s speech when he inaugurated the impressive new headquarters building of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) a week ago.
“He narrated how and why he was overthrown as a military Head of State in the 80s. In that speech, he said not only was he kicked out because he fought corruption, the ones who took power freed all those that he had jailed, and whatever they stole was returned to them.
“He took their place in prison and stayed there without trial for 36 months, until that day when a journalist in Benin, now in Edo, broke the story that he had lost his mother. That was when he was allowed to go home.
“The real difference between the PDP and the current APC administration is that although they mouthed a flood of rhetoric against corruption, in fact rightfully lay the claim of founding the institutions now in the forefront of fighting corruption as a government, the EFCC and the Independent Corrupt Practices and other related offences Commission (ICPC), they had intended to keep them as toys, or bulldogs which teeth had been removed.
“No, they never intended that the war against corruption would be taken this far,” Shehu stated.
Meanwhile, the New Peoples Democratic Party (nPDP) group in All Progressives Congress (APC) will meet today with the leadership of the APC over the group’s letter in which it alleged marginalisation by the party.
Abubakar Kawu Baraje, Chairman of the group, who gave hints of the planned meeting on Sunday, said the party leadership invited the group for the meeting with a collective decision that it should hold today by 2p.m.
“The last time we met here (Baraje’s house) in 2016, I told you that the way the party was going on, we were on the road to perdition.
“If you look at the letter we wrote, we never said we gave an ultimatum but that we advised them; we hinted the party because of the ongoing primaries of the party.
“Now the party has invited us, exactly on the seventh day of the letter, and they wanted us to meet that same day but because we were speaking for several leaders across the country, we told them we couldn’t meet that same day, so now they have scheduled a meeting for tomorrow (Monday) any time from 2p.m”, he said.
Baraje said nPDP members would not immediately pull out of the APC if the party fails to meet their demands.
He said that, like they did in the last administration, they would still go ahead and meet with several leaders across the country to stop what he termed impunity within the party.
