The Chairman of the All Progressives Congress, (APC), Comrade Adams
Oshiomhole has described those who have dumped his party particularly
for the erstwhile ruling party, the Peoples Democratic Party, (PDP) as
men without honour, according to a report by The Nigerian Tribune.
Recall that on Tuesday 14 senators and 37 members of the House of
Representatives, dumped the ruling party on the floor of both chambers
of National Assembly.
On the eve of the former governor of Kano state, Rabiu Kwankwaso’s
departure, the Presidency, the APC national working committee and
certain governors met with him at the Presidential Villa and appealed to
him to remain in the ruling party.
National chairman of the party also met with the Benue State
governor, Samuel Ortom penultimate week at the party national
secretariat and promised to address his grievances.
But speaking with newsmen while playing host to the APC members in
the House of Representatives, Comrade Oshiomhole said the recent
defection was indicative of his earlier observation that the ruling
party was bereft of a guiding ideology, which he claimed gave room to
people without honour to be accommodated.
He further claimed the aggrieved chieftains who dumped the APC were
not comfortable with President Muhammadu Buhari anti-corruption crusade
meant to rid the country of stealing of national patrimony.
He said: “I said in my acceptance speech that we will have to
create an Institute of Legislative Studies so that whoever is in this
party must understand what we stand for.
“If we are bonded together by a set of ideology, it will be
difficult for people who subscribe to these ideologies to decamp on the
basis of not gaining for his pocket rather than not delivery to the
welfare of the Nigerian people. Until we get there, these musical chairs
will continue. If you are a man or woman of honour, you cannot vomit in
the morning, all the impurity in your stomach and then because you are
not getting a buffet, you convert that vomit to lunch and eat it with
your eyes open.
You have to be completely bereft of ideas and honour to be able
to do that and look your people in the face. I said to those who say
they are running to PDP that, it is good, that is where you belong.
If you left there because you felt that the culture of sharing
will be deepened in the APC and you have found that sharing the money is
not part of it and you choose to return, good luck to you.
“But you must realize that the access to CBN has been cut off,
the access to NNPC has been cut off, the access to converting defense
spending has been cut off and those who have done it are helping
security agencies to explain, they are confessing how they share the
national treasury and so, you are free to go.
“What has happened is that we are able to establish ahead of
time those fair weather party members who go according to where their
pocket will be lined and who go according to how to read the political
culture in their village. Some of them are politicians of convenience
and I don’t think that if we patch them up now, they can still flow.”
The APC governor thanked the lawmakers whom he noted have remained committed to the ideals of the party.
“I am excited that even in moments like this, we still have men
and women of honour in the House of Representatives who recognize that
there are values more important than dangling automatic ticket, dangling
dollars without asking questions about the source of those dollars.
But I can assure you that if people have not learnt from the
recent past, then they will go the way of the recent past. We must
remain focused and I am grateful that we still have men and women of
honour who have refused to be tempted. Somebody asked if we are going to
counter the PDP by offering automatic ticket and I asked, did we serve
anybody a departure ticket? If we did not give you a departure ticket,
how did the issue of return ticket arise?
“For me, we are clear that every legislator who has value and
is at home with his people and not with the godfather’s in their
communities, that legislator is an asset to our party and this party
will do everything possible to retain them.
Only yesterday, I said to the caucus of the Senate that my hope
is that once we clean up the system and we are able to distinguish our
left from the right and can now see clearly as people who believe in a
particular set of idea, our party must consciously work to achieve a
situation where Nigeria will produce seasoned legislators and
congressmen like we have in the United States, where a Senator McCain
will speak and even a mad President listens.
We must get there. But if it takes them 100 years to get there,
we don’t have to wait that long. We don’t have to reinvent the wheel
because we copy what is attractive and discard what is not.”
Earlier in his remarks at the meeting with Comrade Oshiomhole
before the gathering dissolved into a closed-door session, House
Majority Leader, Femi Gbajabiamila corroborated Comrade Oshiomhole claim
that his colleagues who defected were being offered automatic tickets
by the PDP. He also alleged financial inducement.
“The APC is not for harvest. Mr chairman they are poaching
members and they will continue to poach. I have heard and even ashamed
to say it that members are being offered mouth-watering figures in terms
of cash and I say mouthwatering and members have rejected those cash.
Mr Chairman, not only are they being offered mouth-watering
cash but they are being given automatic tickets and I say to members,
the people who are complaining about internal democracy In APC, a
complaint I do not agree with, how come they are offered automatic
tickets and they accept, what are they complaining about in the other
party?
Our members have settled their deceit because that is
what it is and I can guarantee that the automatic ticket is just a
mirage. They will not be given and I can guarantee that.”