18th June, 2015
Eromosele Ebhomele
A coalition of civil society groups under the aegis of Civil Society Coalition For Good Governance, CSCGG, on Thursday morning appealed to the All Progressives Congress, APC, to remain united and strong enough to ward off the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, from returning to power in Nigeria.
At a press conference held at the Airport Hotel in the Ikeja area of Lagos, Nigeria, the groups further urged all politicians in the APC to recognise the importance of party supremacy in their dealings and activities as well as the sacrifice made by the party’s national leader, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, to redeem the country through President Muhammadu Buhari.
“The controversial circumstances leading to the emergence of Bukola Saraki as Senate President and Yakubu Dogara as Speaker of the House of Representatives have tended to create bad blood within the ruling party and constitute a cog in the wheels of democratic progress.
“While we grant politicians their rights to pursue their political aspirations, we also believe strongly that party men and women should always subject themselves to party discipline so as to allow for cohesion and smooth operations and implementation of party programmes.
“It is our position that since the party was the vehicle through which individuals won elections into offices, and as long as there is so far, no provision for independent candidacy, all party members must subject themselves to party discipline.
“We call on the APC to henceforth invoke its disciplinary processes against any party member who conducts himself or herself in any manner that violates party discipline or undermines the collective interest of the party.
“The mischievous gang up between the new leaders of the National Assembly and the defeated PDP should warn the leaders of the APC that the unfinished task of neutralising the PDP with its nauseous effects on the Nigerian polity for the past 16 years needs their attention.
“Nothing should be done to reward the PDP which has mismanaged power and politics in Nigeria for the past 16 years, while APC was the opposition,” the groups, which have Comrade Declan Ihekaire and Mohammed Kudu Abubakar as Deputy Conveners and Vince Bakare as Secretary, said.
In the speech read by Ihekhaire, the CSCGG further said: “we have noted the ridiculing by political lilliputs desperate to cling unto any straw to demean and diminish the towering political profile of Ashiwaju Ahmed Tinubu.
“We see their claim that the present conspiracy by the negative forces to take the leadership of the National Assembly has dwindled the stature of Asiwaju Tinubu as the vain gloating of defeated and conquered political vassals.
“By insisting on adherence to party’s position in the election of the officers of the National Assembly, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu was advancing the interest of the party he midwifed and with which he retired a huge cache of political wayfarers in Nigeria.
“The coalition sees Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu as a towering political icon that wrote the scripts of the change we have today and equally, see the struggle by the political lightweight to ridicule him as the vain efforts of defeated dwarfs that see the rise of their political fortunes in an endless chase of the shadow of Aiwaju Bola Tinubu. No doubt, this will fail.”
The groups advised that the APC must begin to impose sanctions on members who go against the party to discourage a repeat of the ‘political coup’ that played out recently at the National Assembly.
The groups added that since the party leadership has agreed to work with the leadership of the National Assembly in national interest, “the coalition hereby calls on all party members to henceforth embrace party discipline, show loyalty to the party and work towards the party’ programme and manifesto for the overall good governance and national development.
“We must remind all party members that it was the party’s manifesto and programme of change that endeared Nigerians to it and earned it the massive votes of Nigerians who had been yearning for change,” the groups said.