PRESS STATEMENT
ON THE PEOPLES TRAIN WITH PETER OBI AND DATTI BABA-AHMED FOR NIGERIA’S REDEMPTION
SOLA EBISENI
Our presence at the momentous OBIDATI rally in Ibadan last Wednesday 21st November was ultimate evidence that we have boarded the people’s train with Peter Obi and Datti Ahmed for the redemption of our country. To those who could not see beyond the conventional and are irredeemably fixated on the search for structures which have only held our nation and people hostage, let them know that the Obidient phenomenon is not a joke they thought would soon frizzle out.
A brother and learned colleague, out of sheer love though, described our move, after my initial television interviews justifying the Afenifere’s endorsement of the ObiDatti ticket, as a descent to political Golgotha. We are quick to remind him that the way to redemption is paved with crown of thorns and burdensome cross which must be borne at Golgotha which Nigeria must experience, nilly-willy.
As for questions coming from our compatriots, particularly of the Peoples Democratic Party, with whom we share the same partisan platform in the last decade or so, I have even more than the party constitution provides, twice called and addressed the meeting of my Ward, Mahin 2 in Ilaje Local Government of Ondo State, intimating our people about why it was difficult for me, in good conscience and the peace of our nation, to support the ill-advised choice of the party’s Presidential candidate on account of his region of origin.
Our politics is without integrity, a country where the political class employs multiple and convenient standards and careless about the consequences. The Nigerian State is raped, bruised and denied the equity we seek in our families, traditional institutions and even in our local politics.
In campaigns with the ObiDati, we seek the same equity we often insist on, particularly in Yorubaland, on rotation of our Obaship among Ruling Houses constituted even by men of common ancestry, failure which we too often resort to most expensive legal battles or mutually unleash fratricidal violence unmindful of putting our monuments to inferno.
It is sheer hypocrisy that politicians who cannot compromise zoning of their States Houses of Assembly, National Assembly and Gubernatorial positions and in anger openly sabotage their parties during elections will shamelessly turn their backs to the equity they preached when it comes to the most important office and expect peace in the federation.
They resort to worn-out clichés such as power is not served a la carte to justify political shenanigans that are in the long run ruinous to the health of the nation. To stay politically correct their sense organs are deliberately deadening to hearing, seeing or perceiving evil in every material particular.
They zone to Wards, Senatorial Districts and even tribal kingdoms within the same micro linguistic groupings in their local Governments and states. Yet, without conscience, they insist on survival of the fittest for the leadership of our country, not on the basis of character and competence but on such mundane parameters as deep pockets and personalised structures which sources are obvious.
The PDP was birthed in the legacy of national healing and consensus enthroning regional and geopolitical zoning of the office of the President as the harbinger of peace and progress. Notwithstanding its loss of power in 2015, it is being looked upon as the General Purpose Vehicle for national redemption so much that those who transgressed against it were soonest forgiven and welcome with open arms without loss of precedence and honour.
The party however bit the forbidden fruit the moment it deceived itself that the centre could hold while destroying the foundational covenant. We hold it evidently true in nature that in the current conflict between the PDP on one hand and righteousness, truth and justice on the other, the result is a foregone conclusion.
At the 2014 National Conference the Committee on Political Parties and Election of which I was member as a delegate, Iyorchia Ayu and Ken Nnamani, both former Presidents of the Nigerian Senate were co- Chairmen. The present National Chairman of the PDP was therefore a prominent delegate to the CONFAB which resolved and recommended that the office of the President of the Republic be zoned on the North/South regional and Geopolitical basis to allay fears of political domination.
In fairness to Ayu, the position of the National Chairman is what belongs to him as of right of the Convention of the party and which he got by consensus.
However before his inauguration on the 31st of October 2021, he had already granted interview suggesting the emergence of a northern Presidential candidate and that he would resign in that eventuality, a promise now his albatross.
The just call by the Integrity Group led by Governor Nyesom Wike and his colleagues and reasoned with by well meaning party members and other Nigerians is a mere parable against the decision of the PDP seeking iniquitously that power remains in the North after 8 years of its presidency through Muhammadu Buhari.
The nation earnestly and soonest awaits the fullness expression of the Integrity in the righteous league with the Southern and Middle Belt Leaders Forum and the APC group led by Babachir Lawal. Ayu or the National Chairman of any political party is not the issue in the quest for inclusiveness and justice. It is the office of the President.
On a personal note we have nothing against the party as an institution or the person of Atiku its Presidential candidate. I recall that in 2019 the 12 Presidential aspirants who slugged it out at the Convention in PortHacourt were all of northern origin wherein Atiku emerged flag bearer.
I was a member of the National Campaign Council and other Committees, the Chief Collation Officer for the elections and Returning Officer for our Presidential candidate in Ondo State. We defeated APC with a margin of 35, 000 votes, the highest in the South West.
However the statuses of unifier and bridge builder which are falsely ascribed to the ticket of the PDP most befittingly belong to the Peter Obi and Datti Ahmed combination. It is the only arrangement in the present dispensation which justly answers all questions of regional and faith equities with leaders we do not have to hold our breadths in engagements in the comity of nations.
As we join the people’s train with Peter Obi and Ahmed Datti, we call on all lovers of Nigeria from all walks of life, including those leaders and elders who put their youthful lives at risk for the unity of Nigeria to come on board in this task to rescue our nation.
The generation that fought the Nigerian civil war was reconciliatory enough to elect an Igbo as Vice President only nine years after by 1979. If we know that being related we shall always meet, it is only proper that we heal our minds and land of the vestiges of the war and live in peace. Igbo lokan.
Sola Ebiseni is the Secretary General, Afenifere.
28th November 2022.