A chieftain of the All Progressives Congress (APC), and former National Chairman of the National Republican Convention, Tom Ikimi, announced on Tuesday the withdrawal of his membership from the party, citing how the former governor of Lagos State and a national leader of the party, Senator Bola Tinubu, manipulates the main opposition party for his personal benefits.
In a very detailed statement in which he left little to the imagination, Ikimi pointedly accused Tinubu of being a sell out and of selective morality for his behind-the-scenes romance with the PDP government for personal gains.
Though he did not state where he would pitch his political tent, Ikimi said the ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) had been making overtures to him.
According to Ikimi, “I am at the stage of critically re-examining the two dominant political parties in our country, which are the APC and the PDP, both of which I have had a close working knowledge.
“I have not ignored the other political parties but in the light of the foregoing, I must now search to really ascertain where indeed my true political friends exist.
“I need to be, at this time of my life where I have friends who share a common vision with me and where my freedom, respect, honour and dignity would be guaranteed. Notwithstanding my enormous contributions over the past 12 years or so to build the alternative platform, after very deep thought and the widest consultations I have made the decision to withdraw my membership from the All Progressives Congress (APC) from today, Wednesday, 27th August 2014.”
Ikimi, who blamed his departure from APC on Tinubu and a select few manipulating the affairs of the party, explained that “Major decisions said to be party decisions now started emerging from this select group whose ad hoc membership varied from time to time.
“They usually congregated at Tinubu’s private parlour in his Asokoro, Abuja, residence. Those who wanted to belong had to find or force their way into that parlour. Once initiated, your independence or capacity to challenge the plots that emerged from that cult venue became seriously curtailed.
“Rather than freely open up critical issues to free debate at the interim Executive Council for democratic decisions to emerge, positions plotted at the notorious Asokoro parlour were being desperately foisted on the party for execution.
“A handful of us constantly challenged this trend with little success. Gradually, the direction of the party assumed a focus on the contest for the presidency. Then the images of presumed presidential and vice-presidential candidates as well as a privately cooked up permanent chairman for the party started emerging signalling a Muslim/Muslim presidential and vice-presidential ticket.
“The details of this issue I have sufficiently dealt with in my previous statement. However, let me state again that their calculation that the presidency in the 2015 general election will be won by the APC through votes from the North-west and South-west Nigeria became an obsession.
“Asiwaju Bola Tinubu who passionately believed in this theory and who arrogantly claimed custody of all South-west votes already picked an aspirant from North-western Nigeria who will run as presidential candidate with him as vice-presidential candidate. The national image of the party immediately plummeted.”
Ikimi observed that everyone who had spoken to him privately, without exception, agreed with him that the image of APC as a “Tinubu Party” had severely damaged the party, but each time he openly raised issues that challenged the consequences, everyone kept quiet.
“It is common knowledge that the vote against the very popular candidate Senator Chris Ngige in the Anambra governorship election and recently against one of the most successful governors, Kayode Fayemi of Ekiti State, was indeed a vote against Tinubu.
“Tinubu’s obsessive calculation of South-west/North-west votes is unproven and untested. It is in pursuit of a very selfish ambition that has seriously alienated block zones, such as South-east, South-south, North-east and most of North-central from the party. The party has collapsed in very many states such as Adamawa, it is in distress in Edo, Ogun, Oyo, Lagos, Nasarawa,” he stated.
He said this disastrous trend was worsened by the arrogant departure from observing the provisions of the party’s constitution, particularly as it pertains to internal party democracy, adding that crises broke out at uncontrollable levels in the prosecution of the most undemocratic ward, local government, and state congresses nationwide.
Accordingly, he said: “The machinery for managing this self-inflicted crisis was virtually non-existent and it was inside this mess that the controversial national convention of 13th June was staged.
“The constitution of the party clearly defines the party organs and the party leadership. There is no provision for anyone to be named as the ‘Party Leader’. Asiwaju Bola Tinubu having paraded himself both at home and abroad as the ‘Leader of Opposition’ and of the APC had great difficulty in descending from the fictitious throne.
“In order to continue manipulating the party from his parlour in Abuja and Lagos he struggled to retain Chief Bisi Akande as chairman.
“He was further troubled by the growing influence of the governors and panicked at the realisation that he and his South-west select caucus were losing their grip on ‘their’ party to the governors.
“His last minute efforts to rally a South-west leadership support for his absolute power over the party failed and chances of retaining Chief Bisi Akande as national chairman also evaporated.
“In the circumstances, as the only option was to find a successor for the national chairman as well as other national officers, an illegal process of horse-trading between the governors and Tinubu was initiated. The interim Executive Council had no knowledge of all these processes.
“Chief John Oyegun, a Tinubu plan B project, said to be favoured for his NADECO and SDP credentials and also as one who could be controlled, now featured and came into the picture.
“Until recently, the APC had 16 governors who describe themselves as ‘The Progressive Governors’. They are made up of the original merging parties’ governors and the breakaway PDP governors who as a group were determined to take control of the party. This composition of merging party governors and PDP breakaway governors cannot in any realistic sense be described as PROGRESSIVE.
“They have come together with different personal agenda built around the central purpose of acquiring national power. Some of them nurse vice-presidential ambition and some others are warming up for the presidential contest.
“In the circumstance, the project of taking control of the party’s national machinery became crucial and it was out of the governors’ caucus that the plan of zoning the national offices was initiated and concluded. The interim Executive Committee had no input.
“Although it is claimed that the national chairmanship slot was zoned to the South-south, the horse-trading to produce the beneficiary took place outside the zone. In order to secure the agreement of most of the governors, I understand that an agreement was extracted from Chief Oyegun that he would agree to step down as chairman should a governor from the region emerge as either presidential or vice-presidential candidate.
“And although the governors may not have envisaged the present setback they now suffer in their numerical strength, the battle to take custody of the APC platform that they waged against the Tinubu structure signalled yet another twist in the tale.
“Apart from the Tinubu Group and the Governors Group, there is a third group of known presidential aspirants comprising in the main General Muhamadu Buhari and Atiku Abubakar who are both northerners.
“The inclination of the party had always been to zone the presidency to the north. Some governors are now thinking otherwise and given the decisive role that they seek to play in the affairs of the party as well as the tendency to ignore the principle of internal party democracy, a monumental disaster looms large in the selection of the party’s presidential and vice-presidential flag bearers later in the year.”
Ikimi also traced the crisis within APC to the last June national convention of the party, stating: “The construction of the new National Executive Committee through horse-trading by the governors and Tinubu has established a tool structure that is not in the interest of transparency or democracy.
“To whom will the newly installed national chairman be finally loyal? Will it remain the NADECO/SDP comradeship that will drive his loyalty to Tinubu or the current governors ongoing tactics of dressing up the national chairman that may become the game clincher? Time will surely tell!
“How these known presidential aspirants will make their way in the contest that may feature some governors is better imagined. Can Tinubu dare to ditch Buhari? I dey laf!”
Giving further instances of how Tinubu manipulated the party, Ikimi added: “Film clips were shown of Bola Tinubu, Muhamadu Buhari, Bisi Akande, Ogbonnaya Onu and a few selected others who in most cases gave distorted accounts of the merger process.
“Surprisingly, it was Senator Ali Modu Sherriff who became so disgusted by the deliberate distortion of the facts that he had the courage to take the microphone and openly berated the injustice. Some were obviously embarrassed but it turned out that those who prepared the presentation, many of them high ranking members of the party, were working on the instructions of Asiwaju Bola Tinubu.
“For his noteworthy and courageous public intervention on this matter, Senator Sherriff was now marked down by Bola Tinubu as having opposed him so much so that shortly after the event both men almost engaged in physical combat at an expanded National Exco meeting in Abuja.
“Senator Ali Modu Sherriff may be a friend and long time political ally but he is certainly not my sponsor. I read several newspaper fictional stories that said Senator Sherriff was sponsoring me for national chairman. That is not true.”
He also faulted the process upon which the national chairman of APC emerged, noting: “Needless to say the process adopted at the APC convention for deciding on a new national chairman was a sham in which I did not participate. The chief (Oyegun) knows very well that an even playing field, a fundamental requirement for a sound intra-party contest did not exist.
“He also knows what I know that the conspiracy, with all the plotting and scheming to install him as national chairman had been cooking long before the convention process was revealed.
“The delegation that visited Benin City unceremoniously, last year, to admit him into the ACN party made no contact with the state party leadership. He was drafted into our state party by outsiders who had ulterior motives. I was away in Dakar, Senegal on a private visit two weeks or so before the convention. It was in the Senegalese capital I read on the internet Chief Oyegun’s press declaration of his candidature.
“When I returned home, I was reliably informed that he had been instructed by his patrons to proceed and print campaign posters.
“All these manoeuvres taking place even before the emergence of convention guidelines were manifestations of a festering conspiracy. Having been secretly assured of the outcome, the chief not only ignored the position of the Edo State party on the issue, he never bothered to campaign.
“On my part, I did not approach any of the 16 governors or any party leader to solicit for support to contest the national chairmanship except for Governor Adams Aliu Oshiomhole of Edo State whom I saw in Benin City a few days to the convention when I became aware that the national chairmanship had been zoned to the South-south zone.
“My state party – Edo State APC – naturally supported me unanimously but I printed no posters, did not campaign, did not return the nomination forms as there was to be no election.
“I have read statements in the press credited to one of the governors who claims knowledge of what transpired, to the effect that the allocation of national chairman and other national offices of the party was negotiated between the governors and Tinubu.
“The late night event that took place at Eagle Square on the 13th of June was just a stage-managed ritual to satisfy INEC requirements and deceive the nation. I was never part of any talks that resulted in the allocation decisions and certainly could never have been in support of a strange process that replaced the democratic procedures enshrined in the party’s constitution.”
Ikimi pointed out that the former Governor of Sokoto State, Atahiru Bafarawa, could not accept the shabby treatment meted out to him by those who seized the new party.
According to him, “Governor Bafarawa is very loyal and dependable. He is an astute politician with whom I have been associated for about 30 years now. He was NRC state party chairman of Sokoto State in 1991 when I was national chairman.
“He has always been very keen on the unification of the opposition parties and consequently hosted several merger meetings prior to the 2011 General Election. On this occasion, he hosted the sittings of the constitution committee.
“Alhaji Bafarawa suffered unprecedented humiliation in the ACN in 2011 in a kangaroo convention staged in Lagos to select the ACN presidential candidate. He therefore withdrew from the ACN party to return to the ANPP.
“This time as an ANPP delegate he enthusiastically participated in the merger talks. He has now withdrawn from the APC to join the PDP, as he could not accept the sudden hand over of the APC Sokoto party to the present governor who during his tenure was his deputy.
“Senator Ali Modu Sherriff has not hidden his very strong disapproval of the precarious direction that the party is heading. The conduct of 13th June convention was totally unacceptable to him. Following his open challenge of Tinubu it did not surprise me that Tinubu negotiated away all Sherriff’s nominees from the newly constituted National Executive Committee.
“I understand that Senator Ali Modu Sherriff is on his way out of the party, along with a very large slice of the party membership, particularly from the North-east.
“It is not a coincidence to me that the prominent members of APC targeted by Bola Tinubu such as Alhaji Atahiru Bafarawa, Senator Ali Modu Sherriff and myself are former NRC members or those perceived as conservatives.”
Ikimi also acknowledged, that those who undermined him in the party claimed that he has a strong and independent personality, and was deemed as someone who could not be controlled.
Elaborating on the issue, he said: “On a rather mischievous note, my foremost assailant in that party, peddles in one breadth a smear campaign that if I were to be in charge, I would sell the party while in another fowl breadth that I am an enemy as I had served in the Abacha government.
“My so called strong and independent personality sometimes misconstrued as an arrogant mien is merely the creation of nature and I have never ever been harmful at all to anyone around me but as for an independent and firm mind I believe it is an asset and an attribute which indeed is so direly needed for good and fair leadership in our society today and I apologize to no one for being so created.
“It is really ironic that I was not accused of going to sell the party over the past 13 years or so that I struggled in different recorded ways to make notable contributions in creating and building it up in its various forms but that I was now to sell the party after working successfully to achieve its present mega format.
“Who by the way is the buyer? Is it the PDP government that opened its doors once more recently to one of APC’s foremost boastful and noisy leaders to consummate a mega oil deal on the eve of that controversial APC convention?
“Who then is really selling and who is indeed buying? Who sold Mallam Nuhu Ribadu’s ACN presidential candidature in 2011? Was it Chief Tom Ikimi? My tenure as Foreign Affairs Minister during the Abacha regime has turned out to be a befitting reference in patriotic diplomatic service in our country for which I am extremely proud!
“Why am I targeted for being that foreign minister that brought peace to Liberia, restored democratic government in Sierra Leone, maintained the leadership of Nigeria in the OAU, ECOWAS and the UN, the first to turn to China with a trade delegation that opened up massive opportunities for our country.
“But they fail to point even a feeble finger at others in their midst who benefitted immensely from the Abacha government, some who ran the most lucrative agencies during that tenure, some others who made away with giant oil fields or are we blind not to see the giant, fancy lucrative projects currently being executed in partnership with well known Abacha foreign friends!”
In consideration of all these, Ikimi pointed that he now has grave difficulty operating side-by-side petty minded people who are so scared of his personality and are not willing to submit to firm impartial authority, insisting: “I will not accept any imaginary bar to be installed over me, deliberately constructed by political enemies to prevent my ascension to any height of my choice in any party that I belong to, such as has been so blatantly done in the APC.”
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