*Ojo Maduekwe asks Ogbeh to resign
LAGOS— THE National Executive Council of the ruling People’s Democratic Party (PDP) and the party’s Board of Trustees are wading into the face-off between President Olusegun Obasanjo and the party’s National Chairman, Chief Audu Ogbeh.
Presidential Special Adviser on Legal and Constitutional Matters, Chief Ojo Maduekwe, and a top member of the PDP, Alhaji Nuhu Ibrahim, however, want Chief Ogbeh to resign for allegedly appealing to “cheap populism” and for “betraying the confidence reposed in him.”
The face-off blew into the open weekend after Chief Ogbeh fired a letter to the president that his administration should do more to arrest the deteriorating political situation in Anambra State.
The letter provoked an angry response from the president who accused Chief Ogbeh of shirking his responsibility and for insinuating that the government might go the way of the Shagari government.
Vanguard gathered yesterday that party leaders were aghast that the two men went to such extent in exposing a number of issues that took place in private and which now tended to portray the party in bad light. A source close to Chief Ogbeh said he was in no mood to accept blame for the tone of his letter.
But, Special Adviser to President Olusegun Obasanjo on Legal and Constitutional Matters, Chief Ojo Madueke, yesterday asked Chief Audu Ogbeh to resign. Speaking to Vanguard in Abuja, Chief Madueke said Ogbeh had become “an unmitigated disaster” by appealing to “cheap populism” through his “mischievous letter,” which he said was aimed at “further isolating the President.”
“If I were him and I was heading a party in which the President who is a product of my leadership is anything close to the profile I have described, I would resign. As a matter of fact, I would not wait to be asked to resign. If I am making this kind of speech, it would be the reason I am resigning.
“It is a pity that we have not yet evolved a political culture in which people have principles. For goodness sake, many feel that Audu Ogbeh was one of our best. That is why it really hurts. We thought he was one of our best. If a man like that would not have the courage to do the right thing… all you need to do is read the President’s letter again and you would see a lot of things there which the President has been tolerating and suppressing.
“Perhaps, he felt that the kind of pressures Chief Ogbeh is facing are so many that there was need to allow him a lot of understanding, allow him a lot of aptitude. We are talking of a party under the leadership of Audu Ogbeh, which in the morning Chief Ogbeh would make one statement or one commitment based on principles or comparative assessment of situation, by evening he would make another statement, all of them on national television, national radio, which makes people begin to wonder: what has happened between morning and night, why the position has changed?"
Ibrahim asks him to resign
A foundation member of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP), Alhaji Nuhu Ibrahim, also asked Chief Ogbeh to resign forthwith for allegedly betraying the confidence that President Obasanjo reposed in him. “If Chief Ogbeh fails to resign, all stakeholders in the party should not hesitate to force him out of office in the overall interest of the party and he should thereafter be made to face the Disciplinary Committee of the party,” Alhaji Ibrahim said in a statement yesterday in Abuja.
Alhaji Ibrahim said Ogbeh’s letter was a dangerous signal to the growing democratic rule in the country that if not checked on time might lead to the sudden termination of the fledgling democracy as stated by Chief Ogbeh himself.
Oyo defends Obasanjo
Senior Special Assistant to the President on the Media, Mrs Remi Oyo, rose in stout defence of her boss’ action. She explained in a telephone interview that the president had a duty to react the way he did to the allegations since the matter had already been pushed into the public domain.
Her words: “The president was elected by the people of Nigeria to serve them faithfully without fear or favour. The people of Nigeria deserve to know the president’s reaction to the grave allegation that was made and was made public. And so, what the president has done is in continuation of his commitment to the people of Nigeria to serve them honestly in accordance with the constitution.”
PDP out of ideas — Afikuyomi
Senator Tokunbo Afikuyomi who is the Deputy Whip of the Senate believed the letters and their contents indicated that the PDP had run out of ideas on how to run the country. He contended that the two men, being holders of very high offices of the land had made a public spectacle of the country in the way they threw caution to the wind and traded serious allegations in public.
Said he: “It shows the depth of debasement the PDP has thrown this country into. It is now obvious that the centre can no longer hold in that party. Both the president and the national chairman of the party have now admitted that the government at various levels came into power through a well organised fraud. I think the Supreme Court should take judicial notice of that aspect of the shameful disclosures. How can the president say people came to him and said they participated in rigging elections? What did he do about it as president of the country? Isn’t that an indication that other allegations in different parts of the country that the last elections, including the presidential, were heavily rigged were true? What are we waiting for?”
Gbonigi backs Ogbeh
Retired Anglican Bishop of Akure, the Rt. Rev. Bolanle Gbonigi, said he had no problem casting his lot with Chief Ogbeh. He told Vanguard that he had followed the activities of the PDP chairman closely since he was elected party leader and found him a man of impeccable character. He said the first indication that Ogbeh was a man of honour came when Senator Iyiola Omisore was arraigned for the murder of Chief Bola Ige. In Bishop Gbonigi’s views, Ogbeh won his respect when he declared that the party made a mistake in fielding him as candidate for the senatorial seat of Ife while facing such grave charges.
Taking on President Obasanjo, the Bishop said: “I am not surprised that he could not stomach what Ogbeh said. The president is like that. I read the report in the papers today (yesterday) that he inherited stubbornness. That is not the issue here. He should have saved the venom with which he attacked Chief Ogbeh for the necessary changes he has to make about his ways. I understand the party is planning to sanction Chief Ogbeh. I would have been surprised if it were otherwise.
Reps disappointed
Some members of the House of Representatives expressed disappointment at the tone and tenor of President Olusegun Obasanjo’s letter to Chief Ogbeh, saying the letter was unbecoming of a president of the country. Mr. Independence Ogunewe said the reaction of the president was an “unfortunate development and the earlier it was resolved, the better for the polity. The leadership of this country rests on the two of them as the chairman of the greatest party in the land and the leader of the country. They should not be seen to be exchanging such banters in public.”
Mr. Mohammed Umara Kumalia in his reaction said the outbursts of the president and his party chairman as well as the revelation by the president that the Anambra State governor, Chief Chris Ngige, did not win his election “is an indictment of not just the Independent National Electoral Commission but also the judiciary. It underscores the urgent need for the reform of the electoral process in the country,” he said. Mr. Halims Agoda in his reaction said Chief Audu Ogbeh was right to have pointed to the president that the country was drifting.
“What the party chairman said was correct in his position as the chairman of the party. It shows that democracy is in action. But the party chairman ought to have done better than they did in the case of Anambra crisis. It should have investigated and meted out sanctions to whoever was culpable and stood by it firmly. But the president too should behave like a leader and should see things beyond personal relationship. He should be firm in applying the laws of the land and keep our country safe for us,” he said.
Meanwhile in a bid to preserve the current zoning arrangement within the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) until 2007 when President Olusegun Obasanjo’s second term would expire, arrangements are being perfected by the Presidency to put in place a Caretaker Committee at the party’s December 2005 National Convention.
The arrangements, according to feelers, would ensure that the position of the National Chairman of the party, currently occupied by Chief Audu Ogbeh (Benue State), would remain in the North, but occupied by a new Caretaker Committee Chairman.
Vanguard learnt that at least three persons: Political Adviser to the President, Professor Jerry Gana (Niger State), Professor Jubril Aminu (Senator from Adamawa State) and Alhaji Bamanga Tukur (a founding leader of the party from Adamawa, who is being wooed back to the party following his expulsion by the former Barnabas Gemade leadership), are being considered for the job
