Nigeria: Ruling Party Condemns Call for Violent Change

By Chuks Okocha and Matthew Onah

The ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has reacted to the veiled call for a violent change of government, accusing opponents of the President Umaru Musa Yar'Adua administration of seeking an "ignoble shortcut to power".

Alhaji Buba Galadima, a chieftain of the All Nigeria Peoples Party (ANPP) and close associate of the party's presidential candidate in the 2003 and 2007 elections, Major-Gen. Muahmmadu Buhari (rtd), was recently reported as saying Nigeria needed the "Jerry Rawlings Formula" to move forward.

Rawlings came to power in Ghana in 1981 via a violent military coup and carried out a "house-cleaning exercise" during which those considered to be corrupt, including former leaders of the country, were publicly executed.

He later transmuted to a civilian president before bowing out in 2001.

Reacting to Galadima's Rawlings euphemism, the National Publicity Secretary of PDP, Prof. Ahmed Alkali, said: "If Alhaji Galadima has an alternative programme on how to move Nigeria forward, he is better off canvassing it through the ballot box rather than seeking an ignoble short cut to power through bloody or treasonable means.

"In any case, President Umaru Musa Yar'Adua has extended his hands of goodwill to all those ready and willing to work in concert with the Federal Government to move Nigeria forward. We cannot therefore see how Buba Galadima's prediction to anarchy will serve any purpose of moving Nigeria as an emerging democracy."

Galadima was quoted in an interview with THISDAY to have called for the "Ghanaian treatment" which the PDP said is a direct call for the overthrow of the current democratic dispensation through violent means.

According to PDP, "In this context of Galadima's interview, he is not only calling for the overthrow of this Government, he is also calling for the elimination of all former Nigerian leaders to pave way for his weird political agenda."

The statement said that PDP has had "cause in the recent past to alert Nigerians of the destructive antics of opposition, including their intemperate use of language while venting their frustration."

It continued: "Nigerians will recall that earlier in the year, Buba Galadima had canvassed this bloody option in a similar manner and we wonder why Galadima should continue to tread this dangerous path."

PDP said that it condemned this call in its totality as "it is at variance with the aspirations of Nigerians who have consistently expressed their preference for an orderly and civilized democratic process. It is unfortunate that we still have the likes of Buba Galadima who will wish for a collapse of the system once they are unable to have their way."

"We wish to remind Alhaji Galadima and his likes that Nigeria has advanced beyond being an experiment ground for adventurers who would only drag us back to the dark ages where human rights are blatantly violated and the liberty of citizens curtailed."

"Nigeria under President Umaru Musa Yar'Adua is now a stable, democratic and peaceful nation that is globally appreciated and celebrated as evidenced by her unanimous election into the Security Council of The United Nations.

"We cannot therefore be distracted by revisionist ranting from anti-democratic elements who see nothing good in others except themselves," the party stated.

While not much reference is made to the method used by Rawlings to chart a new course in Ghana, many Nigerians and indeed the international community have pointed to the country as a shining example of democracy in Africa.

Some months back, President of the United States, Barack Obama, chose Ghana as his first point of call during his first trip to the continent since his inauguration. His trip was seen as a rebuff to Nigeria, following the country's many troubles with the democratic experiment including poor human rights record, controversial elections, violent party politics among other issues.

In Ghana, Obama called on all African countries to be models of democratic governance.

Meanwhile, National Chairman of PDP, Prince Vincent Ogbulafor, has challenged opposition political parties to wake up from their slumber and rise up to face the challenges of growing a true democratic culture for the country.

Ogbulafor, who spoke in Yola, Adamawa State, weekend, on his way from Taraba State, where he had gone to receive new members into the PDP, described opposition political parties in the country as weak in structure and ineffective in the way and manner they go on their membership drive.

He said they have virtually gone to sleep, and that is why they are threatened by his pronouncement that the party would win more states in the country.

Describing himself as a salesman for PDP, he said rather than see his sale pitches as a threat to democracy, the other political parties ought to have engaged on their own sales drives to win more members.

"I am a salesman for PDP, my duty is to grow PDP, and if I am capable of turning everybody in this country in to a PDP man and woman, I would have succeeded in my duty. After all the PDP umbrella is big enough to cover all," he said.

He said unlike other political parties, PDP always come out of any crisis stronger and more focused to face the challenges of nation-building, instead of disintegrating into factional or splinter groups, adding that the various problems in the party at state levels cannot be termed as crisis, but disagreements, which he said was normal, since politics is all about conflict resolution.

He said tremendous efforts were being made to resolve crisis in the various chapters of the party to provide a conducive atmosphere for the executive branch to deliver the dividends' of democracy.

On the current crisis that have engulfed Anambra State in the wake of the aborted PDP governorship primaries, the national chairman said the National Working Committee (NWC) of the party did its best possible to resolve the conflicts, but that the committee met a brickwall in the intransigence of the already entrenched interest groups.

He said the NWC took the right decision in picking Professor Chukwuma Soludo as the governorship candidate of the party for the 2010 election in Anambra State.

"We have come to discover that even if you give them one full year, they will not come to any agreement or choose a candidate to contest in the election," he said, adding that the NWC carefully studied the party's constitution, and exercised its powers to give the party a candidate so as to break the deadlock.

Ogbulafor said the judiciary could not determine who should be the candidate of the party in any election, because, "that is our responsibility and we are mindful of our laws and the constitution when we chose Soludo."

He also puts to rest, agitations of some stakeholders of the party in Adamawa State, for congress to elect new party officials, saying the NWC had confidence in the current leadership of the party headed by Alhaji Umaru Kugama.

Original Source:
Original date published: 9 November 2009

Source Url: http://allafrica.com/stories/200911090016.html?viewall=1

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