Ikimi, Tinubu Trade Tackles Over Defection

Ikimi, Tinubu Trade Tackles Over Defection

Saturday, September 6, 2014 1:22 pm


Tom Ikimi

Tom Ikimi

Former frontline chieftain of the opposition All Progressive Congress, APC, Chief Tom Ikimi recently defected from the opposition party and headed straight into the fold of the ruling People’s Democratic Party, PDP. His exit caused a ripple within the opposition party following series of allegations he fired against the national leader of the opposition party, Chief Bola Ahmed Tinubu, who in turn threw his hat into the rings, firing his own shots at the defected Ikimi.

NNAMDI FELIX / Abuja

“Notwithstanding my enormous contributions over the past 12 years or so to building 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.” With these words, Chief Ikimi announced his withdrawal from the opposition camp to a stunned nation.

“What went wrong?” was the question on the lips of not a few perplexed political watchers who consistently prayed for a united and formidable opposition to unseat the People’s Democratic Party, PDP, ahead of the forthcoming 2015 presidential election.

In a lengthy letter titled: “APC, My Reflections” and addressed to the party’s national chairman, Chief John Odigie-Oyegun, Ikimi derided Tinubu, accusing him of betrayal and faulted Tinubu’s knack for acquiring wealth at the expense of others members of the party. He expressed his pains in pulling away from a party which he played a crucial role in forming, and berated Tinubu over his alleged reckless self-aggrandizement underscored by the title of “national leader of the APC” which Tinubu wears like a crown and claimed that the title forced a weak leadership on the party.

Ikimi who was national chairman of the National Republican Convention, NRC in the Third Republic, also alleged that the opposition party harbors a conspiracy against some conservatives elements in its fold, pointing out that this conspiracy led to the exit of some chieftains of the party including former governor of Kano state, Ibrahim Shekarau, former governor Attahiru Bafarawa, and former military governor of Lagos and Borno States, Brig-Gen. Buba Marwa, amongst others.

He further accused Tinubu of selling out on Malam Nuhu Ribadu as the presidential candidate of the defunct Action Congress of Nigeria, ACN, during the 2011 general election and claimed that he refrained from vying for APC’s national chairmanship position at the party’s convention last June on the basis of an alleged attempt by Tinubu to foist a weak leadership on the party for his own agenda and faulted the opposition party’s inclination towards a Muslim-Muslim presidential ticket which he said arose from Tinubu’s perception that the Northwest and Southwest could, through their population, win the 2015 presidential election.

Furthermore, Ikimi criticized Tinubu, for allegedly scuttling his plans of becoming chairman of the opposition party for selfish reasons and pointed at the $1.5 billion oil deal between Oando Plc and ConocoPhillips in the upstream sector, which was approved by the government, as one of the reasons Tinubu worked against his chairmanship bid.

Days after the scathing attacks against him, Tinubu launched a blistering response to the allegations calling Ikimi’s lengthy letter titled: “APC, My Reflections” a chronicle of falsehoods, cheap blackmail and abuse, pointing out that the reason for his response is his knowledge of Ikimi’s subscription to the view that no matter how unbelievable a lie may sound that if you brazenly assert it and repeat it often enough, that you may persuade many that it is in fact true.

On Ikimi’s national chairmanship bid, Tinubu expressed the view that APC simply could not have a man of Tom Ikimi’s antecedents as the national chairman of the opposition party in view of his roles as chairman of the defunct National Republican Convention, one of the then two political parties in the country under the military transition programme, where Ikimi allegedly connived with the then military regime to annul the elections, terminate the democratic process and sell off his party.

The former Lagos state governor claimed that Ikimi was rewarded for these alleged nefarious roles with an appointment as late former dictator, Sani Abacha’s Foreign Minister and thereafterengaged in a virulent campaign to convince the world that heinous state murders like the hanging of Ken Saro Wiwa were just acts.

” If Ikimi were the Chair of APC the party would have to sleep with both eyes open lest its chairman sell off the party before day break .No matter what anyone may say about me it is unlikely that I can be accused of supporting incompetent or morally light-weight individuals for important political positions. My philosophy is to put the best forward, men and women of competence and integrity, who can stand up to us politicians to challenge us and say no when necessary. Such people are not noisy or able to gain attention by being loud, I believe my role is to do all I can to project them. Who in their right mind would compare the highly principled Chief Bisi Akande, or Chief Oyegun with a Tom Ikimi? Either of these two men are known for their no-nonsense styles, not once in their careers would you hear that they betrayed a cause or were anybody’s stooge” added Tinubu.

The opposition party leader also faulted Ikimi’s allegations pertaining his involvement in an Oando/ConocoPhillips transaction last June during the party’s national convention and insisted that the transaction was a private sale of the assets of ConocoPhillips to Oando and not a patronage of any kind from the Federal government whose involvement in the transaction was merely to formally consent to the sale. Tinubu denied any involvement in that transaction or any of Oando’s transactions.

“Typically, Ikimi plays on the fact that Wale Tinubu of Oando is my nephew. Oando has been thoroughly investigated by South African and British authorities in the past five years as part of the process of listing the company on the stock exchanges of those countries. Those rigorous and comprehensive investigations conducted by the governments and risk control investigators are to discover the actual ownership of shares in the company. Politically exposed persons like myself are prime targets for those investigations. All these investigations have shown that I have no investments in Oando. My public position on the entire transaction is that if an indigenous Nigerian oil and gas entity run by young serious minded Nigerians raise money transparently in the international capital markets to purchase private assets of a multi-national the Federal government ought to give its consent. That it took so long is shameful. The Conoco/Phillips transaction was a $1.7 billion dollars investment in Nigeria that would create more jobs,witness the establishment of allied industries and make the Nigerian Economy more attractive. I would have been extremely proud to have made such a transaction possible”.

Furthermore, Tinubu denied selling out on Ribadu noting that common sense should dictate that if ever such a deal were reached that the party leaders would have had to inform members in all the states and wondered how that could that have been done secretly. “How do you tell hundreds of thousands of people not to vote for your own party without it becoming public knowledge?” he queried.

He accused Ikimi of never being sincerely committed to the party as well as always playing out a PDP script pointing out that Ikimi only wanted the chairmanship of the party as a bargaining chip for negotiations with his benefactors and that his defection purportedly on account of the loss of the chairmanship of the party, was a mere subterfuge. He insisted that the opposition party is better off with the exit of Ikimi.

Similarly, the party’s national chairman, Chief John Oyegun, accused Ikimi of over pricing himself and his contribution to the opposition party.”Ikimi is so boisterous that he has over priced himself but I will sit down and respond to all his nonsense in the papers. Ikimi is giving himself undue importance which he does not deserve, he is insulting all the leaders of the party both from the North and South, saying that he was the only sensible person in the party, that is not true and that is not possible. What he is doing is reporting himself to the entire nation, displaying the kind of person he truly is. What is happening really is that both the PDP and APC are being purified and that all the birds that ought to flock together are beginning to fly together and that is a good thing for this country. It is good for the APC and the PDP. We don’t want people who don’t think like us, don’t have the same ideology and not as committed to the ideology of APC. We are losing some and gaining some. The process of ideological purification is underway and those who don’t share the same belief with us are all leaving and we have no regret about that”

Oyegun berated Ikimi for arrogating to himself an influence he does not have both in Edo state and Nigeria as a whole and insisted that the opposition will not only continue to hold on to Edo state, but will also win the 2015 presidential election without the likes of Ikimi.

This sentiment was shared by the Edo state chapter of the party which said it wished Ikimi well in “the lion’s den,” pointing out that his movement to the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP was a good omen for the party in the state because the opposition party had found it difficult to win election in Igueben, Ikimi’s home town, because he is not on ground politically speaking.

No sooner had the former APC chieftain withdrawn his membership of the opposition party than a high powered delegation of the ruling party, PDP, led by the party’s national chairman, Alhaji Adamu Mu’azu, visited him to lure him back to the fold of the party. Also in the delegation were Chief Tony Anenih, chairman, Board of Trustees, BoT, and Prince Uche Secondus, deputy national chairman, Senator Wali Jibril, Secretary of the BoT; Dr. Aliyu Modibbo, former FCT minister and several political stakeholders from the South-South geo-political zone amongst other PDP heavyweights.

Ikimi who met the PDP delegation at his Maitama, Abuja residence told the delegation that he’s at the stage of currently critically re-examining dominant political parties in the country, with a view to deciding where to pitch his tent. “I am at the stage of currently critically re-examining the two dominant political parties in our country, which are the APC and the PDP, in both of which I have had close working knowledge. I have not ignored the other political parties. 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”

A visibly elated Muazu emphasized that the delegation’s visit was to finalize arrangements for Ikimi’s return to the PDP fold. He stated that Ikimi is a highly organized and patriotic Nigerian who has the interest of the nation at heart, attributes which made it hard for him to continue in APC, and that the PDP will benefit immensely from his wealth of experience, strong political structure and massive followership across the country.

The delegation at the end of their visit extracted a commitment from Ikimi to return to the PDP following his pledge to serve PDP in any capacity at any level deemed appropriate by the leaders and to bring value to the party with his political structure especially in the South-South to ensure that PDP wins the 2015 general elections. “I look forward to bringing value to the PDP. I believe that my contributions will again be noteworthy. By joining PDP, we are assured of victory, not only in Edo State, but in the entire South-south geo-political zone,” he said.


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