Maduabuchi Nmeribeh/Kano

Governor Ayodele Fayose of Ekiti State tackles Adamu Mu’azu, Chairman, Peoples Democratic Party

Since President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan was defeated at the 28 March presidential election, things have continued to fall apart within the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP. Fracas broke out between the party national leadership and members of Jonathan/Sambo Campaign Organization over who ate what from the huge amount sourced to actualize that failed project. Also, leaders within the party have also not spared words in attacking one another over which bloc within the party hierarchy should be blamed for President Jonathan’s failure to actualize his second-term bid.

Among party leaders who have recently decided to wash their dirty linen in public are the national chairman of the party, Alhaji Adamu Mu’azu and Ekiti State governor, Ayodele Fayose. He has accused Mu’azu of unholy alliance with the All Progressives Congress, APC. In fact, Fayose who recently featured on Channels TV popular programme— View from the Top, openly accused Mu’azu of holding secret meetings with APC national leader, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu where both men discussed how not only to sell Ekiti State to APC, but to also undermine the victory of PDP at the presidential election.

•Mu’azu

Fayose said: “Shortly before my election, he (Mu’azu) was to see me and I waited for him in his house for about five hours and then he came out to say he was sorry and that we should give him space. He said the Yoruba people should give him some space because he was expecting someone who did not want to see any Yoruba man. I left his house but kept a tab on him. His house is like a ring road and I came back to find out who had come to see him and the person was Asiwaju Bola Tinubu. That is the truth. When I returned to his house, he told me that I should not be annoyed that it was Tinubu that came to visit him. I was worried because the Ekiti election was just five days away and I almost lost my breath.”

Insisting that Mu’azu betrayed President Jonathan, Fayose further stated: “The day the presidential election held, the chairman was not in the country. On the day the names of our candidates were to be submitted to the Independent National Electoral Commission, our chairman was in Lagos, on his way to Singapore. I was with President Jonathan on that day and I told him to call him. The President did not know that Mu’azu was in Lagos on his way to Singapore. Even when he travelled recently, he said he had a problem with his left hand and wanted to travel abroad for treatment. However, he called some people and told them that he had deceived the President. You must be consistent in character. I am saying everything on camera; let him come out to deny these allegations. I don’t want to be in a PDP where we have [traitors] of all sorts.”

•Fayose

However, in the midst of the oppositions against him within the PDP, with the hottest coming from Fayose, Mu’azu who sensed a grand-plot to disgrace him out of the party, has rather taken a gentleman posture with a plea to Fayose and other party members who want his head to sheathe their swords in the overall interest of the party. In a statement Mu’azu released in Abuja last Tuesday, he urged Fayose and other angry leaders within the party not to destroy the future of the party, owing to the defeat it recently suffered, noting that this will not be in the best interest of the party.

Mu’azu said: “In the course of events, there have been reactions and counter-reactions among party members; mistakes have been made, with some avoidable. But, this is the time to put all of them behind us and move ahead as our party and its interest remain paramount and overriding. Expectedly, our party has had a share of media bashing and misrepresentations, which contributed immensely to the misunderstanding we are facing in our fold,’’ he stated.

He added that such misrepresentations of the party`s leaders also abound in the social media and called on members to be wary of them. He said that as a committed member of the party for 16 years and having been a state governor on its platform for eight years, he appreciated the reactions of some of the party members over the developments in their fold. I very much appreciate the reactions of some of our members like Governor Ayo Fayose, whose victory in Ekiti in June 2014, helped to strengthen our party, particularly in the South-West region. Nevertheless, in the larger interest of our party, we all must resolve to bury the hatchet and pick our pieces to rebuild the party and return it to its winning ways.”

Though Mu’azu’s latest reaction may give rays of hope to sympathizers of the ailing PDP, but critics of the party, like Dr. Junaid Muhammed would not want that. In an interview with the Magazine on the current status of the PDP, Junaid, a Second-Republic lawmaker said: “But as far as I am concerned, PDP serves no good purpose, it must be destroyed, so that at least, we can have a sane political profile and a level playing field that allows people who take politics seriously and people who are serious about national development to step in. PDP is a disgrace and I don’t believe it should be described as a party—it is not a party—they are bunch of bandits who are out to steal. If you ask anybody in PDP what they believe in, they cannot tell you anything reasonable they believe—they will only tell you that they believe in power. In other words, they believe in power to steal, power to get into office in order to loot the national treasury and that is what they have been doing. So, PDP should not have existed in the first place because political parties are based on certain key ideological principles, on certain key worldviews and those who are in the party must have something in common, and not just to be in government and steal government money. So, I have no sympathy for PDP whatsoever, but I will like to see the emergence of another party that is right or centre that will serve the purpose of vibrant opposition in this country.”