IN apparent frustration over the gale of defection rocking the All Progressives Congress, (APC) its national chairman, Comrade Adams Oshiomhole has described those who have dumped his platform, particularly for the erstwhile ruling party, the Peoples Democratic Party, (PDP) as men without honour.
Recall that on Tuesday 14 senators and 37 members of the House of Representatives, dumped the ruling party on the floor of both chambers of National Assembly.
On the eve of the former governor of Kano state, Rabiu Kwankwaso departure, the Presidency, the APC national working committee and certain governors met with him at the Presidential Villa and appealed to him to remain in the ruling party.
National chairman of the party also met with the Benue State governor, Samuel Ortom penultimate week at the party national secretariat and promised to address his grievances.
But speaking with newsmen while playing host to the APC members in the House of Representatives, Comrade Oshiomhole said the recent defection was indicative of his earlier observation that the ruling party was bereft of a guiding ideology, which he claimed gave room to people without honour to be accommodated.
He further claimed the aggrieved chieftains who dumped the APC were not comfortable with President Muhammadu Buhari anti-corruption crusade meant to rid the country of stealing of national patrimony.
He said: “I said in my acceptance speech that we will have to create an Institute of Legislative Studies so that whoever is in this party must understand what we stand for.
“If we are bonded together by a set of ideology, it will be difficult for people who subscribe to these ideologies to decamp on the basis of not gaining for his pocket rather than not delivery to the welfare of the Nigerian people. Until we get there, these musical chairs will continue. If you are a man or woman of honour, you cannot vomit in the morning, all the impurity in your stomach and then because you are not getting a buffet, you convert that vomit to lunch and eat it with your eyes open.
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You have to be completely bereft of ideas and honour to be able to do that and look your people in the face. I said to those who say they are running to PDP that, it is good, that is where you belong.
If you left there because you felt that the culture of sharing will be deepened in the APC and you have found that sharing the money is not part of it and you choose to return, good luck to you.
“But you must realize that the access to CBN has been cut off, the access to NNPC has been cut off, the access to converting defense spending has been cut off and those who have done it are helping security agencies to explain, they are confessing how they share the national treasury and so, you are free to go.
“What has happened is that we are able to establish ahead of time those fair weather party members who go according to where their pocket will be lined and who go according to how to read the political culture in their village. Some of them are politicians of convenience and I don’t think that if we patch them up now, they can still flow.”
The APC governor thanked the lawmakers whom he noted have remained committed to the ideals of the party.
“I am excited that even in moments like this, we still have men and women of honour in the House of Representatives who recognize that there are values more important than dangling automatic ticket, dangling dollars without asking questions about the source of those dollars.
But I can assure you that if people have not learnt from the recent past, then they will go the way of the recent past. We must remain focused and I am grateful that we still have men and women of honour who have refused to be tempted. Somebody asked if we are going to counter the PDP by offering automatic ticket and I asked, did we serve anybody a departure ticket? If we did not give you a departure ticket, how did the issue of return ticket arise?
“For me, we are clear that every legislator who has value and is at home with his people and not with the godfather’s in their communities, that legislator is an asset to our party and this party will do everything possible to retain them.
Only yesterday, I said to the caucus of the Senate that my hope is that once we clean up the system and we are able to distinguish our left from the right and can now see clearly as people who believe in a particular set of idea, our party must consciously work to achieve a situation where Nigeria will produce seasoned legislators and congressmen like we have in the United States, where a Senator McCain will speak and even a mad President listens.
We must get there. But if it takes them 100 years to get there, we don’t have to wait that long. We don’t have to reinvent the wheel because we copy what is attractive and discard what is not.”
But just as Comrade Oshiomhole dismissed the move to grant lawmakers automatic ticket, Tribune Online findings revealed that the Presidency and the APC NWC were yet to give up on the immediate past Kano state governor, Senator Rabiu Kwankwaso.
A party source told Tribune Online that a troubleshooting team led by Senator representing Delta central, Senator Ovie Omo Agege has been assigned the task of convincing Senator Kwankwaso to return to its fold.
The party source further revealed that on the card was the harmonization of the Kano state executive to accommodate loyalists of the immediate past Kano state governor, automatic ticket for him and his supporters in the State House of Assembly who on Tuesday dumped the APC.
Earlier in his remarks at the meeting with Comrade Oshiomhole before the gathering dissolved into a closed-door session, House Majority Leader, Femi Gbajabiamila corroborated Comrade Oshiomhole claim that his colleagues who defected were being offered automatic tickets by the PDP. He also alleged financial inducement.
“The APC is not for harvest. Mr chairman they are poaching members and they will continue to poach. I have heard and even ashamed to say it that members are being offered mouth-watering figures in terms of cash and I say mouthwatering and members have rejected those cash.
Mr Chairman, not only are they being offered mouth-watering cash but they are being given automatic tickets and I say to members, the people who are complaining about internal democracy In APC, a complaint I do not agree with, how come they are offered automatic tickets and they accept, what are they complaining about in the other party?
Our members have settled their deceit because that is what it is and I can guarantee that the automatic ticket is just a mirage. They will not be given and I can guarantee that.”
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