PDP Insider: Are PDP Leaders Praising Buhari Selfish Cowards?
Editor’s note: Adelaja Adeoye, an outspoken advocate of Nigeria’s opposition giant, the PDP, talks about work ethics, regulations within a political party and handling cases whereupon a member publicly voices an opinion that goes against his party’s official poisition.
I read the press statement of one of our most respected leaders, Senator David Mark, commending president Buhari and urging Nigerians to give him time, and I ask, when did we all become cowards in this nation? Suddenly, the respected David Mark, who has been a senator since the advent of democracy in 1999, and was two-time Senate president of our great nation, is afraid that if he does not patronize president Buhari, he might not win the re-run election for his Benue South senatorial district.
It is disheartening to read some of the comments by people who are supposed to be strong opposition figures in our nation. What these leaders do not seem to understand is that you do not patronize dictators or appeal to them. You challenge them, you dare them to their faces. Dictators get emboldened when they see that you are afraid of them. It is the collective responsibility of the oppressed and the victimized to challenge every dictator and see to the quick change of such dictatorial regimes through any legal means possible and not to be begging and appealing to them.
The other day, it was senators Stella Oduah and Ben Murray-Bruce who were singing praises to Buhari over budget presentation. A budget that failed to meet the expectations of Nigerians, address core issues of the economy, unemployment and insecurity; an unrealistic budget. A budget that has been termed a fraud by our great party, the PDP, but only for our elected senators to take a disparagingly different view from the official position of the party and turn around to praise the president.
Some say senators Oduah and Murray-Bruce have the right to express their personal opinions on the budget and other national issues but I disagree with this assertion completely. Will a Republican or a Labor party senator in the United States of America or the United Kingdom disagree with the official position of his party on a fundamental issue such as this and make it public? The answer is never! Senators Ben Bruce and Stella Oduah are no longer private citizens but elected members of the National Assembly on the platform of the PDP. They would not have become senators if not for the party on whose platform they contested and won the election. No elected member of the PDP should publicly go against the official position of the party because this is the worst form of indiscipline a politician can demonstrate. Since independent candidacy is not recognized in our constitution, political parties are the vehicles by which many aspirants ride to power and as such these politicians cannot continue to deride the platform on which they got to power.
Have you ever seen or read about any APC member going against the official position of their party? If you are afraid of Buhari because you embezzled public funds or have some skeletons in your cupboard while you were in the government and cannot speak boldly like an opposition member, why do you not just go and join Buhari in the APC like Rotimi Amaechi and others who today have immunity from prosecution because they have defected? If you really like Buhari’s leadership style, go and join him in the APC. You should not be in our great party, demoralizing our teeming members and supporters.
The Olisa Metuhs, Ayo Fayoses and Femi Fani-Kayodes’ way is the only way to go. Face the dictator, look him straight in the eye and tell him to go straight to hell where he rightly belongs. When a terrorist group like Boko Haram apprehend someone they believe to be an unbeliever, “kafir,” and they want to behead him, it would make absolutely no sense to start begging or appealing to them. What is expected of you is to spit in their ugly faces and face death bravely, knowing full well that you are going to meet your Heavenly Father. It would be despicable of you to start denying your faith, begin to beg, start accepting their own beliefs. No matter the volume of your tears, your pleadings, they would still behead you.
I therefore urge the leadership of the PDP to sound a clear note of warning to every elected member of our party to never go against the official position of the party and be ready to take disciplinary measures against anyone who flouts this warning. Political parties cannot be administered without party discipline.
Author, Adelaja Adeoye
Adelaja Adeoye is a PDP member and social media advocate, a blogger and commentator on social and political issues. He tweets via @AdelajaAdeoye.
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