Our dear party is at a cross roads in Kogi State and indeed nationally. The strength of our dear ALL PROGRESSIVES CONGRESS (APC) is anchored on just two main pillars: “CHANGE” and ANTI-CORRUPTION”.
By this Nigerians understand our party to have emerged as a champion that will erode all the ills shackling our country from achieving the full capacity of its potentials 55 years after independence and 16 years after the return of democracy.
This message so connected with our compatriots that in their millions they came to evict the PDP that had held our nation hostage for so many years and entrusted us with the task we have undertaken to execute.
But now just four months into this journey of change we are being put to the most embarrassing test yet- in Kogi State with the character invested with the flag of our dear party in the impending November 21st Governorship Election, One Abubakar Audu who styles himself as a prince.
Abubakar Audu is an antithesis to everything our party represents. Indicted for several offences of corruption this fellow through a mastery of the abuse and manipulation of court process has so far evaded conviction and he fully flaunts his success in this direction as a justification to contest elections- hoping that in the event of his unlikely victory the immunity that comes with the office will effectively shield him from conviction. Obviously suspicious of his motive and antics and coupled with his unpopularity Kogi voters have repeatedly rejected this man in four elections after he was literally chased out of office by the electorate in 2003.
Curiously Audu and his supporters are sacrilegiously equating his status with that of the leader of our party and the hero of change, President Muhammadu Buhari. The similarity of the number of times a serially indicted accused persons takes advantage of the system to contest election is been equated with the struggle and crusade of our dear pious and incorruptible President!
To all intent and purposes it is profane and obscene to compare Abubakar Audu to our dear president in any manner whatsoever. Perhaps the notoriously short memory of Nigerians may have helped to dull the record of egocentrism and megalomania that propelled the people into rejecting Audu in 2003, 2007, 2008 and 2011. This is a man who as state governor constituted himself into an emperor, a title he relished with arrogant abandon. All commissioners and appointees appearing before him were required to sit on the floor and rain praises on him. To aspire otherwise by any such appointee will automatically translate to voluntary resignation by such official. Senator Nicholas Ugbane one of our aspirants was forced out of Audu’s government because he would not only submit to the slave treatment but he committed the unforgiveable felony of appearing in office with a babanriga that was so generously embroidered it came close to looking similar to that of his imperial excellency
But the condescending treatment of appointees was just a tip of the iceberg. To convince himself he was an emperor superior to all others within his domain, all traditional rulers in Kogi were dragged to the vicinity of the Murtala Mohammed Bridge in Jamata near Lokoja to wait under there scorching Lokoja sun and heat sometimes for forty eight hours to receive Audu each time he travels to a foreign country which was every other month. The late Attah Igala, Late Dr Aliyu Obaje who was then in his nineties was subjected to this degradation all through Audu’s four years of his second coming. It is widely believed that the old man spirit was totally broken as a result of this humiliation added to the health consequences of sitting and waiting for the almighty emperor in the scorching sun regularly. Any wonder that the man’s health worsened and was hardly seen outside after Audu left office until he finally died a few years later.
Under Audu a journalists Mr Alifa Daniel known to be critical of his style was bathed with acid by unknown persons. To this day the perpetrators of that attack are yet to be found. Even his own wife, the first lady was hounded out of Kogi the moment he decided he needed a new wife. Audu pursued the woman to Uk where she lived in one of his houses suspected to have been bought with proceeds of the corruption he is being prosecuted for. Audu got a court to evict the woman who was then terminally ill, she died months later after she was rendered a destitute. The late first lady’s younger brother, Mr Jamal Odiba was also framed with arm possession and hauled into prison without trial.
He remained in prison until Audu was voted out of office in 2003 before he was freed. Arising from this imprisonment Jamal came down without tuberculosis which he battled until he died a few years back.
Civil servants, pensioners and even ordinary people had one gory story or the other to tell under Audu. Civil servants never enjoyed promotion all through his tenure. As a mater of fact, at that time of surplus Audu owed four months salary to workers. He referred to pensioners as dead woods who are feeding on the system without offering any productivity. Most contractors of virtually all the projects he claims credit for today were never paid. Loans were routinely obtained from banks with no record of what they were used for. A case in point was one billion naira obtained from the Continental Trust Bank which has now fused into UBA in December 2002 0nly five months to the election that expelled him from office. No kobo of that money was left behind neither was there any rexcord of any project executed with it.
Is this the man that can in all good conscience be compared to the hero of change, our own dear #PMB?. Humble. Austere and frugal? Its like comparing light to darkness. Even Audu himself who now flaunts our hero’s name knows he is being dishonest. His dislike for Buhari and the sterling qualities that endear#PMB to all Nigerians is well chronicled.
In 2003 while after PMB won the then ANPP ticket and was campaigning hard for victory, Abubakar Audu joined PDP governors to Ota to endorse President Obasanjo for a second term, even as an ANPP governor! Weeks later when Buhari came to Lokoja to campaign, Audu crudely refused to receive him and never appeared at the venue of the rally. Any wonder then that in the run up to the presidential primaries of our party he quickly teamed up with others to project and market the candidature of Rabiu Musa Kwakwaso, while telling everyone who cared to listen that Kwankwaso is a moderate that would be acceptable to Nigerians across board. Freely translated PMB is not a moderate and would be unacceptable to Nigerians!
Members of our party in Kogi knowing this man for who and what he is roundly rejected him. Out of 4400 delegates Audu was only able to get the votes of 1109 which was far less than one quarter of the delegates, but with the principle of simple majority he was declared winner and asked to fly our flag for the November 21st election. Now here comes the quandary: Where are the party members that are going to work for the success of a man so roundly rejected. Who amongst our governorship aspirant can be relied upon to work for the success of Audu when they all know that he is a vicious negation of all our party stands for and it’s trusted for?
Many party faithful are already openly voicing their preference for the PDP candidate and incumbent Governor Capt Idris Wada, who in spite of any shortcomings attributed to him, is neither known to be corrupt or brash. Civil servants, pensioners and several civil society groups who only weeks ago eagerly looked up to the APC have done a 360 degree turn to endorse Governor Wada because we have inadvertently produced a candidate that is so tainted that our party’s hard earned reputation and covenant with the people is now on trial.
How do we bring our hero and leader, the personification of a Nigeria free of corruption and impunity to climb the rostrum in Lokoja and campaign for a candidate with so much baggage, most prominent of which is the several indictments and prosecutions for corruption?
How do we begin to convince Nigerians after our hero has appeared (God forbid!) to campaign for man held to account for missing N11billion of his state money that our anti corruption stance to rid Nigeria of abuse of public trust and free resources for development is not a ruse after all?
In the unlikely event that our hero and leader comes to Lokoja as is the tradition, is he going to tell the people that Audu is totally innocent because he has not been convicted? Our same leader and hero who recently appealed to lawyers to refrain from manipulating the court process to frustrate the trial of persons indicted for corruption?
More so when a senatorial aspirant Hon Sam Aro was disqualified from contesting for our party’s ticket for the same reason that he had a corruption case to answer? How are we going to explain away this double standard to our party men and Nigerians? That one corruption suspect is superior to another corruption suspect?
Do we lack people in our great party so much that a man who has been rejected four times and its sure to be rejected again for obvious reasons is being recycled for contest? How can we get Audu to win without deploying the legendry muscle of federal might?
And in the event that we deploy federal might to tilt the election in favour of Audu are we not going to be guiltier than the PDP we expelled and promised the people change? What manner of change would that be?
Our party is at a cross road indeed. Except we are saying Audu is greater than all we have labored and fought for to come this far, the change this party needs right now is that of our governorship candidate in Kogi state. Anything less would be damaging to the covenant we have entered with the people to build a Nigeria free of corruption and impunity.
