News Investigators/ A former Director-General of Voice of Nigeria (VON), Osita Okechukwu, says Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) should be held accountable for Nigeria’s slide into a one-party state, not the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC).
Mr Okechukwu stated this in Enugu on Sunday while reacting to insinuations that APC and, by extension, President Bola Tinubu, were responsible for the country’s slide into a one-party state.
He described the insinuations that the ruling APC was the architect of the emerging one-party state as misplaced.
Mr Okechukwu, a founding member of APC, said that PDP members had been inflicted by the same ‘humongous culture of impunity’ it planted in the country’s political culture in their 16 years of being power.
According to him, Nigeria will naturally slide into a one-party state, as PDP, the country’s major opposition party with more than 10 governors, has been afflicted by the stomach infrastructure syndrome.
“One, without being immodest, can recall how Buba Galadima, the then National Secretary of CPC, was arrested and hounded on eve of the 2007 general elections and offered all manner of carrots to abandon CPC and, by extension former President Muhammadu Buhari,” he said.
The former director-general reminisced that since the APC merger in 2013, PDP members had converted APC to a rehabilitation centre instead of adopting the prerequisite ingredients of opposition – resilience, grit and patience.
He stated that it was the culture of impunity that made PDP to off-handedly jettison the rotation convention of president from the north to the south and even Section 7 of its Constitution which made rotation mandatory.
“Imagine the breach of rotation convention by the PDP leadership, not minding the unintended consequences, with the erroneous thought that His Excellency, Atiku Abubakar, will unlock the northern electorate from their dormitory to vote PDP in the 2023 presidential election.
“This is a misjudgment, pure and simple, with its collateral damage, one of which is one-party state.
“They (PDP) are at it again with fake arithmetic of South’s 17 years and North’s 11 years rule since 1999, as if Nigeria got independence in 1999,” Okechukwu said.
On what APC was doing to address the current economic hardship in the country, the former director-general assured Nigerians of light at the end of the tunnel.
“I am in league with IPMAN, TUC and a host of others for reduction of fuel pump price. Luckily, it is already happening, as NNPC has started the reduction process.
“Secondly, I held a meeting with our APC National Chairman, Dr Umar Ganduje, where he assured me that the Livestock Ministry will find a ranch solution to the herders/farmers’ crisis, which will allow farmers to access their farms.
“He (Ganduje) also said that President Tinubu is in deep negotiations with investors in the electricity value chain, Eastern Corridor Standard Gauge Railways and Deep Seaports, etc.
“It is my candid opinion that with the new mandate, which Tinubu gave the development commissions – South-East, South-West, South-South, North-West, North-Central and North-East – to shop for foreign investors, the economic hardship will be alleviated,” he said.
NAN
