By Aminu Isa Goronyo
Self-righteousness is one of the most irritating postures of politicians. In a widely published statement by Alhaji Lai Mohammed of All Progressives Congress (APC) after the party’s national convention held Friday last week in Abuja, the opposition spokesman of the party promised to rid Nigeria of the ruling Peoples Democratic Party’s (PDP) “rapacious cabals.”
To the gullible, this may sound a tough rhetoric, but to discerning Nigerians, it is mere hot air. Is there any political party without “rapacious cabals?” Is APC free of these cabals? Are the multi-billionaires in APC saints? Did these APC billionaires make their incredible fortunes through the jackpot? If our politics is based on morality contest and incorruptibility, I wonder why the APC never bothers to ask its billionaire financiers the sources of their fortunes.
Where are the former PDP governors that defected to the APC getting the money to fund their new party? Are they using their private funds or public funds to run the APC? APC structures were automatically handed over to defected PDP governors because they have the financial wherewithal to run the party across the country.
Former Governor Ibrahim Shekarau was hounded out of the APC and the party structure was handed over to Governor Rabi’u Musa Kwankwaso because of the belief that only Kwankwaso has the financial capacity to organize the APC. But that financial capacity is nothing more than the use of public funds by governors to run the APC. Shekarau was hounded out of APC to give Kwankwaso total control of the party. Shekarau doesn’t have the “financial capacity” to run the APC in Kano State. Then how can any political party using public funds to run its affairs call PDP members “rapacious cabals”?
I hate hypocrisy and deceit. There are many APC members with court cases brought against them by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC). The Lagos State House of Assembly Speaker is one of them. The use of public funds by APC governors is illegal and unconstitutional. But Lai Mohammed never once criticized the use of public funds by former PDP governors to run the APC structures in their states. Where is the superior morality Mohammed was preaching about?
Principles have nothing to do with APC politics. If, indeed, principles mattered to APC, it would not have been desperate to woo PDP members, including those with moral question marks over their heads. If Lai Mohammed would not tell us how APC financiers have made their huge fortunes, then he should stop preaching to us about the so-called “rapacious cabals” in PDP.
As far as I am concerned, APC and PDP leaders are tarred with the same brush when it comes to greed and accumulation of wealth at public expense. If APC leaders cannot allow questions about the sources of their own wealth, then they should stop deceiving us. If you live in a glass house, it would be wise to avoid talking too much and pointing accusing fingers at others.
Nigerians have long memories and, therefore, they can readily recall many cases of APC hypocrisy. Didn’t the APC leaders once tell us that the PDP is a party of “crooks and evil men”? Yet, shamelessly, they were wooing and eagerly welcoming the same “crooks” into APC! Is this not the height of opportunism and deceit? Why does Lai Mohemmed think he can throw dust in our eyes?
If APC politics is founded on integrity and principles, why was the party taken from Shekarau and handed over to Kwankwaso because he has unhindered access to public funds? Despite Shekarau’s honesty, the party was hijacked from him because he didn’t have the money to “organize” the APC chapter in Kano State.
Any APC governor using public funds to hijack the party structure and buy loyalty cannot be my standard of judging integrity or principle. We have rapacious cabals in both parties, and let nobody deceive us that they are saints and others are devils. Any opposition party that did not see anything wrong by embracing “crooks” it once despised should not deceive us about fake superior moral credentials.
Goronyo wrote from No. 57, Monrovia Crescent, Wusell, Abuja. Email: [email protected]
