Chairman Senate Committee on Media and Public Affairs Committee, Senator Ajibola Basiru, has taken on Director General of the Progressives Governors Forum (PGF), Salihu Lukman for criticising the All Progressives Congress (APC’s) handling of ongoing Edo election campaigns as weak, defeatist, cowardly and at best treacherous.
Also, Chairman, Senate Committee on Judiciary, Human Rights and Legal Matters, Senator Opeyemi Bamidele (EKiti Central), condemned Edo Governor Godwin Obaseki over alleged invasion of the Assembly Complex in Benin City last week.
Basiru, in a statement in Abuja, insisted that Lukman should immediately be called to order by the APC Governors Forum and shut out from making disparaging remarks about the party.
The Spokesman of the Senate said: “People who really have nothing useful to contribute to the ongoing campaigns should desist from making remarks that will discourage genuine Democrats who are working for the progress of APC and the Nation.”
The DG had berated the leadership of the APC for adopting the wrong approach to electioneering campaign in Edo, specifically faulting allowing Comrade Adams Oshimhole to lead the campaign.
Basiru dismissed Lukman’s view point as conceding electoral victory to the opposition before casting the first ballot adding that “no true progressive minded individual ought to nurse this kind of negative view point.
“The approach advocated by the DG that Oshiomhole should be withdrawn into the background is cowardly, weak and at the best defeatist as well as treacherous,” Basiru said.
He added: “How can anyone withdraw his best asset when needed most? We shall be indulging in self delusion if we say Comrade Oshiomhole is not important or central to the ongoing campaigns especially when the opposition has made him the focus of their campaign.”
The Senate spokesman reminded the DG the same Oshiomhole led Obaseki by the nose and campaigned vigorously for him to become Governor in 2016.
“It is disturbing for a progressive to take the position of Lukman berating your own party publicly as ‘beating the drums of war’ and so conceding victory to your opponent before the actual contest.
“The view of the DG that Pastor (Osagie) Ize-Iyamu is an on looker in his own election is also not correct because Ize-Iyamu is sufficiently popular and had now been in political limelight in the State for years.
“In fact we fought ‘tooth and nail’ to defeat him in the last election.”
He advised the PGF DG to “rid himself of the anti-Oshiomhole sentiments running deep among his haters and allow him to perform his legal and fundamental rights of canvassing for the candidate of his choice, especially when those against him have nothing, absolutely nothing to contribute.
“The intentions of the DG and some of the so called progressive Governors whose opinions are represented in this unsolicited outburst, that at best could be an internal memo, are less than noble and amounts to shooting down what the party has laboured to build.”
On his part, Bamidele described the alleged actions of Obaseki in the invasion of the House of Assembly as unlawful, subversive and a damning threat to democracy in Nigeria.
Fielding questions from journalists in Abuja on Sunday, Bamidele insisted the continued onslaughts on members of the Edo Assembly by Obaseki should be condemned and resisted by all lovers of democracy because the legislature is an integral and critical component of democracy anywhere around the world.
He noted the deliberate and inordinate sabotage of the legitimate activities of the lawmakers in the legislature is a direct invitation to anarchy, which must be promptly halted before the situation is allowed to get out of hands.
According to him, the legislature, because of its representative power in a democracy, is the mirror of the will of the the people which must not be subverted by anybody under whatever guise.
“The legislature is the chief means of expressing popular will, a body that can speak on behalf of, and for, the people.
“It is, therefore, the assembly of the people’s minds and the general will of the populace within a polity,” he said.
He added the desperation of Obaseki to secure a second term in office should not be allowed to desecrate, destroy and totally subvert the legislative institution in Edo State, saying “democratic sustainability demands that political players should moderate and caution their political behaviours to safeguard the sanctity of democracy and institutions of democratic governance.”
