I trust that this letter finds you in good health and may that
never change. I also hope that you are in an apt frame of mind to
read this letter according to the spirit in which it is written and
to derive apt counsel from it.
Our party has travelled far in a brief time. To pull and mend
the disparate legacy parties into one, we surmounted high obstacles
that would have daunted others. To win the election, the then
candidate Muhammadu Buhari had to campaign as never before and we,
as a party, had to stare down great odds to win.
We held firm to our principles and did not cast our eyes away
from the progressive objectives that led us to form this party in
the first instance. We kept faith with the best of our ideals and
we matched noble ideals to strong effort. We won. Nigeria won.
Sadly, some, who were entrusted with positions of high
responsibility within the party seemed unable to handle the success
given them. Little attention was tendered the principles upon which
this party was formed and pursuant to which it was presented to the
public as an alternative to the cynical politics of the PDP
(Peoples Democratic Party).
We were born as a party of internal democracy; but our internal
institutions have been actively undermined or allowed to atrophy.
The spirit of a new and better Nigeria that guided us to
unprecedented electoral success has been steadily replaced by the
bankrupt and rule-less ways that brought the PDP low.
Since the election, there have been several reports of lack of
openness and fairness which have led to internal crisis in some of
our states. There have been allegations of self-induced crisis
resulting from merchandising of internal processes. We all must
agree that the party was bound to suffer growing pains but not to
the extent of losing part of the substantial goodwill that brought
us to power.
However, that which concerns me has little to do with the manner
by which the party is growing. What concerns me is the manner in
which the crisis is developing that can lead to serious erosion of
party cohesion and confidence. Were I alone in this concern, I
would discount my observations as a sign of my own misperceptions
or infirmity. However, I stand not alone in this worry. My grief is
shared by so many party members that I would not be accused of
exaggeration if I said substantial party leaders are worried about
the course of our vessel.
I believe it was from this sober concern that President
Muhammadu Buhari recently appointed me to lead the consultation,
reconciliation and confidence-building efforts in our party. Upon
the appointment, I gave the President my word that I would work
diligently and objectively to achieve the goal set before me.
In this vein, my first port of call after receiving this
assignment was our party’s National Secretariat to present myself
before the National Working Committee (NWC), with you as one of its
members by virtue of your position as Chairman of the party. During
my interaction with the NWC, I enjoined its members to freely
express their views concerning the state of the party at the
national, state and local levels. I listened attentively to the
views of every member of the NWC present.
On your part, you promised unalloyed support for my mission.
Consonant with that vow, you said you would provide all information
at your disposal and you vowed to act as a liaison between me and
the state party chapters. At that very meeting, I announced I had
formally started the assignment handed me by President Buhari. I
offered to keep you abreast of my work. I said that I wanted the
NWC to be like an informal advisory council and sounding board to
me in the discharge of this presidential mandate.
Unfortunately, the spirit of understanding and of cooperative
undertaking to revive the party seems not to have lived beyond the
temporal confines of that meeting. I assure anyone who cares to
know that this positive spirit of cooperation did not meet its
demise at my hands.
My position was and is that we can only restore the party by
resolving its current deficiencies in an unbiased, neutral manner
that allows us to strengthen our internal democracy by annealing
those internal institutions and processes vital to such internal
fairness. I stated this position then and still hold to it with all
sincerity.
Yet, disappointment greeted me when I discovered that you had
swiftly acted in contravention of the spirit of our discussions.
Instead of being a bulwark of support as promised, you positioned
yourself in active opposition to the goal of resuscitating the
progressive and democratic nature of the APC. As a party, we have
strived to be the best, present hope for the nation. Yet, your goal
appears to be something of a lesser pedigree.
In our discussion, you personally mentioned Kogi, Kaduna, Kano
and Adamawa States as places afflicted by serious party issues.
Given your assessment, these were states where I believed
cooperation between you and I should have been intense and
detailed. Instead, you have taken it as your personal mission to
thwart my presidential assignment in these key states.
In Kogi, you rushed to the state to unilaterally inaugurate a
new slate of state officials, parallel to the officials already
heading the state chapter of the party. While this may place you in
significant affinity with those parallel officials you handpicked,
this machination suggests no improvement in the welfare of the
party in Kogi or at the national level. This usurpation of
authority exacerbates conflict and confusion; it does not resolve
them.
It is my understanding that your dissolution of the duly-
constituted state executives and the hurried naming of the
above-mentioned caretaker group was not approved by the NWC. This
arrogation of power sets you at variance with members of the NWC as
evidenced by National Publicity Secretary Malam Bolaji Abdullahi’s
statement, condemning your improper and unusual action.
You had let this situation fester for months on end. Only when I
was appointed to help resolve internal disputes and when you
realised I might focus early on Kogi, did you stir from your
indifference and inaction. You could have wisely and prudently
treated this matter beforehand. By waiting to the last moment, your
unilateral action was implemented in haste and unbalanced in
thought. By creating a parallel body, you not only acted
improperly, you grew a second problem from the stem where
previously there had sprouted but one.
The Kaduna State chapter apparently has been troubled by
disputes over who the party recognises as acting chairman for the
state. The dispute has at times degenerated to the point where
there purportedly has been demolition of property and the threat of
violence.
This eruptive state of affairs is a direct and proximate result
of the inability of the party under your leadership to follow the
dictates of the party constitution and regulations to arrive at a
result that all may agree was rendered objectively, in harmony with
the principles by which this party was founded.
While everyone may not be pleased with the result, all
contestants would acknowledge that the process had been fair and
neutral. In this way, rancour is contained and reconciliation more
easily achieved.
Because this matter has been left to fester, positions have
hardened and intrigue and animosity are more the authors of the day
than unity, compromise and cooperation. It is always better to
repair the crack before it becomes a hole and the hole before it
becomes a gap. You did neither in this instance. Yet, you lifted
not a finger to honour your vow to provide information and contacts
to help me do this important repair.
After my interaction with the NWC and given the urgency of the
work needed to mend and heal the party, you should have presented
the status reports on state party chapters as promised, and
certainly without much delay. Your reportage is vital to my work.
Your delay in not reporting on a single state chapter now delays
and threatens my assignment.
Mr. Chairman, I cannot overstate the imperatives of time in this
regard just as I cannot overstate the need for cooperation and to
work in accordance with the formal rules and ways of our party.
Yet, something else is afoot and I must draw attention to it so
that we can end the malpractice before it impairs the party and my
assignment any further. Drawing from your behaviour in Kogi, Kaduna
and with regard to the state chapter assessment requested, I am led
to the inference that you have no intention of actually supporting
my assignment.
Instead, you apparently seek to undermine my mandate by engaging
in dilatory tactics for the most part. When forced to act, you do
so in an arbitrary and capricious manner, without the counsel of
other NWC members and without regard to our internal
procedures.
You may have personal qualms with me. That is your right as a
human being. However, you have no such right as the chairman of
this party. This party belongs to all of its members. You have no
greater claim on it than any of the rest of us. Whatever personal
qualms you may have with me are secondary at this point. You have a
moral and professional obligation as the party chairman to act in
the party’s best interests. Your hurried and unilateral actions
belie the important agency you hold for the party.
Thus, in furtherance of the assignment given to me by President
Buhari, I request that you make available to me the status reports
and all other pertinent information regarding the state chapters
without further delay.
Also, to lessen animosity and return the party to the path of
internal democracy and openness, I beg that you refrain from taking
any more improper unilateral decisions with regard to the national
and state chapters of the party. As the chairman of the party, you
must work within the confines of the duties and responsibilities
enumerated under the party constitution. You must not stretch
beyond them.
If you continue to do so, I fear you may undermine the party in
no small degree. You may well cause internal fractures and
dissension difficult to repair yet visible to all. I fear this can
undermine our goodwill with the electorate and make the approaching
challenges to the party materially more difficult than they need to
be.
As chairman of this party, you should not want this to be your
legacy. As a member of this party from its inception, I don’t want
this to happen to the party and I don’t want such an awful thing to
be your legacy.
I trust that this letter finds you in good health and may that
never change. I also hope that you are in an apt frame of mind to
read this letter according to the spirit in which it is written and
to derive apt counsel from it.
Our party has travelled far in a brief time. To pull and mend
the disparate legacy parties into one, we surmounted high obstacles
that would have daunted others. To win the election, the then
candidate Muhammadu Buhari had to campaign as never before and we,
as a party, had to stare down great odds to win.
We held firm to our principles and did not cast our eyes away
from the progressive objectives that led us to form this party in
the first instance. We kept faith with the best of our ideals and
we matched noble ideals to strong effort. We won. Nigeria won.
Sadly, some, who were entrusted with positions of high
responsibility within the party seemed unable to handle the success
given them. Little attention was tendered the principles upon which
this party was formed and pursuant to which it was presented to the
public as an alternative to the cynical politics of the PDP
(Peoples Democratic Party).
We were born as a party of internal democracy; but our internal
institutions have been actively undermined or allowed to atrophy.
The spirit of a new and better Nigeria that guided us to
unprecedented electoral success has been steadily replaced by the
bankrupt and rule-less ways that brought the PDP low.
Since the election, there have been several reports of lack of
openness and fairness which have led to internal crisis in some of
our states. There have been allegations of self-induced crisis
resulting from merchandising of internal processes. We all must
agree that the party was bound to suffer growing pains but not to
the extent of losing part of the substantial goodwill that brought
us to power.
However, that which concerns me has little to do with the manner
by which the party is growing. What concerns me is the manner in
which the crisis is developing that can lead to serious erosion of
party cohesion and confidence. Were I alone in this concern, I
would discount my observations as a sign of my own misperceptions
or infirmity. However, I stand not alone in this worry. My grief is
shared by so many party members that I would not be accused of
exaggeration if I said substantial party leaders are worried about
the course of our vessel.
I believe it was from this sober concern that President
Muhammadu Buhari recently appointed me to lead the consultation,
reconciliation and confidence-building efforts in our party. Upon
the appointment, I gave the President my word that I would work
diligently and objectively to achieve the goal set before me.
In this vein, my first port of call after receiving this
assignment was our party’s National Secretariat to present myself
before the National Working Committee (NWC), with you as one of its
members by virtue of your position as Chairman of the party. During
my interaction with the NWC, I enjoined its members to freely
express their views concerning the state of the party at the
national, state and local levels. I listened attentively to the
views of every member of the NWC present.
On your part, you promised unalloyed support for my mission.
Consonant with that vow, you said you would provide all information
at your disposal and you vowed to act as a liaison between me and
the state party chapters. At that very meeting, I announced I had
formally started the assignment handed me by President Buhari. I
offered to keep you abreast of my work. I said that I wanted the
NWC to be like an informal advisory council and sounding board to
me in the discharge of this presidential mandate.
Unfortunately, the spirit of understanding and of cooperative
undertaking to revive the party seems not to have lived beyond the
temporal confines of that meeting. I assure anyone who cares to
know that this positive spirit of cooperation did not meet its
demise at my hands.
My position was and is that we can only restore the party by
resolving its current deficiencies in an unbiased, neutral manner
that allows us to strengthen our internal democracy by annealing
those internal institutions and processes vital to such internal
fairness. I stated this position then and still hold to it with all
sincerity.
Yet, disappointment greeted me when I discovered that you had
swiftly acted in contravention of the spirit of our discussions.
Instead of being a bulwark of support as promised, you positioned
yourself in active opposition to the goal of resuscitating the
progressive and democratic nature of the APC. As a party, we have
strived to be the best, present hope for the nation. Yet, your goal
appears to be something of a lesser pedigree.
In our discussion, you personally mentioned Kogi, Kaduna, Kano
and Adamawa States as places afflicted by serious party issues.
Given your assessment, these were states where I believed
cooperation between you and I should have been intense and
detailed. Instead, you have taken it as your personal mission to
thwart my presidential assignment in these key states.
In Kogi, you rushed to the state to unilaterally inaugurate a
new slate of state officials, parallel to the officials already
heading the state chapter of the party. While this may place you in
significant affinity with those parallel officials you handpicked,
this machination suggests no improvement in the welfare of the
party in Kogi or at the national level. This usurpation of
authority exacerbates conflict and confusion; it does not resolve
them.
It is my understanding that your dissolution of the duly-
constituted state executives and the hurried naming of the
above-mentioned caretaker group was not approved by the NWC. This
arrogation of power sets you at variance with members of the NWC as
evidenced by National Publicity Secretary Malam Bolaji Abdullahi’s
statement, condemning your improper and unusual action.
You had let this situation fester for months on end. Only when I
was appointed to help resolve internal disputes and when you
realised I might focus early on Kogi, did you stir from your
indifference and inaction. You could have wisely and prudently
treated this matter beforehand. By waiting to the last moment, your
unilateral action was implemented in haste and unbalanced in
thought. By creating a parallel body, you not only acted
improperly, you grew a second problem from the stem where
previously there had sprouted but one.
The Kaduna State chapter apparently has been troubled by
disputes over who the party recognises as acting chairman for the
state. The dispute has at times degenerated to the point where
there purportedly has been demolition of property and the threat of
violence.
This eruptive state of affairs is a direct and proximate result
of the inability of the party under your leadership to follow the
dictates of the party constitution and regulations to arrive at a
result that all may agree was rendered objectively, in harmony with
the principles by which this party was founded.
While everyone may not be pleased with the result, all
contestants would acknowledge that the process had been fair and
neutral. In this way, rancour is contained and reconciliation more
easily achieved.
Because this matter has been left to fester, positions have
hardened and intrigue and animosity are more the authors of the day
than unity, compromise and cooperation. It is always better to
repair the crack before it becomes a hole and the hole before it
becomes a gap. You did neither in this instance. Yet, you lifted
not a finger to honour your vow to provide information and contacts
to help me do this important repair.
After my interaction with the NWC and given the urgency of the
work needed to mend and heal the party, you should have presented
the status reports on state party chapters as promised, and
certainly without much delay. Your reportage is vital to my work.
Your delay in not reporting on a single state chapter now delays
and threatens my assignment.
Mr. Chairman, I cannot overstate the imperatives of time in this
regard just as I cannot overstate the need for cooperation and to
work in accordance with the formal rules and ways of our party.
Yet, something else is afoot and I must draw attention to it so
that we can end the malpractice before it impairs the party and my
assignment any further. Drawing from your behaviour in Kogi, Kaduna
and with regard to the state chapter assessment requested, I am led
to the inference that you have no intention of actually supporting
my assignment.
Instead, you apparently seek to undermine my mandate by engaging
in dilatory tactics for the most part. When forced to act, you do
so in an arbitrary and capricious manner, without the counsel of
other NWC members and without regard to our internal
procedures.
You may have personal qualms with me. That is your right as a
human being. However, you have no such right as the chairman of
this party. This party belongs to all of its members. You have no
greater claim on it than any of the rest of us. Whatever personal
qualms you may have with me are secondary at this point. You have a
moral and professional obligation as the party chairman to act in
the party’s best interests. Your hurried and unilateral actions
belie the important agency you hold for the party.
Thus, in furtherance of the assignment given to me by President
Buhari, I request that you make available to me the status reports
and all other pertinent information regarding the state chapters
without further delay.
Also, to lessen animosity and return the party to the path of
internal democracy and openness, I beg that you refrain from taking
any more improper unilateral decisions with regard to the national
and state chapters of the party. As the chairman of the party, you
must work within the confines of the duties and responsibilities
enumerated under the party constitution. You must not stretch
beyond them.
If you continue to do so, I fear you may undermine the party in
no small degree. You may well cause internal fractures and
dissension difficult to repair yet visible to all. I fear this can
undermine our goodwill with the electorate and make the approaching
challenges to the party materially more difficult than they need to
be.
As chairman of this party, you should not want this to be your
legacy. As a member of this party from its inception, I don’t want
this to happen to the party and I don’t want such an awful thing to
be your legacy.
Read more https://nairalaw.com/full-text-asiwaju-tinubus-letter-on-john-oyeguns-alleged-interference/