Oyegun's Paranoia

Chief Oyegun

Chief John Odigie Oyegun is a man worthy of respect. The chairman of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) has always been regarded as a man of integrity during his many decades in public office, including being governor of Edo State between 1992 and 1993.

When he emerged head of the APC, many hailed his choice as a step in the right direction and he helped shape the party that threw the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) out of office.

The 76-year-old economist has been making a lot of statements, and rightly so as head of the ruling party. However, some of his statements border on paranoia. When things don’t go the way he expects, he feels there are saboteurs in the house.

Reacting to the news that President Muhammadu Buhari had sacked heads of 27 federal parastatals, Oyegun said the president took the action because the opposition party, Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), had compromised them.

Speaking with State House correspondents after a meeting with President Buhari at the Presidential Villa in Abuja, the party chairman said the sack was not about APC members filling the positions left by the sacked parastatal chiefs, but about weeding out those sabotaging efforts of the Federal Government to bring development to Nigerians.

The APC, he said, had no apologies for the gale of sack that rocked the agencies.

However, in Nigeria most public office holders are sycophants and bootlickers. That’s how they got the exalted positions in the first place. They would not dare sabotage a government, especially not one headed by a no-nonsense guy like Buhari.

It appears the government just wants to sweep them out with their broom and bring in party members – what Wole Soyinka used to call “jobs for the boys” back in the military era.

APC bigwigs were reportedly disgruntled with Buhari’s reluctance to sack public officers appointed by the Jonathan administration and fill the vacant positions with APC members.

In an interview published in The Punch newspaper in January, a chieftain of the APC wondered why Buhari was dragging his feet over the issue of throwing out the “Jonathanians”.

“President Buhari took over on May 29, 2015 and has not rewarded APC members. Most of the heads of departments and agencies are members of the PDP who worked for Jonathan,” he said.

“For example, Onyeka Onwenu is still the Director-General of the National Women Centre while Mike Omeri is still the Director-General of the National Orientation Agency.”

The newspaper also quoted him as saying: “There are almost 100 ambassadorial positions that are supposed to have been filled but these people are still occupying the offices. We are not asking for security or sensitive positions but all these appointments I mentioned are not statutory but merely political.

“Our people who worked so hard and spent money on Buhari’s campaign are languishing. There are many competent people in the APC.”

There is nothing wrong with rewarding those who worked for the success of the winning party so that “everyone will move in the same direction”. Everyone does it. But tarnishing the image of several professionals, some who are among the best in their fields, and calling them saboteurs just to excuse their sack is not fair. It is certainly not the way to go.

What would these men and women gain by sabotaging Buhari’s government? Jonathan would not come back if Buhari fails. If, for instance, Buhari is impeached, Vice President Prof Yemi Osinbajo would take over. That’s what the constitution says. And, if the APC doesn’t live up to its promises, it may not even lose the next election in three years time because the PDP, like Humpty Dumpty, had a great fall and seems unable get back on its feet.

The PDP is in such disarray that it may take up to 16 years to fix. That’s the same number of years it used to ruin the country – as the APC has never ceased to remind us.

In Nigeria, public officers obey their master’s voice. It is commonplace to see highly placed officers make policy summersaults and reverse their beliefs just to please their new paymasters.  That is why there have been mass defections from the PDP to APC since the latter is now the ruling party.

This is not the first time Oyegun has accused public officers of sabotage. When the Supreme Court affirmed the election victories of the PDP governorship candidates of Rivers, Abia and Akwa Ibom states, the APC chieftain joined other disappointed APC members to condemn the highest court in the land.

Speaking at a meeting with a delegation of the party from Rivers State, led by APC governorship candidate, Dakuku Peterside, Oyegun cast aspersions at the Supreme Court judges.

“I still find the judgment on the Rivers State governorship election totally astonishing. There is something fundamentally wrong in the judiciary,” he said.

He had also accused officers of the Independent National Electoral Council (INEC) of sabotage when APC candidates were defeated in bye-elections. The same INEC officers that oversaw the APC’s monumental victory less than a year ago. How come everything wrong with the country is the fault of PDP – even when that party is in a state of coma?

A non-governmental group, under the platform of Nigerian Youth For Democracy, wondered why Oyegun cast aspersions on the eminent jurists that delivered the judgments, instead of abiding by the verdicts.

In a statement signed by its National Chairman, Ambassador Ademiloye Moses, the group asked why Oyegun refused to make a similar statement when the Supreme Court upheld the elections of Governors Ibikunle Amosun, Akinwumi Ambode, Rauf Aregbesola, Ibrahim Geidam of Ogun, Lagos, Osun and Yobe states, respectively, and other APC controlled states.

Oyegun, a seasoned technocrat, should remember that we were not all created to think alike. There is no way one party will win all the elections in a country as diverse as Nigeria. And having a different opinion is not tantamount to sabotaging the government. He shouldn’t advertise himself as being intolerant of opposing views – especially if it is from the Supreme Court, the highest court in the land.