Tinubu, a national leader of the APC, in a statement
by his media office has replied to Chief Tom Ikimi, he simply titles it : “Reply to Chief Tom Ikimi”.
Ikimi, in a treatise entitled, ‘My Reflections’, gave
reasons why he left the APC, which he mainly blamed on Tinubu’s “domineering
attitude”.
According to him, Tinubu
wanted to foist a weak leader on the party at its first national convention.
He also faulted what he described as the APC’s inclination
towards a Muslim-Muslim presidential ticket, which he said arose from Tinubu’s
perception that the Northwest and Southwest could, through their population,
win the 2015 presidential election.
He said that inclination had helped to move
people away from the party.
“Those of us who had worked so hard towards the successful
merger and creation of the APC were manipulated out of the scheme of things.
In
the bizarre struggle to seize control of the party, we were even openly accused
by the self-proclaimed owners of the party, of wanting to steal ‘their’ party.
“Many of us in the party as well as keen observers outside,
frowned at the skewed leadership image of the party that was being paraded,” he
said.
In his response Tinubu Says:
“I ordinarily would not have responded to Tom
Ikimi’s lengthy chronicle of falsehoods, cheap blackmail and abuse.
My only
reason for this response is that I know Tom Ikimi’s style. He subscribes to the
view that no matter how unbelievable a lie may sound if you brazenly assert it
and repeat it often enough, you may persuade many that it is in fact,
true.
I have seen Ikimi perpetrate this
deviousness in his years in public life.
“Regarding Ikimi’s bid for the chairmanship of the party; it
was clear to practically everyone who had the interest of the party at heart
that we simply could not have a man of Tom Ikimi’s antecedents as the chairman
of the party.
As the chairman of the defunct National Republican Convention
(NRC), one of the two parties in the country under the military transition
programme, Tom Ikimi not only connived with the then military regime to annul
the elections, terminate the democratic process and sell off his party, he
became Abacha’s foreign minister, convincing the world that heinous state
murders as the hanging of Ken Saro Wiwa, were just acts!
“If Ikimi were the chair of APC, the party would have to
sleep with both eyes open lest its chairman sells off the party before day breaks.
“No matter what anyone may say about me, it is unlikely that
I can be accused of supporting incompetent or morally light-weight individuals
for important political positions.
My philosophy is to put the best forward,
men and women of competence and integrity, who can stand up to us politicians
to challenge us and say no when necessary.
“Such people are not noisy or able to gain attention by
being loud. I believe my role is to do all I can to project them.
Who in their
right mind would compare the highly-principled Chief Bisi Akande, or Chief John
Odigie-Oyegun with a Tom Ikimi?
Either of these two men is known for their
no-nonsense styles, not once in their careers would you hear that they betrayed
a cause or were anybody’s stooge.
“Ikimi also concocts a story of a meeting he claims I had
with Diezani Alison-Madueke on the Oando/ ConocoPhillips transaction on the eve
of the APC convention.
“Only a Tom Ikimi can come up with the absurd falsehood that
on the eve of the APC convention when I was in crucial meetings practically
round the clock, I was meeting with the Minister of Petroleum! What exactly
would have been the point of such a meeting especially on the eve of the
convention?
Was it to prevent Tom Ikimi from emerging as the chairman of APC?
To what end? Of what value would it be to anyone except Ikimi himself? Besides,
if this was so, why is he back to the party that purportedly planned his
downfall?
“What is the Oando/ConocoPhillips transaction anyway? For
those who do not know, this is a private sale of the assets of ConocoPhillips
to Oando.
It was not patronage of any
kind from the Federal Government. The Federal Government’s involvement was
merely to formally consent to the sale. I was not involved and I have never
been involved in any of Oando’s transactions.
“Typically, he plays on the fact that Wale Tinubu of Oando
is my nephew.
“Oando has been thoroughly investigated by South African and
British authorities in the past five years as part of the process of listing
the company on the stock exchanges of those countries.
“Those rigorous and comprehensive investigations conducted
by the governments and risk control investigators are to discover the actual
ownership of shares in the company.
“Politically-exposed persons like myself are prime targets
for those investigations.
“All these investigations have shown that I have no
investments in Oando.
“My public position on the entire transaction is that if an
indigenous Nigerian oil and gas entity run by young serious-minded Nigerians
raise money transparently in the international capital markets to purchase
private assets of a multi-national, the Federal Government ought to give its
consent.
That it took so long is shameful. The Conoco/Phillips transaction was
a $1.7 billion investment in Nigeria that would create more jobs,witness the
establishment of allied industries and make the Nigerian economy more attractive. I would have been extremely
proud to have made such a transaction possible.
“Regarding the nonsense about selling out on Ribadu, I think
common sense should dictate that if ever such a deal were reached, we would
have had to inform our members in all the states. How could that have been done
secretly?
How do you tell hundreds of thousands of people not to vote for your
own party without it becoming public knowledge?
“At the formation of the APC, a crucial debate ensued about
what to do about persons like Ikimi, who had done awful things in the past, but
who were now minded to align with the progressive tendency in Nigerian
politics.
Should we forever blacklist them? This would have been the easiest
route, but it would have kept rancour alive. It would have made us slaves to
the bleakest chapters of our past.
“Instead, we opted to extend the hand of brotherhood,
reconcile and put the past behind us. This would enable a broader political
consensus, while also giving the likes of Ikimi an opportunity to atone for
their grievous wrongs against the people and be rehabilitated.
“We recognised that many leading Nigerians had committed
acts of shame. Some for private profit, others who were otherwise decent people
who had become prisoners to a terrible system.
“Not surprisingly, Ikimi- acting true to type, abused that
magnanimity. He was never sincerely committed to the party. He was always
playing out a PDP script.
He only wanted the chairmanship of the party as a
bargaining chip for negotiations with his benefactors. His defection purportedly on account of the
loss of the chairmanship of the party is a mere subterfuge, once his ploy
failed he had no other objective within the party, I knew he would go back to
his sponsors.
He is back in the company he deserves. And APC is better for it.”
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