Ikimi and Tinubu: An Acrimonious divorce Chief Tom Ikimi who led the committee of the legacy parties that formed the All Progressives Congress, APC last Tuesday walked away from the party strewing his exit route with ideological and personality issues that could endanger Nigeria’s only formidable opposition party For those who had believed that one of Nigeria’s most enduring political figures lacked strength of political conviction, Chief Tom Ikimi’s farewell message to the All Progressives Congress, APC was a shocker. “Asiwaju Bola Tinubu having paraded himself both at home and abroad as The Leader of Opposition and of the APC had great difficulty in descending from the fictitious throne. In order to continue manipulating the party from his parlors in Abuja and Lagos he struggled to retain Chief Bisi Akande as Chairman.” The acerbic dismissal of Tinubu, the revered national leader of the APC by Ikimi was the latest blow to what was once believed to be the impregnable fortress of the opposition. Ikimi who exited the party he led to fruition only a year ago, follows the path of other foundation members of the APC such as Alhaji Attahiru Bafarawa, Mallam Ibarhim Shekarau, Senator Ali Modu Sheriff, Brig-Gen Buba Marwa (rtd,), Mr. Marcus Gundiri among others who have left the party. Ikimi’s exit had been predicted since the controversies that shaped the party’s national convention last June when the former governor of Edo State, Chief John Odigie-Oyegun emerged as the national chairman of the party. Odigie-Oyegun was the favoured candidate of Tinubu to lead the party and emerged after Ikimi was prevailed upon not to contest or was allegedly systematically barred from the contest. Though Ikimi did not forthrightly announce his next political direction in his treatise published last Wednesday, it is not unlikely that he will find his way back to the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP from where he drifted to the opposition at the middle of the last decade. Ikimi had gained national renown for his melodramatic role in supervising the presidential nomination convention of the PDP in 2003, where he played the crucial role of Chief Electoral Officer. His stay in the PDP at that time was largely uneventful especially when he had to contend with the tight grip of Chief Tony Anenih, a fellow Esan man in the politics of Edo State. It was not surprising that Ikimi not too long gravitated back to the opposition and was part of the handful of men including Atiku Abubakar and Tinubu who laid the groundwork for the emergence of the first formidable opposition to the PDP since the advent of the Fourth Republic in the shape of the defunct Advanced Congress of Democrats, ACD. The ACD was to later transform into the Action Congress, AC and then the Action Congress of Nigeria, ACN before the final collapse into the APC last year. Ikimi’s stay in the ACN was to eventually prove rewarding, if not for anything, as he for once got the better of his long time political rival, Anenih when his party, ACN triumphed over Anenih’s PDP in the courts to take control of Edo State in 2008. Ikimi may have rejoiced as the Adams Oshiomhole phenomenon made mockery of Anenih’s famed political grip of Edo State. However, whatever satisfaction Ikimi got from the inconveniences that befell Anenih were increasingly doused by the increasing influence of Tinubu as a political colossus in the Southwest, nay Nigeria. Ikimi, apparently got fed up last June after he was supposedly edged out from the chairmanship contest of the APC, but he waited till last Tuesday to pour out his recrimination. He remarkably did it after the APC national hierarchy named him into the Board of Trustees, BoT of the party last week. Remarkably, his vituperation was on Tinubu, a man he tried to prove had not sown as much as he, Ikimi has done in the nation’s political landscape but was trying to reap or position himself far above his superiors. “I was always told that the man was the overwhelming financier of the Party. While I disagree stoutly with this bluff, it is true that the particular individual constantly boasted of his wealth and of his funding of the party. I on the other hand could recall that this was a man I knew who was an easily forgettable character in the 1990s when I was National Party Chairman and when my candidate Sir Michael Otedola of blessed memory, won the Governorship of Lagos State.” “To further bolster his image it was also frequently said that Tinubu has control of all the votes from South Western Nigeria which, as has been currently touted, when added to the votes of North Western Nigeria would guarantee victory for the APC in the upcoming Presidential election.” “This reckless and arrogant self-aggrandizement paved the way for the imposition of a strange leadership on the APC in July 2013 when the party obtained registration from INEC. 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. An image that blatantly ignored national sensitivities.” Besides, Ikimi was to raise an ideological issue that many may have ignored in the recent crisis in the APC as he stated: “It is not a coincidence to me that the prominent members of APC targeted by Bola Tinubu such as Alhaji Atahiru Bafarawa, Sen Ali Modu Sherriff and myself are former NRC members or those perceived as Conservatives.” Ikimi’s ideological punch if not anything, would raise the red flag for the remaining conservatives in the APC such as Chief Ogbonnonya Onu, the leading Igbo man in the APC. APC spokesman, Alhaji Lai Mohammed claimed that the APC leadership was yet to be notified of Ikimi’s missive when contacted last Tuesday, but a party source in the national leadership welcomed Ikimi’s exit saying that they had never trusted him as a progressive. As if giving fillip to the allegation by Ikimi that Tinubu was on an ideological purification campaign, the source likened Ikimi to Senator Sheriff who sources in the APC leadership claim was regarded as a mole of the PDP in the APC. The PDP was yet to celebrate the exit of Ikimi from the APC as at press time, maybe because Ikimi was yet to formally declare for the party, but Chief Femi Fani-Kayode who was also formerly in the APC was ecstatic, tweeting: “I congratulate my leader and my Chairman Chief Tom Ikimi on his historic decision to leave the APC. He has shown immense courage.” More courage, however, would be needed by Ikimi to go back to his vomit, that is, the PDP and willingness to play second fiddle to Anenih in the local politics of Edo State.
Posted on: Sat, 30 Aug 2014 08:37:50 +0000
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