We won"t hang Buhari"s portrait in our secretariats - LP, PPA joins PDP

Two other political parties, the Labour Party and Progressive Peoples Alliance, have joined the main opposition party, the Peoples Democratic Party, in refusing to hang the portrait of President Muhammadu Buhari in their respective secretariats.

Abdulkadir Salami Labour party (LP) Chairman

The two parties hinged their decision on the action of the ruling All Progressives Congress, which before it came to power, allegedly refused to hang the portrait of former President Goodluck Jonathan in its national secretariat.

Both the LP and PPA stressed that their action was a payback for the APC.

This is as chieftains of the PDP expressed divergent views on their party’s action, which was announced by its National Publicity Secretary, Olisa Metuh, on Tuesday.

“We will never hang his (Buhari) portrait in this office, because President Buhari is not known to our party. He is not a leader of our party and, therefore, we will never put his portrait here. We are a political party, very partisan and therefore, we are not going to hide that,” Metuh had told our correspondent on the telephone.

One of our correspondents, who visited the national secretariat of the PPA, situated along Emeka Anyaoku Street, Area 10, Garki Abuja, on Friday, observed that the President’s portrait was conspicuously missing.

The National Chairman of the party, Mr. Peter Ameh, explained that the APC blazed the trail of “subtle civil disobedience” when it was in opposition.

Ameh said, “Your storyline should be whether the APC had the photograph of ex-President Goodluck Jonathan. They did not. And that is the story; the APC did not have Jonathan’s portrait in the party’s national secretariat.

President Buhari

“Everything is about precedent. Throughout Jonathan’s tenure, the APC didn’t have his photograph; so, may be other political parties are also learning from the precedent set by the APC. They are following in the footsteps of the party during the last administration.”

A similar situation obtained at the national secretariat of the LP also situated in Garki.

The National Chairman, LP, Abdulkadir Abdulsalam, said the party did not have Buhari’s portrait, noting that apart from the fact that the APC never accorded Jonathan such respect, the new administration had failed to make the official portrait of Buhari available to it.

Abdulsalam said, “We don’t have the photograph of President Buhari in our secretariat because the APC never had the photograph of ex-President Jonathan in their offices.

“We are supposed to get it but we don’t. The fact of the matter is that the Federal Ministry of Information should have called us, not only political parties, to say that the President’s photograph is available at the Federal Ministry of Information and that all organisations should apply for it.”

Meanwhile, top chieftains of the PDP have expressed divergent views on the position espoused by Metuh.

A stalwart of the party in Oyo State, Senator Lekan Balogun, said hanging of the President’s portrait should not be an issue to Nigerians.

Although he questioned PDP’s position on it, Balogun, however, said that if the constitution did not back hanging of the President’s portraits in all places, discretion should be exercised in doing so.

He said, “If it has become acceptable by the years, it is left for anybody to hang it. It will sound partisan to the extreme. It is not a constitutional requirement, but the PDP should not be the party that will reject hanging the President’s portrait, bearing in mind that when Goodluck Jonathan of the party served as President, everybody put his portrait in their offices at the time.

“Unless you can prove that when Jonathan was ruling, the APC did not hang his portrait, it should not be an issue. It is the kind of thing Nigerians play on.”

A prominent member of the party from the state, Chief Richard Akinjide (SAN), refused to comment on the issue. He told our correspondent that if the PDP had taken a position on the issue, he would rather not comment on it.

The Chairman and the Publicity Secretary of the PDP, Kwara State chapter, Iyiola Oyedepo and Rex Olawoye, however differed with Metuh.

In separate telephone interviews with one of our correspondents in Ilorin, they stated that Metuh’s position was wrong, adding that as the President of Nigeria, Buhari’s portrait should be everywhere and that he deserved to be respected.

However, the National Publicity Secretary of the APC, Lai Mohammed, dismissed the controversy as “a non-issue.”

A constitutional lawyer, Fred Agbaje, who spoke with SUNDAY PUNCH in a telephone interview, described the practice of displaying presidents’ portraits as a civic responsibility embedded in the constitution.

According to him, though the constitution does not expressly provide that the President’s portrait be hung, failure to do so in public places amounts to reneging on a civic responsibility, which is a constitutional requirement.

He said, legally, by one of those old 1960 laws, which we inherited, we are supposed to do that (display presidents’ portraits). “Even if it is not part of our constitution, it is part of our civic duty under the constitution that all public places should display the portrait as a mark of respect for constituted authority.”

A Senior Advocate of Nigeria, Mr. Emeka Ngige, similarly told SUNDAY PUNCH that although the constitution did not explicitly provide that the President’s portrait must be hung, it had become a universally accepted convention as a sign of accordance of respect.

We won"t hang Buhari"s portrait in our secretariats - LP, PPA joins PDP

APC has deceived us with their Change slogan - Ameh, chairman, PPA

Chief Peter Ameh is the National Chairman of Progressive Peoples Alliance, PPA. In this interview, he bares his mind on the recent development in the nation’s political scene. Ameh while x-raying the controversies which characterised the recently conducted National Assembly leadership election concluded that a bi-partisan legislature is good for the country.

How would you react to the controversies generated by the election of presiding officers in the National Assembly?

Peter Ameh, PPA Chairman

There have been a lot of intrigues behind closed doors among the various blocs that came to form the All Progressive Congress, APC, that gave it the power it now has and the ability to have the national spread that gave it the advantage to take over power at the centre.

These power blocs have been pitching opinion against opinion and interest against interest, and that is what has really made this thing very difficult. But nevertheless, we know that there is a good intention from the elected president. But APC as a party is making very serious mistakes maybe from the leadership.

I thought that based on their popular slogan of Change, that they would be an all-inclusive party, a party that has respect for internal democratic process, a party that has respect for the interest, wishes and aspirations of it members. But so far, APC has fallen short of that and has failed to achieve that in a lot of areas.

Like the National Assembly elections, I want to sincerely fault the leadership of the APC. While we commend the President, Muhammadu Buhari for accepting that he would work with any person that is chosen as leader at the National Assembly level. We want to fault the negative influence of the APC as a political party in the leadership process of the National Assembly.

Because one, if you say a member who wants to contest for the post of the Senate President has an interest and that member is a member of your party, and that member has contributed financially up to date, the member has contributed personal manpower by moving from one state to another campaigning for the victory of the APC. You said that member should not run that you have a preferred candidate, what have you done? Have you not infringed on the right of that person to participate and have you not refused to create a fair playing field for participation for all your members? Have you not refused to create an all-inclusive process of election?

These were all the things that the previous political parties like the PDP were doing that were wrong that caused the party to crash and yet APC claimed change. APC would have allowed its members to elect the leader or leaders of their choice without any imposition.

As the national chairman of a political party do you think Senator Saraki and Speaker Dogara violated party discipline by contesting against the party’s nominated candidates in the leadership contests?

I want to tell you one thing, our party the PPA, had people like Senator Uche Chukwumerijie of blessed memory elected to the Senate in 2007 under its platform, Chief Ikedi Ohakim became the governor of Imo State under the platform of our party, Chief Theodore Orji, the immediate past governor of Abia state became governor under the platform of our party. I think when the position of the party becomes too stiff; you push your members away, and the damage that would be done would be too much to recover from.

If you say party discipline, you must create a system of fair hearing, you must create an equal level playing field for all those persons that you want them to follow party principles and party policies; you must create that equal playing field.

You cannot be a judge in a matter where your interest is already known, there is no way you can judge that matter fairly because from day one the party was known to favour some candidates as the choice candidate of the party; Lawan-Akume and Femi Gbajabiamila tickets. So there is no way if I were involved in the process, if a member of my party is involved in that process that he would want to participate because there was no equal level playing field.

And there is nowhere that you will create a straw-poll for leadership of the Senate before they go to the floor of the senate because you have no right to do that. The leaders as stipulated by the constitution and all external rules said that the elected leaders of this Senate and House of Representatives will elect a leader amongst themselves on the floor of the Senate. So the party went above the normal thing.

PPA adopted former President Goodluck Jonathan as its candidate in the last presidential election. Why did he lose?

Internal wrangling, betrayal here and there caused his loss because Jonathan as a person did well for this country, he has served this country well. Indeed, we formed a committee; issues were reviewed. Before we adopted Jonathan, we took time. We were the last set of people to adopt Jonathan, we took our time, we reviewed a lot of issues and sincerely, lawyers were involved in this process. We discovered that Jonathan was the best candidate for that election from my own point of view.

We became happier when despite losing an election Jonathan became a celebrated individual; he became more celebrated than even winning because of his approach to the election after he lost. He called President Buhari before the final result was collated, they have not even announced some states.

So at the time we took our decision, with all the relevant information at our disposal, it was the best decision we took at that point in time. So for Nigeria that has come and gone, we are now engaged in nation building. In politics you align, and you re-align and you continue to create an alliance for a better Nigeria and that is what we are doing. We are here to build a better future for our people, so it is not a personal thing.

The governorship election in your state, Kogi is expected to hold by October this year, will your party field a candidate for the governorship election.

If I don’t feature my interest to show how much I am on the ground in the state. You know the last election, Senator Abetemi Usman, as serving senator contesting on the platform of my party lost by just a slight margin because of the Buhari syndrome.

 

APC has deceived us with their Change slogan - Ameh, chairman, PPA