GEJ’s sole candidature ‘a mockery of democracy’

The All Progressives Congress has described the endorsement of President Goodluck Jonathan as the sole candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) for next year’s presidential election as a mockery of democracy.

Jonathan was endorsed as the sole presidential candidate of the PDP for the 2015 presidential election by the national executive committee of the party on September 18, but APC feels the action should be “strongly condemned”.

Speaking on Wednesday through its national publicity secretary, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, it argued that the parody of democracy that the endorsement represented had exposed the hypocrisy of the PDP, “which is ever so eager to accuse other parties of lacking in internal democracy”.

“Obviously, those fellows in the PDP have never heard of the saying that those who must come to equity must come with clean hands. PDP, where is your own internal democracy now that you have turned your party into a fiefdom controlled by one and only one person only?” APC queried.

“While endorsements are part and parcel of democracy, they are never done to the exclusion of other candidates. This is simply not democratic. When then candidate Barrack Obama was endorsed by his party’s bigwigs to contest the US Presidency, the party never excluded Hillary Clinton from its primaries. That’s how it is done.”

The party alleged that the price being paid for Jonathan’s endorsement by Nigeria is simply too heavy, considering that the PDP governors who spearheaded the endorsement had secured “perpetual immunity from prosecution by anti-graft bodies, including the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) and the Independent Corrupt Practices Commission (ICPC); the automatic tickets for all first-term PDP governors, whether or not they had performed; the automatic tickets for all PDP governors running for the senate; as well as the free ride back to the upper chamber for Senate President David Mark.”

”It is now an open sesame for the PDP governors, who have no prying anti-corruption agencies watching over their shoulders. They can now simply see the commonwealth as an extension of their deep pockets. The endorsement is also a vote of approval for the proceeds of corruption that have been powering the noisy and outrageous Transformation Ambassadors of Nigeria (TAN),” it said.

It also accused Jonathan of desecrating the country’s democracy because of his desperation for reelection, saying it is “a cruel irony” that a man who has benefited more than anyone else from democracy has been the one who has been doing everything possible to undermine it.

It claimed that Jonathan had abandoned domestic issues while seeking international relevance, “in a clear negation” of the aphorism that charity begins at home.

“This president has basically abandoned governance. Unprecedented corruption is mounting; insecurity stalks the land and Nigerians grope in darkness as power generation has plummeted. This president has yet to tell Nigerians the full involvement of his government in the $9.3m
dollars that was illegally ferried to South Africa on a private jet.

“This president has yet to tell Nigerians why he has continued to hobnob with an alleged sponsor of Boko Haram, who is supposed to be under a probe by his administration. Yet, he is eager to attend meetings with serious-minded leaders who have done well for their own people.”

APC said it is only when Jonathan has achieved success domestically that he could parade himself internationally.

“You cannot look good abroad if you look ugly at home,” it said.