2015 presidency: PDP plans to destabilise S’West — ACN

APRIL 12, 2012 BY NIYI ODEBODE, FIDELIS SORIWEI AND FEMI MAKINDE 

The Action Congress of Nigeria on Wednesday said it had uncovered a plot by the Peoples Democratic Party to destabilise the South-West geo-political zone as part of President Goodluck Jonathan’s plan to contest the 2015 presidential poll.

The ACN, in a statement in Lagos by its National Publicity Secretary, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, alleged a plot to terminate the life of the Osun State Governor, Mr. Rauf Aregbesola, as part of the PDP’s destabilisation plot.

The ACN said the plot to destabilise the zone was to “soften the ground for the PDP ahead of the 2015 general elections.”

But the PDP National Publicity Secretary, Chief Olisah Metuh, dismissed the ACN’s allegation, saying the opposition party thrives on sectional issues.

Also, the National Vice-Chairman of the PDP (South West), Mr. Segun Oni, said security agencies must investigate   Aregbesola’s alleged plan to secede.

 Oni, in a statement made available to our correspondent in Ado-Ekiti, the Ekiti State capital, said the ACN was levelling a false allegation against the PDP.

 Metuh dismissed the allegation, saying, “The ACN should not be distracting the PDP at the national level. If we start reacting to the ACN, it means that we will react to the APGA in Imo State, the CPC in Nasarawa, and the ANPP in Zamfara. All these are regional parties. Our party is the only national party.

“We are focused on serious national issues; we are focused on national development; I mean issues that affect the welfare of Nigerians.

“The ACN thrives on religion, sectionalism and tribal issues but we are concerned with issues of serious national importance. We cannot allow the ACN to drag us into such issues. We will delegate the South-West PDP to react to them.”

 But the ACN insisted that the Osun State governor was being targeted in the plot by the PDP, which, it alleged, was bent on causing chaos in the zone.

“The architects of this plot believe that unless the PDP destabilises the South-West and gets rid of the man they see as an implacable foe, the President’s putative plan to run for re-election in 2015 will be in jeopardy, especially as they (PDP members) are afraid, for reasons best known to them, that the President will not get the backing of the North-West and the North-East in his quest for re-election,” the ACN said.

According to the opposition party, the first step in the plot is the fabrication of an ‘intelligence report,’ which will allege  that Aregbesola is nursing a secessionist plan.

The report, the ACN said, would also indicate that Aregbesola played Osun’s anthem instead of the national anthem.

It added that the PDP would say that the governor had dispensed with the services of the State Security Service operatives and replaced them with Islamic extremists called ‘Tawun.’

The ACN further said that the intelligence report would indicate that Aregbesola had changed the uniforms of secondary schools in Osun State and made the wearing of hijab compulsory for female pupils.

According to the ACN, the alleged false report stated that Aregbesola would enforce the wearing of hijab through Islamic militants.

 ‘’The cooked intelligence report concluded that all legal and constitutional means must be used to stop him. Reading between the lines, the measures being advocated in the report could only be impeachment, creation of chaos and anarchy to pave the way for the imposition of a state of emergency in the state, or the final solution, which is physical elimination,’’ it stated.

The party urged the PDP to desist from any act that would further threaten the peace and security in the country, submitting that there was no truth in the allegations detailed in the intelligence report allegedly engineered by the PDP.

It denied that Aregbesola sent away any SSS operatives from Osun State and that the governor had no private militia group.

The party added, “The ACN will like to put the PDP and its collaborators on notice that it (ACN) will guard its mandate in Osun and other states jealously against political hawks.

“The so-called intelligence report should be shredded and packed in a dustbin where it belongs, because it is nothing but the PDP master-plan to destabilise Osun State in particular and the South-West region in general.”

It warned security and intelligence agencies not to allow themselves to be used for political gains.

Oni, in a statement by his media aide, Mr. Lere Olayinka, described the ruling party as law-abiding.

 Oni said the PDP would not be cowed or succumb to  blackmail to abandon its resolve to rescue the South-West from those it described as “predators.”

He said, “This is another concocted statement by the ACN in the party’s desperate attempt to cover up the ACN’s now exposed grand plot to destabilise Nigeria as a nation.

“Our position is that actions and utterances of Governor Rauf Aregbesola of Osun State suggest that he was championing a plot to disintegrate Nigeria.

“Is it not true that Aregbesola is sending student activists to Cuba? Is it not true that he goes about with security guards other than men of the police and SSS? Is it not true that he goes about with flag of his imaginary republic? Is it not also true that there is a Facebook account named Oduduwa Republic, with flag and map of a republic?

“We therefore wish to reiterate our call to security agencies not to succumb to the blackmail of the ACN, because issues bordering on threat to corporate existence of Nigeria is a serious security matter and security agencies in the country must go the extra mile to investigate these allegations.”

Dismissing the ACN’s allegation on 2015, Oni said that Nigerians had continued to show their love and support for Jonathan and the PDP.

“The ACN came into governance of the South-West through dubious means and they think they can sustain their reign with vicious propaganda. No, it won’t work here. Yoruba are far too enlightened, too sophisticated to submit with docility to a reign of predators and destroyers. The PDP will use every legal and constitutional means to rescue Western Nigeria.”

Oni advised the ACN to tell its governors to stop seeing wolves where there were none and concentrate on governance.

SOURCE: The Punch, 12 April 2012. http://www.punchng.com/