The much talked about National Convention of the opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has come and gone, producing a presidential candidate of the party before the expiration of the deadline given by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) for parties to submit names of their standard bearers ahead of the 2019 presidential election.
About 4,000 delegates participated at the PDP’s presidential primary election held in Port Harcourt, the River State capital between the 6th and 7th October.
2019.
The Senate President, Dr. Bukola Saraki allegedly payed each delegate $1,000 (N350,000), that is potentially $4Million (N1.4 Billion) for delegates alone, his opening bid as at Saturday.
Former Vice President, Atiku Abubakar allegedly opened his own bid at $5,000 (N1,750,000) per delegate, or $20,000,000 (N7 Billion) went to all the delegates while the River State governor, and hosting governor of the convention, Nyesom Wike was allegedly said to be paying $10,000 per delegate, or $40,000,000 (N14,000,000,000) for delegates alone.
These figures were part of the early bids as at Saturday. Nobody knows how much they finally paid, but some inside sources said it may be up to $15,000 (N5,250,000) per delegate.
There were 12 aspirants who contested in this election, and by the time the process was done, billions of Naira must have changed hands.
Another twist in the episode was that they did not spend in Naira but in US dollars.
When it was said that the past economic recession happened due to hoarding of dollars and depletion of Nigeria’s foreign reserves and excess crude account was caused by the PDP, many from the PDP denied the allegation.
Nigerians may need to ask where these spenders got the dollars spent at the convention.
Other questions waiting for answer would be: How many of them have any private business that generates so much wealth? Or are they simply spending money belonging to the poor people? What exactly are they buying that they have to spend so much? Is it only vote they’re buying or our future with it? Are these the same bunch of hypocrites who like to release press statements condemning vote buying when election does not go their way but who are shamelessly buying votes right under our noses?
Can we honestly expect anything good from this same characters who said they have repented and that we should forgive them their sins but who have not shown any sign of repentance at all?
How exactly will they “change the change” if they have not even changed their own corrupt ways?
The signs are always there, right before our very own eyes. Everything to show that the one who promises El Dorado is nothing but a fraud, but we almost always chose to ignore them because of our own prejudice and personal interests.
How exactly is a Saraki, a Tambuwal, a Kwankwoso, an Atiku who is being sponsored by money stolen from poor people better than a Buhari who was voted in by the ordinary masses of Nigeria without a single dime changing hands?
I trust some of you would like to remind me that when Buhari first came into power that he was sponsored by stolen money too, but you’re saying that that Buhari should give way for someone better… So how exactly is the one you’re supporting today better?
Would you not rather stick with the “devil” you know than the wolves in sheep clothing that we all know are even far worse?
If you think Buhari is bad then wait for Kwankwoso, wait for Atiku, wait for Saraki and wait for Tambuwal. These are people who have no pity for the poor.
At least Buhari pities the poor, which is why he pays them NPOWER, gives their children free feeding in school, gives them conditional cash transfers, invests heavily in food production through his agric revolution, gives bailouts to state governments to pay salaries, and refused to devalue the naira.
So, if you see all that and say Buhari is bad then wait for a people who have no respect for poor people. Saraki is today the Senate President, what has he done to restructure the country which is a constitutional matter? What has he done to improve the welfare of poor people?
Tambuwal is today the governor of Sokoto State, should he not first transform Sokoto State before coming to ask for a bigger responsibility? When he was speaker of the House of Representatives, what did he do about the restructuring he’s deceiving us with today?
The former Vice President Atiku was the most powerful Vice President in Nigerian history, yet only used his powers to enrich himself and his cronies at the expense of the poor masses.
Listen to them talk today, none of them says anything about corruption. Is that because corruption is dead in Nigeria or because they simply do not have the moral ground to speak against it?
None of them told us what they are going to do to strengthen institutions like the police, judiciary, INEC etc… None of them has got any clearcut plan on the economy, security, restructuring, power supply, job creation, education, healthcare, restructuring. The only thing they say is “Buhari has failed, we’re going to do better because he who failed woefully before have repented”, even though there is no evidence to that.
I just pity the gullible Nigerians who don’t know their left from their right, this is why these people are playing them like football.
Sirajo writes from Federal University Wukari,Taraba state.
