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•David-West
Former Petroleum Resources Minister Prof. Tam David-West yesterday decried the controversy over former Head of State Gen. Mohammadu Buhari’s warning against rigging the 2015 elections.
The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and the Presidency have condemned Gen. Buhari for making the statement.
But David-West yesterday pitched his tent with the presidential candidate of the Congress for Progressive Change (CPC).
According to him, those calling for Buhari to be crucified are diverting the attention of Nigerians from the failure of the PDP to offer good governance.
In an exclusive interview with The Nation in Ibadan, the Oyo State capital, the former minister noted that neither Jonathan nor the PDP has the right to arrest Buhari for saying an attempt to rig the 2015 elections would lead to violence.
He said: “I consider the controversy sparked off by the PDP over Gen. Buhari’s statement on election rigging as not only unnecessary but also diversionary of the PDP’s failed governance. The PDP should give us good governance and stop reacting stupidly to statements it has not put under intellectual scrutiny.
“I know there are good intellectuals in the PDP, who I respect; some of them are my friends. But a number of things have come out of the PDP that are intellectually fraudulent and stupid.
“The first example was when Gen. Buhari wept openly on the last day of his election campaign last year. The PDP and advisers to President Jonathan said ‘Gen. Buhari was shedding crocodile tears’. Yet, they said he was a serial loser of elections. Crocodile tears are only shed by victors, not vanquished. So, the statement was just intellectually flawed and stupid. The allusion to crocodile tears is that when crocodiles catch their preys, they shed tears. So, such tears are shed by victors.
“The second stupidity from the PDP and Jonathan’s advisers was when Alhaji Abubakar Atiku, during the campaign, said those who make peaceful transition impossible will make violence inevitable. Jonathan himself said he was going to arrest Atiku for the statement, calling it treason. Now, the stupidity of such a reaction is that the statement is 500 years old by Machiavelli and, of recent times, by former President John F. Kennedy of the United States (USA). It shows the reaction was flawed. Atiku only repeated what had been said several years earlier.”
The academic punctured the threat by the Federal Government to arrest Buhari, saying it confirmed that the PDP is a rigging party.
“The caveat in Buhari’s statement was that ‘if’ the 2015 election is rigged, there will be bloodshed. The reaction of the PDP is stupid because of the following reasons.
“Like the caveat, ‘if’ means do not rig the elections to avoid violence. I completely support him. Any right-thinking person will. In other words, by PDP’s reaction, it is indicting itself that it will rig the elections in 2015.
“PDP cannot arrest Buhari for the statement. It has no intellectual or moral basis to arrest him because he said ‘if’. PDP should use that statement to purge itself of election impunity.”
Also, for branding Buhari a serial loser of elections,
David-West said the PDP should burry its head in shame for calling Buhari a serial loser of elections.
According to him, historical facts show that the party has been a serial rigger of elections.
“They are used to calling Buhari a serial loser of elections. If Buhari is a serial loser of elections, it is because PDP is a serial rigger of elections. The PDP itself admitted that when former Vice President Atiku was fighting former President Olusegun Obasanjo. He said in a national daily: ‘We rigged the elections’. The late President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua accepted that his election was flawed. President Jonathan also accepted that his election was not perfect.
“Another evidence to show PDP’s rigging of elections was the Supreme Court judgment that affirmed Yar’Adua’s election in 2007. The six justices were split into two equal number in support and against the election. The Chief Justice of the Federation (CJN) had to vote in favour of Yar’Adua to resolve the 3/3 tie. If a sitting President can have his election nullified by three Supreme Court justices, it means the election was really flawed.
“Now, the latest was the 2011 election. All ballot papers must be serialised according to the INEC law. In 2011 it was established that a lot of the ballot papers were not serialised. Justice Isa Salami has already ruled that INEC should allow CPC to subject ballot papers to forensic test. That ruling was subsisting when the removed Justice Salami. And it was the beginning of Salami’s problems because they knew he would uphold forensic results. They removed him and his successor said that INEC does not have to do that.
“Nigeria is bigger than anyone or any party. PDP cannot be toying with Nigeria. They can’t subject Nigeria to the folly of party nonsense because Nigeria is bigger than all the parties.
“They have been hunting Buhari because they are afraid of him just because he is the only Nigerian leader to whom no stain of corruption has been established. Even when Ibrahim Babangida detained him for 40 months, and in the process his mother dies and he was disallowed to go and bury his mother. When he was released, he challenged IBB to tell the world about his corruption.
“Again, Obasanjo set up a probe of the Petroleum Trust Fund (PTF) but he suppressed the conclusion of the probe. Buhari challenged Obasanjo to publish the report. I am saying all these because I have all the facts. They are afraid of him because they are a bunch of corrupt people.
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