THE LABOUR Party Presidential candidate in the 2023 general elections, Peter Obi, has tasked Nigerians to be committed to building political parties that are bigger than government and law-abiding.
Obi stated this in his remarks at the public presentation of two books entitled, The Bubbles of Nigeria’s Democracy: The Musings of a Nigerian Journalist and Wadata Wonders: Memoirs of a Partisan Journalist; authored by veteran journalist, Ike Abonyi.
Obi, while urging Nigerians to remain committed to building that new Nigeria, advised citizens, especially journalists with deep knowledge of Nigeria politics, to write more for people to read and understand the nature of Nigeria political space.
“We are working hard to build that new Nigeria where we are going to have political parties that will outlive us, that is organised, that will be bigger than the government.
“Because, as it is narrated here, we now have a situation where those of us who are opportuned [sic] to be in government, have helped to ruin the parties.
“Let’s hope that one day, we will have parties that are bigger than government, that will run the way parties are run in other nations of the world and will be law-abiding. I thank those who are writing and let us remain committed to building that new Nigeria,” he said.
On his part, the former, National Chairman of Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Prince Uche Secondus, also emphasized the need for Nigeria to have a proper democratic political system, where people stayed to build their parties.
Secondus decried a situation where a Nigerian could be in several political parties and at the same time, behaving as if that was the norm, saying: “it is not. Decide if you are in one party or the other. But today, this is what we have in our country, because it is broken; That democracy is broken.
“I believe that until we establish a proper democratic political party system where people will stay 30 years, 40 years, 50 years as the case may be, build, reconstruct, then the country will be in for it.
“And of course, we will leave something for the generation to live. But as of today, we have nothing. We are just a country trying, in the wilderness, to look for where we can settle,” he said.
Secondus noted that the challenges in Nigeria was so enormous that no one single person, unless the citizens collectively come together to resolve them.
Commending Abonyi for the two books, Secondus said he believed the author had done his best for posterity.
“It’s clearly a testament of experience that he has garnered all throughout his career as former journalist. When I was national chairman in 2017, the first appointment I made was to IK Abonyi, as the media advisor to the chairman. We also know that he’s been at the Wadata House for a very long time,” Secondus said.
He, however, said that he differed with some of the thoughts of the author in the book. “When you go through the Wadata wonders, several chapters, as I went through, some of them, I don’t agree with him. But he has his own opinion. He’s a man that must tell the world what he has seen and also reflect on his experience while he’s out there. So we can always agree, but we can agree to disagree and agree or disagree to agree,” he said.
The immediate past Managing Director of the Guardian Newspaper, Mr Martins Oloja, who was the book reviewer, tasked journalists to emulate Abonyi in promoting alternative views.
Oloja said that the challenge of promoting alternative views in a democracy could be challenging. According to him, it is essential for journalists to overcome those challenges and ensure that alternative views are given a platform.
“Alternative views provide a necessary check on power, promote critical thinking and ensure that citizens have access to a wide range of perspectives and ideas.
“The media plays a critical role in promoting alternative views, as a vital component of healthy democracy. By promoting alternative visioning and embracing descent, we can create a more inclusive, equitable and just society. That is what Abonyi has shown,” he said.
In his appreciation remarks, Abonyi described his journey from the newsroom to the PDP as “accidental”.
“I was enjoying my journalism in the newsroom and when my brother, Nwodo, was made the national chairman of PDP and he insisted I must go with him.
“When I told him I don’t like PDP; I’ve never written anything positive about PDP, he said you are the type of people we want because we are going to redeem PDP and that’s how we entered the PDP,” he said.
Abonyi said that Nwodo came to PDP with the intention of redeeming the party through digital registration of members but he was sabotaged.
“His first major policy was to introduce a means of digital registration that could have given the party enough money to run without looking at the governance and elected people.
“He started it. There was a pilot registration done by the president but the governors noticed that if by any means Nwodo succeeds in what he was doing, there will be no power for the governors and that was how it was sabotaged,” he said.
He said that the process led to Nwodo leaving the office within six months, adding that that was the beginning of the loss of power by PDP and until now PDP has not recovered.
On the book, Wadata Wonders…, Abonyi said that real wonders were not in the book because they could not be published. (NAN)
