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A chieftain of the ruling All Progressive Congress, APC, Mr. Gbenga Olawepo-Hashim, has cautioned that the party’s presidential primary should not become “another dollar rain and a trading platform for the highest bidder.”
In a statement from his media office in Abuja, on Tuesday, Olawepo-Hashim explained “that our country is neither a commodity to be traded, nor a property to be auctioned and sold to the highest bidder,” and added that the “Presidency has never been for sale and should not be for sale now.”
According to him, “the Peoples Democratic Party has demonstrated that it has learnt nothing, but, as a party, the APC cannot follow that inglorious example. The next president of Nigeria must not be a Mafioso leader. Our president must not be a gangster!
“As a party in government, the APC has a sacred and patriotic duty to guide a disciplined transfer of power not one left in the hands of the god of mammon.”
While noting that the APC, being the party of the sitting president, Olawepo-Hashim said a lot is expected from it in terms of direction and leadership, adding that the government still has a lot of leverage and political enforcement mechanisms beyond money.
The former presidential candidate noted that “national interest is what should guide the choice of the APC and some of the urgent national imperative should include shortlisting a candidate that will heal the wounds of division in the country and finding also a Vice that will compliment him/her in this national objective.
“In 1979, President Shehu Shagari was initially a senatorial aspirant who was drafted into the presidential race and went ahead to win. On the political turf then there were many money bags who were nicely told to back off because Nigeria’s presidency is not for sale.”
He equally noted that Peter Obi did quit the People’s Democratic Party, PDP, under the excuse that the build up to the convention has been seriously monetized and that “Anyim Pius Anyim, former Senate President, could not hide his frustration that the voting did not reflect the current issues germane to the nation.”
Olawepo-Hashim therefore enjoined the Party’s Screening Committee to “ be serious about the exercise of screening. The EFCC must be ready to follow large movement of illicit cash for politics and seize where necessary, laundered funds in circulation and prosecute offenders.”
