Some prominent members of the ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), yesterday took their turns to describe their parties as a jungle where different kinds of animals manifest strange behaviours even as a crucial National Executive Committee (NEC) meeting of the party got underway in Abuja.
Former senate president, Ken Nnamani, former secretary to the government of the federation (SGF), Babagana Kingibe, Adamawa State governor, Murtala Nyako, and former aviation minister, Femi Fani Kayode, unanimously agreed that there was a semblance of a jungle life in the party, even though they could not agree on issues that had made the party a jungle.
The occasion was the public presentation in Abuja of two books - My Story, My Vision, written by former chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) and a presidential aspirant of the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN), Mallam Nuhu Ribadu, and A Paradise of Maggots:The Story of a Nigerian Anti-Graft Czar, written by Dr. Wale Adebamwi.
It was Nyako who started the jungle parable when he said he was on his way to the jungle in a direct reference to the PDP, NEC of which he is a member.
Nnamani picked the cue, and said the real jungle was the PDP NEC of which he also is a member, saying there was quite a lot going on in the party which were very wrong and which he did not subscribe to.
The former Senate President said they were “going to that jungle to set things right,” referring to the NEC meeting that was holding at the national secretariat of the party at the Wadata Plaza.
Former SGF, Babagana Kingibe, also agreed that PDP was a jungle where there were different kinds of animals; “except that at this time, there are humans in the jungle who do not belong there and are desiring to leave.”
But Fani-Kayode faulted the reference to the Obasanjo years as the days of the jungle, saying, the State House became a bigger jungle after Obasanjo left.
He said it was then that people like Ribadu was persecuted and hounded. “That was a very, very bad jungle. It was not a jungle of Obasanjo; not the jungle of Goodluck Jonathan; it was a jungle of somebody else,” he said, faulting the former SGF for describing the Obasanjo PDP as a jungle.
However, all the politicians were unanimous that Ribadu was courageous and patriotic in the discharge of his duties as the pioneer chairman of the EFCC. Fani-Kayode said he stood firm and refused to be teleguided.
Nyako said despite that Ribadu’s “determination to rid the nation of corruption was quite misunderstood and taken in a bad faith,” he “was undeterred like a nomad in the tick jungle faced with the harsh attacks of the weather and wild animals.
“We celebrate him today because of this great feat and resolve, which have made Nigeria and indeed Nigerians popular in other parts of the world. We celebrate an anti-corruption fighter and a man of integrity,” he said.
Ribadu described the book as a compelling account of some of the challenges and successes he encountered in the process of fighting corruption, saying it would provide “a valuable analysis of how our country can battle this scourge that keeps Nigeria poor.”
He said: “The policies I’m proposing are policies that will enable the country manage the difficulties that our citizens are presently grappling with. Being mindful of the fact that problems which took several decades to seed, take root and consolidate will not be amenable to quick fixes, these are not quick fixes.
“They are structured to tackle immediate problems in the short term even as medium and long-term challenges are kept in focus and solutions to them carefully worked out.”
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