Fani-Kayode: Hate Campaign Excuse is Untenable
The Director of Media, Presidential Campaign Organisation for the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Chief Femi Fani-Kayode, has dismissed allusions to hate campaigns as the reason President Goodluck Jonathan lost the presidential election. He also spoke on
The Peoples Democratic Party National Working Committee recently blamed the loss of the party at the March 28, presidential election on hate campaign, an allegation that does not exonerate you. Do you agree any less? I am sorry that you asked me this question because this is an assertion that I have refused to comment on since the allegation was made. Ever since the conclusion of the presidential election, I have been asked the question you have just asked me more than any other and I believe that, for posterity sake, it is time to set the record straight.
Everywhere I go, this question of hate campaign is raised and frankly, I am tired of it. Worse still, some people are beginning to believe the rubbish because we have refused to clear the air. We cannot be expected to remain silent forever when faced with such a grave allegation. This is all the more so because it is my directorate and team that they sought to target, malign and discredit more than anyone else even though they did not mention my name or my directorate. The truth is that I have no hate in me and neither did anyone in the PCO or in my directorate.
We are serious-minded, patriotic, loyal, faithful, responsible and hard-working party leaders, many of whom have either been ministers, senators or governors in the past, who chose to answer a call to duty by our president and who made massive sacrifices in terms of time, energy, commitment and risk and stood up for our president when asked them to do so.
They stood up for the President and fought for him when he was faced with the most vicious, malicious and hateful gunfire that this country has ever known. They fought for him gallantly when he was faced with the most effective and ruthless campaign of calumny that this country has ever known from an opposition that was ruthlessly efficient in all its ways and that was not prepared to spare him or take any prisoners.
The truth is that the APC media machine was awesome yet we engaged them fire for fire and bullet for bullet and I do not regret that. If we had not done so, we would have lost the election by at least 10 million more votes than we did. We spoke the truth, we engaged the enemy on all fronts and we not only fought them to a standstill but for the first time since the establishment of the APC, they were put on the defensive.
This was a great achievement for which we ought to be thanked and not one for which we should be maligned, misrepresented and insulted. If one or two members of the NWC are so ignorant that they cannot make a distinction between virile political banter and a hate campaign that is their problem. Going somewhat personal by the Ekiti State Governor, Ayodele Fayose with the presidentelect was noted as one of the things that worked against the PDP. Can you relate with that better? That is arrant nonsense and those in the NWC that have said so are liars, cowards and turncoats. They are traitors and they are working for the enemy. Did these so-called party leaders complain when Jonathan was attacked by the APC and Lai Mohammed every day? I find it strange that they are prepared to accept the personal attacks on their own candidate as being acceptable yet they complain when we attack the candidate of the other side.
Whose side are these people really on? Fayose was not the only one that focused his attention on Buhari. Many of us did because Buhari was the issue for us and everything about him became relevant. In the same vein, for the APC, Jonathan was the issue and they focused their guns on him. We did not complain and cry about it like little children but instead we returned fire and responded forcefully. We have no apology for that and we believe that we spoke nothing but the truth and we backed up our assertions with facts and figures. We didn’t just talk but we did our research. We were effective and devastating and that is all that matters to me. We have nothing against Buhari but we had a job to do and we did it as best as we could. There is also the allegation that the First Lady, in the course of her campaign across the country, did more harm than good to the party. That was obvious, isn’t it? Again, this is arrant nonsense. It is nothing but rubbish. It is the same identifiable individuals in the NWC that are spreading that repulsive falsehood and we all know who they are. Those that say so are nothing but ingrates, traitors and malcontents who are not worthy of holding their positions in the NWC. The truth is that the First Lady was one of the most forceful, credible and powerful voices during the course of the campaign and she did an excellent job for her husband and our candidate. She did not hide in the kitchen but instead, like the true and loyal wife that she is, jumped into the fray and fought for her husband. Why should anyone complain about that?
This was especially important because the president was under serious hostile fire from the enemy. She did very well indeed and I take this opportunity to commend her courage. That woman is a lioness and I honestly believe that she enhanced the fortunes of the president during the course of what was the most bitter and keenly contested election in the history of Nigeria. Without her strong contributions and without her lending her strong voice to our cause, things would have been far worse.
Those that say otherwise do not know what they are talking about. I know because I was one of those that were deep in the trenches and in the fray. When things looked bad it was the First Lady that encouraged us and inspired us more than anyone else. Governor Ayo Fayose of Ekiti was another person that worked so hard for the party and the President. The same can be said about Governor Olusegun Mimiko of Ondo State, Governor Theodore Orji of Abia State, Governor Godswill Akpabio of Akwa Ibom, the late Oronto Douglas, Dr. Doyin Okupe and a number of others. I commend them all and I wish them well.
Chief Tony Anenih, Senator Ahmadu Ali, Nenadi Usman, Prof. Tunde Adeniran, Governor Peter Obi, Hon. Minister Turaki, Aliyu Modibbo, Senator Amanga, the Director of Women Affairs of the PCO, the Director of Youth of the PCO and so many other key members of the Presidential Campaign Organisation were other powerful and credible voices that worked so hard for the President during the campaign.
What is important to us now is to try to rebuild our party and to ensure that we have credible, legitimate, genuine and strong leadership that is prepared to take the in-coming APC government head on and keep them on their toes. We need a new and fresh leadership that is made up of bright, young, strong and intellectually-inclined minds and that is tolerant of dissenting views and differing opinions.
We need a new leadership that is open, kind, fair-minded and accommodating and in order to achieve, that I must add my voice to that of a number of governors and other key stakeholders and leaders in our party who have said that the party’s National Working Committee must go. Sadly the NWC has become a clog in the wheel of progress. They have much to learn from what the leadership of the Labour Party and the Liberal Democratic Party did in the UK just a couple of weeks ago when they resigned a few hours after losing the election to the conservatives. They resigned with honor and no-one had to ask them to go or call for their resignation.
They did the right and proper thing because they are well educated people who have honour. Sadly, the NWC members lack both education and honour otherwise they would have resigned by now. They are ignorant of the fact that when people lead a party into defeat they must resign to make way for others. And when people tell them to resign, they threaten them with suspension or expulsion from the party forgetting that there is life outside politics.
Not only have they refused to take the path of honor by resigning but they are also throwing bricks at those of us who raised the PDP flag and fought a good fight. Honestly, it is sad and unbelievable. In any other country these people would have been lambasted morning, day and night for their sheer effrontery and ingratitude and for their inability to provide strong and decisive leadership.
Yet, here we just pamper and manage them and shy away from telling them the bitter truth. The truth is that the NWC has to go and I add my voice to that of Governors Aliyu Babaginda, Sule Lamido, Ayodele Fayose and that of so many other people including the overwhelming majority of governors, party leaders and elders and I am saying that there needs to be a change at the top if the PDP is serious about forging party unity, restoring its fortunes, redeeming itself and winning any election in 2019. Are you saying because the attacks have been directed at your directorate? The time to talk is not now though that time will come. You will be shocked by what we know about these people and their sordid efforts to stop Jonathan and betray their own party. We do not have to say too much publicly at this point but at the appropriate time we shall do so. I have every right to defend myself, my Directorate and members of the Presidential Campaign Organisation when the illiterate, the malevolent, the misinformed, the mischievous, the treacherous, the cowardly, the disloyal and the misguided cast aspersions on our character and seek to rubbish our efforts.
Let me also say this. When they accuse us of a campaign of hate was it the Presidential Campaign Organisation of President Goodluck Jonathan that went all over the North just before the elections and told all those worshiping in the mosques that to vote for President Jonathan will be a vote for an infidel? That is what you call a hate campaign and we did not indulge in that. It was the APC that indulged in that the Friday before the presidential election. Was it the Presidential Campaign Organisation that kept on speaking about President Jonathan and his family in derogative terms and insulting him morning, day and night? The answer is no.
We did not do that. It was the APC that did that. Their hatred for President Jonathan and all our candidates and our party was unmitigated and unrestrained. The APC were the ones that started and indulged in the personal attacks and the hate and those that will now say, from within the ranks of the PDP’s NWC that we started it, have clearly lost touch with reality. Again looking inwards, was it the Presidential Campaign Organisation that first coined the phrase Janjaweed and Taliban party and labelled the APC as the Janjaweed and Taliban party? No it was not. It was nobody in our campaign organisation but rather it was somebody in the National Working Committee of the PDP. Is that not what you call a campaign of hatred?