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Chief Tony Akhakon Anenih, Peoples Democratic Party,
PDP, Board of Trustees, BoT, Chairman, has launched an
offensive into the stronghold of Major General Muhammadu
Buhari, All Progressive Party, APC, presidential aspirant,
reconciling leaders of the PDP there, explaining to them the
dangers of going into next year’s election as a divided
house. He has recorded considerable progress; and he
pushes on.
Anenih and Jonathan
It was very successful, the
meeting in Kaduna, the capital of Kaduna State, last week,
between the team led by Chief Tony Anenih, PDP BoT
Chairman, and some leaders of the party in the state.
Seated in the hall filled to capacity with chieftains of the
party were, among others, Ramalan Yero, Governor of
Kaduna State, and Senator Ahmed Makarfi, who had held
that post before.
They had come to listen to their BoT Chairman speak truth
to leadership in the state. Why this meeting was very
critical cannot be overstated because of the strategic
importance of Kaduna in the affairs of northern Nigeria. That
is the state of Vice President Namadi Sambo.
Therefore, when Anenih delivered his sermon of peace and
unity anchored on party discipline, apportioning blames
where they were due and giving commendation where they
were deserving, the meeting had a good end.
Instructive was the commitment extracted from Makarfi, that
he must deliver the state to the party.
For a politician who believes in the sanctity of the state and
its machinery, perhaps many have come to confuse the role
and personality of Anenih. But to those in the leadership of
the party, he epitomises experience and loyalty. Since 1998
when the party was formed, Anenih remains, perhaps, one
of the very few – very, very few –leaders who have never
contemplated decampment as a directive policy of
politicking.
Anenih, who has the traditional title of Iyasele (Prime
Minister) of Esanland, had set himself some targets when
he took over as BoT Chairman.
Concerned about the widening chasm in the party,
especially between members and leaders on the one hand,
and the damaging consequences of the ceaseless bickering
among members of the National Working Committee, NWC,
of the party, on the other, Anenih had set for himself targets.
In private meetings at the very highest levels, Anenih,
information available to Sunday Vanguard suggests, made
it clear that he would be focusing on the following:
Unity & fairness
Oneness
Progress
Rancour-free party
Assisting the NEC in bringing everybody together
Assisting the NEC in resolving the challenges and crises
confronting the party in the state chapters
Working with members of the BoT to live and act the spirit of
the conscience of the party
Re-positioning the party for the challenges of 2015
Ensuring adherence to strict party discipline
Keeping faith with the legacies of the founding fathers of the
party
Sunday Vanguard gathered that at the time of his
emergence, the agenda was not codified; but it has since
become Anenih’s agenda for development and repositioning
of the party.
“The reason is simply because when you look at the
happenings within the party, a wise leader like chief would
be interested in and committed to what you have in the 10-
point agenda’’, a top party chieftain anonymously told
Sunday Vanguard.
“In fact, it even becomes more pressing now with the
rampaging opposition threatening to dislodge the PDP from
power.
“The BoT Chairman believes that if every member and
leader of the party at the different levels key into these
points and make them cardinal objectives to be achieved,
the party would be better positioned to silence critics”.
All attempts by Sunday Vanguard last week in Abuja to get
Anenih to talk ran into a stone wall.
But feelers from the camp loyal to the BoT Chairman
indicated that the old and tested political warhorse is
determined, in the face of burgeoning opposition against
Jonathan by the APC, to give the president’s 2015 re-
election bid his all.
The strategic importance of making peace moves in Kaduna,
Katsina, Kebbi, Jigawa and Sokoto States flows from the
fact that these are states of the North West where the APC
hopes to capture considerable votes.
The merger between the Action Congress of Nigeria, ACN,
and the Congress for Progressive Change, CPC, was built on
a possible coalition of votes between the former’s South
West geo-political zone, and the latter’s North West area.
Therefore, sensing the danger in allowing relations among
PDP stalwarts to go to the dogs North West is no more than
sleeping while the roof is on fire.
To a large extent, the peace moves were considered
successful
Politics, thy name is Anenih
From his days in the National Party of Nigeria, NPN, in the
defunct Bendel State, Anenih’s politics has been variously
described as one of pacification. However, beneath that
pacifist paradigm of his resides a very strong vice-grip
mentality of loyalty to the general cause of party position.
An example can be drawn from the very turbulent days of
the Social Democratic Party, SDP, when the party was
forced to agree to go for another presidential election. The
pillar of the then SDP, the late General Shehu Musa
Yar’Adua, had agreed to another election as a way out of
the emerging crisis of the June 12, 1993 presidential
election. Indeed, the leadership of the party at that time had
seen the hands of General Sani Abacha, eager to wrest
power and, therefore, had hoped that an early resolution
would checkmate Abacha’s adventure.
But the gale of antagonism to that decision, coupled with
the short-sightedness of a section of the political class, first
gave way to an Interim National Government, ING, which
was made to look all the more interim by Abacha’s
dismissal of Ernest Shonekan, the then head of ING. But
Yar’Adua and Anenih’s position for another early election,
which was pooh-poohed, led to Abacha’s five-year disaster
as Head of State. True an annulment was anathema to
Nigeria’s growing democracy. But another election would
have seen MKO Abiola win by an even bigger margin had it
held.
During the February 1999 National Convention of the PDP in
Jos, from where former President Olusegun Obasanjo
emerged, the victory recorded by Obasanjo over Alex
Ekwueme, his closest rival, was made possible by a
combination of factors from which you cannot divorce
Anenih.
In fact, as early as 6:45am on voting day, apart from this
writer, the only person who sat in the VIP section of the Jos
Township Stadium that Sunday morning was Anenih. Clad
in his now familiar blue jeans jacket and trousers, he kept
making sorties between the VIP section of the stadium and
the delegates’ stands, each time to nip suspected emerging
crisis in the bud when voting was about to commence.
In 2002, at the height of the burst-up between the National
Assembly and the rambunctious Obasanjo, it was to Anenih
the latter turned.
Working tirelessly with a handful of other committed leaders
of the PDP, Anenih became the arrow-head of that rescue
mission, negotiating, conciliating and making compromises
with a view to saving a situation which had pitched the
North against the South. That Obasanjo could survive the
onslaught, and later serve out his first term and even secure
a second term, was due, in part, to Anenih’s role. Worse for
Obasanjo, on the eve of the PDP National Convention in
January 2003, when a majority of the state governors in the
party almost threw him to the dogs, preferring, instead, the
then Vice President Atiku Abubakar, it was the same Anenih
who again threw himself into the battle to save Obasanjo.
However, between the selfsame Obasanjo and Anenih, the
centre could not hold when the issue of Third Term began to
gain fervency. The latter objected to the move and this
angered Obasanjo. And whereas the former president
recruited some political upstarts to drive his Third Term
project, the effort ended as a fool’s errand. Had Obasanjo
adhered to good sense and wisdom, he might have spared
himself and his presidency the odium of the embarrassment
that trailed his failure to secure the Third Term, which still
haunts him till today.
Presidential watchers insist that when the issue of zoning
became very contentious in the run up to the 2011
presidential contest, it was Anenih who brought out data,
showing how zoning had almost always been breached
since 1999 whenever the party wanted a presidential
convention, citing the instances of the late Abubakar Rimi in
1999 and 2003 (when the slot was supposedly reserved for
the South); and 2007 (when some southerners contested
against Umaru Musa Yar’Adua, a time when the slot was
supposedly reserved for the North).
For the BoT Chairman, he accepts the praises where due
and takes the bashings which are sometimes caustic with
quintessential equanimity when they come – as they often
do, especially in his home state of Edo, where a political
party other than his own is in control. Some may never
agree with his politics, but for a man steeped in his ways,
some phrases commonly used by Anenih in the face of party
indiscipline are, ‘Things are not supposed to be done this
way’, ‘You cannot behave like this’. Anenih has his
multitude; and he still leads. It was in 1992 that the late
Shehu Yar’Adua christened Anenih, “The Leader”. The title
has since stuck.
That he is moving round to cool otherwise heated climes in
the North West is not by accident, especially at a time when
the PDP needs leadership with character to confront the
challenges of 2015. Anenih was 81 in August.
PDP, Board of Trustees, BoT, Chairman, has launched an
offensive into the stronghold of Major General Muhammadu
Buhari, All Progressive Party, APC, presidential aspirant,
reconciling leaders of the PDP there, explaining to them the
dangers of going into next year’s election as a divided
house. He has recorded considerable progress; and he
pushes on.
Anenih and Jonathan
It was very successful, the
meeting in Kaduna, the capital of Kaduna State, last week,
between the team led by Chief Tony Anenih, PDP BoT
Chairman, and some leaders of the party in the state.
Seated in the hall filled to capacity with chieftains of the
party were, among others, Ramalan Yero, Governor of
Kaduna State, and Senator Ahmed Makarfi, who had held
that post before.
They had come to listen to their BoT Chairman speak truth
to leadership in the state. Why this meeting was very
critical cannot be overstated because of the strategic
importance of Kaduna in the affairs of northern Nigeria. That
is the state of Vice President Namadi Sambo.
Therefore, when Anenih delivered his sermon of peace and
unity anchored on party discipline, apportioning blames
where they were due and giving commendation where they
were deserving, the meeting had a good end.
Instructive was the commitment extracted from Makarfi, that
he must deliver the state to the party.
For a politician who believes in the sanctity of the state and
its machinery, perhaps many have come to confuse the role
and personality of Anenih. But to those in the leadership of
the party, he epitomises experience and loyalty. Since 1998
when the party was formed, Anenih remains, perhaps, one
of the very few – very, very few –leaders who have never
contemplated decampment as a directive policy of
politicking.
Anenih, who has the traditional title of Iyasele (Prime
Minister) of Esanland, had set himself some targets when
he took over as BoT Chairman.
Concerned about the widening chasm in the party,
especially between members and leaders on the one hand,
and the damaging consequences of the ceaseless bickering
among members of the National Working Committee, NWC,
of the party, on the other, Anenih had set for himself targets.
In private meetings at the very highest levels, Anenih,
information available to Sunday Vanguard suggests, made
it clear that he would be focusing on the following:
Unity & fairness
Oneness
Progress
Rancour-free party
Assisting the NEC in bringing everybody together
Assisting the NEC in resolving the challenges and crises
confronting the party in the state chapters
Working with members of the BoT to live and act the spirit of
the conscience of the party
Re-positioning the party for the challenges of 2015
Ensuring adherence to strict party discipline
Keeping faith with the legacies of the founding fathers of the
party
Sunday Vanguard gathered that at the time of his
emergence, the agenda was not codified; but it has since
become Anenih’s agenda for development and repositioning
of the party.
“The reason is simply because when you look at the
happenings within the party, a wise leader like chief would
be interested in and committed to what you have in the 10-
point agenda’’, a top party chieftain anonymously told
Sunday Vanguard.
“In fact, it even becomes more pressing now with the
rampaging opposition threatening to dislodge the PDP from
power.
“The BoT Chairman believes that if every member and
leader of the party at the different levels key into these
points and make them cardinal objectives to be achieved,
the party would be better positioned to silence critics”.
All attempts by Sunday Vanguard last week in Abuja to get
Anenih to talk ran into a stone wall.
But feelers from the camp loyal to the BoT Chairman
indicated that the old and tested political warhorse is
determined, in the face of burgeoning opposition against
Jonathan by the APC, to give the president’s 2015 re-
election bid his all.
The strategic importance of making peace moves in Kaduna,
Katsina, Kebbi, Jigawa and Sokoto States flows from the
fact that these are states of the North West where the APC
hopes to capture considerable votes.
The merger between the Action Congress of Nigeria, ACN,
and the Congress for Progressive Change, CPC, was built on
a possible coalition of votes between the former’s South
West geo-political zone, and the latter’s North West area.
Therefore, sensing the danger in allowing relations among
PDP stalwarts to go to the dogs North West is no more than
sleeping while the roof is on fire.
To a large extent, the peace moves were considered
successful
Politics, thy name is Anenih
From his days in the National Party of Nigeria, NPN, in the
defunct Bendel State, Anenih’s politics has been variously
described as one of pacification. However, beneath that
pacifist paradigm of his resides a very strong vice-grip
mentality of loyalty to the general cause of party position.
An example can be drawn from the very turbulent days of
the Social Democratic Party, SDP, when the party was
forced to agree to go for another presidential election. The
pillar of the then SDP, the late General Shehu Musa
Yar’Adua, had agreed to another election as a way out of
the emerging crisis of the June 12, 1993 presidential
election. Indeed, the leadership of the party at that time had
seen the hands of General Sani Abacha, eager to wrest
power and, therefore, had hoped that an early resolution
would checkmate Abacha’s adventure.
But the gale of antagonism to that decision, coupled with
the short-sightedness of a section of the political class, first
gave way to an Interim National Government, ING, which
was made to look all the more interim by Abacha’s
dismissal of Ernest Shonekan, the then head of ING. But
Yar’Adua and Anenih’s position for another early election,
which was pooh-poohed, led to Abacha’s five-year disaster
as Head of State. True an annulment was anathema to
Nigeria’s growing democracy. But another election would
have seen MKO Abiola win by an even bigger margin had it
held.
During the February 1999 National Convention of the PDP in
Jos, from where former President Olusegun Obasanjo
emerged, the victory recorded by Obasanjo over Alex
Ekwueme, his closest rival, was made possible by a
combination of factors from which you cannot divorce
Anenih.
In fact, as early as 6:45am on voting day, apart from this
writer, the only person who sat in the VIP section of the Jos
Township Stadium that Sunday morning was Anenih. Clad
in his now familiar blue jeans jacket and trousers, he kept
making sorties between the VIP section of the stadium and
the delegates’ stands, each time to nip suspected emerging
crisis in the bud when voting was about to commence.
In 2002, at the height of the burst-up between the National
Assembly and the rambunctious Obasanjo, it was to Anenih
the latter turned.
Working tirelessly with a handful of other committed leaders
of the PDP, Anenih became the arrow-head of that rescue
mission, negotiating, conciliating and making compromises
with a view to saving a situation which had pitched the
North against the South. That Obasanjo could survive the
onslaught, and later serve out his first term and even secure
a second term, was due, in part, to Anenih’s role. Worse for
Obasanjo, on the eve of the PDP National Convention in
January 2003, when a majority of the state governors in the
party almost threw him to the dogs, preferring, instead, the
then Vice President Atiku Abubakar, it was the same Anenih
who again threw himself into the battle to save Obasanjo.
However, between the selfsame Obasanjo and Anenih, the
centre could not hold when the issue of Third Term began to
gain fervency. The latter objected to the move and this
angered Obasanjo. And whereas the former president
recruited some political upstarts to drive his Third Term
project, the effort ended as a fool’s errand. Had Obasanjo
adhered to good sense and wisdom, he might have spared
himself and his presidency the odium of the embarrassment
that trailed his failure to secure the Third Term, which still
haunts him till today.
Presidential watchers insist that when the issue of zoning
became very contentious in the run up to the 2011
presidential contest, it was Anenih who brought out data,
showing how zoning had almost always been breached
since 1999 whenever the party wanted a presidential
convention, citing the instances of the late Abubakar Rimi in
1999 and 2003 (when the slot was supposedly reserved for
the South); and 2007 (when some southerners contested
against Umaru Musa Yar’Adua, a time when the slot was
supposedly reserved for the North).
For the BoT Chairman, he accepts the praises where due
and takes the bashings which are sometimes caustic with
quintessential equanimity when they come – as they often
do, especially in his home state of Edo, where a political
party other than his own is in control. Some may never
agree with his politics, but for a man steeped in his ways,
some phrases commonly used by Anenih in the face of party
indiscipline are, ‘Things are not supposed to be done this
way’, ‘You cannot behave like this’. Anenih has his
multitude; and he still leads. It was in 1992 that the late
Shehu Yar’Adua christened Anenih, “The Leader”. The title
has since stuck.
That he is moving round to cool otherwise heated climes in
the North West is not by accident, especially at a time when
the PDP needs leadership with character to confront the
challenges of 2015. Anenih was 81 in August.
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