A chieftain of the All Progressives Congress, APC, Bisi Akande, has broke silence on the rift over comments of ‘godfatherism’ between the national leader of the APC, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu and Kaduna state Governor Mallam Nasir el-Rufai.
In an interview with The Sun newspaper Akande said Elrufai himself is a product of godfatherism, adding that Godfatherism was essential for Nigerian democracy to thrive.
Akande said he is not about defending either side of the arguments about defeating godfatherism, but common sense.
He said people are free not to join any political party.They are free to contest as an independent candidates. According to him It is fraudulent, however, for people to join and win elections on the platform of a political party and subsequently form another group to override their political parties’ injunctions.
Akande said “Your legacy, by so doing, will belong to those of the selfish leadership. Like most learners serve article-ship before qualifying as Accountants; and like most lawyers serve tutelage before being professionally competent, so must a university lecturer seek mentor-ships before rising to professorship.
“In the same manner, the lower the hierarchy of a political party member, the more mentorships he required to rise from mere canvasser, to ward organizer, to party officer and to election candidature within his chosen political party.
“It is these political mentor-ships that are being presently euphemistically negated as ‘godfatherism’ by the neo-money politicians struggling to use money to hijack influence from political parties whose ideology they do not care to respect.
“And that was why the Sixth National Assembly ignorantly promulgated the nonsensical theories of ‘internal democracy’ into the Electoral Act of 2010 which now results in big-money politics to the present day Nigeria.
“It is not about defending Tinubu or responding to el-Rufai’s statement about defeating godfatherism, I am defending common sense.
“You just don’t wake up one day and say you want to become a politician; you would need people who are more experienced to mentor you.
“El-Rufai learnt from some mentors, if you want to grow, you must learn”, the APC leader added.
It will be recall two weeks ago that El-Rufai went Lagos where he made a comment on how to end the menace of godfatherism in Lagos politics. A statement many interpreted to be aimed at APC’s national leader, Bola Ahmed Tinubu.
