A chieftain of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), Femi Fani-Kayode, on Friday said the Labour Party presidential candidate in the 2023 election, Peter Obi, and his running mate, Yusuf Datti Baba-Ahmed, “seek to implement a dangerous ‘Kaduna Nzeogwu agenda’.
POLITICS NIGERIA reports that according to Fani-Kayode, who is an associate of president-elect, Bola Tinubu, the Labour Party candidates and their supporters “must be exposed, renounced, rejected and resisted by all lawful and constitutional means” because they are “fascists” who ‘seek to destroy Nigeria’.
Nzeogwu – whom Fani-Kayode likened the Messrs Obi and Datti to – was a Nigerian military officer who played a leading role in the 1966 Nigerian coup d’état, which overthrew the First Nigerian Republic.
Fani-Kayode, a former Minister, wrote in a lengthy social media post: “Amongst the most dangerous people in Nigerian politics today are Peter Obi and Dati Baba Ahmed with their army of ignorant, fascist, violent, uncouth, frustrated, garrolous, racist, bigoted, misguided, radical, brash and rebellious supporters.
“I heard Dati the Daft warning our President and CJN not to allow our President-elect to be sworn in or else lives would be endangered and the military would intervene.
“He said this on Channels Television. His exact words were “if Tinubu is sworn in it is as good as inviting the military to take power”.
“He also said that he would under no circumstances accept Tinubu as President, that he had no faith in the courts or the election tribunals, that the President was incompetent, that the INEC Chairman had conducted a fraudulent, sham election and was arrogant and that the President-elect was a Pablo Escobar and Mayer Lansky-like drug baron all rolled into one and the father of organised crime in Nigeria.
“Even when the interviewer Seun Okunbaloye, as professional as ever, cautioned and warned him that his words and sentiments were unacceptable and that they breached the NBC regulations and the law he flared his Mauritanian nostrils, rolled his eyes, raised his voice and insisted on continuing, boasting that he feared no-one and that he had no apology for his intentions, assertions and views.
“Instead of desisting from his attempt to incite Nigerians against constituted authority, democracy, the courts, the CJN, the Federal Government, the President, the INEC Chairman and the President-elect, he knuckled down and repeated his incendiary and dangerous words.
“All this and he is still walking around freely. I wonder whether he is above the law?”
He added: “If yours truly or anyone else from the BATIST camp had said those words and such things on national television all hell would have broken loose and we would have been invited by the security agencies by now.
“We would also have been attacked and subjected to an insulting barrage of condescending, unsolicited, ill-informed, malicious and unwelcome advice by one or two foreign diplomats who had clearly forgotten their place.
“What Obi, Dati and their wild, uncouth and unruly supporters represent and seek to implement is nothing less than a dangerous and fascistic ‘Kaduna Nzeogwu agenda’ with all it’s attendant consequences and they must be exposed, renounced, rejected and resisted by all lawful and constitutional means.
“Nigeria is a multi-ethnic, multi-religious, multi-cultural nation nation whose strength, beauty and power lies in its unity, plurality and diversity.
“We must not let anyone divide us.
“We do not want or need a tribal President who seeks to subjugate and enslave all those that do not share his ethnic heritage or religious faith.
“Worse still we do not want a Vice President with a foreign heritage who really has nothing to loose if Nigeria is burnt to the ground and who can always run back to his fathers country.
“These fascists came third in a free and fair election, even trailing Atiku Ibn Dubai and his People’s Destruction Party, yet they still claim to have won and have threatened to turn our nation upside down if they do not have their way.
“It is within their ranks more than any other that the call for an ING and a truncation of the democratic process is loudest.
“They say it and pronounce it on the social and traditional media every day and neither Peter nor Dati cautions them or even attempts to reign them in.
“They and their foreign friends who are encouraging them from behind the scenes and whose diplomats insist on involving themselves in our politics and internal affairs are hell bent on having their way, subverting the will of our people, destabilising our country and robbing the President-elect of his mandate.
“Their thinking, like a jilted and bitter bride that has been abandoned at the alter by her groom, is that “if I can’t have it then no-one else will have it”.
“They want to throw the baby out with the bath water.
“They want to thwart the will of the Nigerian people and rob us of what is lawfully and legitimately ours.
“Whilst we seek unity, love, peaceful co-existence and mutual respect they want division, war, panic, fear, chaos, subversion and destabilisation and they indulge in the most despicable and foul degree of denigration, subterfuge and malevolence against the Nigerian people and state that we have ever witnessed in our entire history.
“They are furious and bitter with the outcome of the election and they just cannot live with it.
“They do not have the stomach, the courage, the honor, the grace, the pedigree or the fortitude to accept defeat.
“Simply put they want to wipe out the entire system and existing status quo, impose their will, destroy everything that is wholesome and good in our nation, re-write our history, re-define our heritage, destroy our culture, desecrate our values, use religion and ethnicity to achieve power and forge Nigeria in their own angry, bellicose, frustrated and jaundiced image.
“We must resist them with every fibre of our being and defend our hard-earned democracy, our civil liberties, our human rights, our civic institutions, our way of life, our religious and ethnic diversity and heritage and the peace of our land otherwise, as a nation, we will be lost forever.
“Nigeria must never fall into the hands of those who seek to destroy her from within and ultimately seek to dismember and divide her.
“Nigeria must be at peace. Nigeria must flourish and excel. Nigeria must stand tall, strong and firm and reaffirm it’s enviable position as one nation under God.”