He took many people by surprise some months ago when he wrote to the leadership of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) that he was leaving the party. At the time he wrote the letter, he said he was yet to determine his next political move. But analysts had predicted then that Ken Nnamani, a former Senate president, must be thinking about joining the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC).
In February this year, Nnamani had announced his departure from the PDP in a statement entitled ‘PDP, the Burden and My Conscience’. He stated that he was quitting the party “without any iota of bitterness” in his heart because the platform had abandoned “the path of its noble vision and values”.
“I do not believe I should continue to be a member of the PDP as it is defined today,” Nnamani said, explaining that “This is certainly not the party I joined years ago to help change my country. I do not also believe that the PDP as it is managed today will provide an opportunity for me to continue to play the politics of principles and values which I set for myself as a young man on leaving graduate school and working for a large multinational in the United States in the 70s and 80s. Therefore, today I resign my membership of the PDP.”
According to him, “in stepping out of partisan politics for the meantime, I will continue to be politically engaged; I will also continue to support the government and all the elected officers in Nigeria to repositioning the nation.
“I will also constructively criticise them when by commission or omission they take actions that could damage the prospects of transforming Nigeria into a productive, merit-based and honestly governed country.”
He added that all efforts he put in to ensure that the PDP leadership after the ill-fated general election return the party to the path of honour and acceptance did not yield fruit, hence his decision to bid bye to the umbrella party.
“In the circumstance, I have to move on and get on with my life,” Nnamani said.
The politician from Enugu East Senatorial District came to political limelight when he presided over the upper legislative chamber of the National Assembly with panache. He particularly won himself acclaim from many Nigerians when he shot down the third term ambition of the then President Olusegun Obasanjo. Since he left office in 2007, the Nkanu-born politician has headed several committees and was a rallying point to many politicians in the PDP fold.
Like every typical Nigerian politician, Nnamani appears not comfortable to go into political oblivion so early which the sudden defeat of the PDP at the 2015 presidential election suggested. He may have weighed the option of staying put in a sinking PDP and jumping ship with the possibility of his remaining relevant in politics, at least through the remaining years of President Muhammadu Buhari in office.
Nnamani, pundits say, may have planned to leverage on his old relationship with the president, when both of them were in the defunct All People’s Party (APP). The senator left the APP for the PDP after the general election in 1999. When BDSUNDAY contacted the senator after he wrote the letter to the PDP signifying his exit, Nnamani said he was yet to make up his mind on what next to do. But feelers now indicate that he may soon join the APC. Already, the move has begun to shake the party in the state where other big wig politicians have also retired to. It would be recalled that Jim Nwobodo, governor of the old Anambra State, who had also been many things in the PDP since 1999, recently pulled out from the umbrella party.
The political rivalry between – Nnamani and Nwobodo, has run deep and wide. Both have remained political foes since 2003, when Ken Nnamani contested the senatorial election that took him to the Senate. At that time, the political machinery, ‘Ebe Ano’ built by the then governor of Enugu State, Chimaroke Nnamani, was so powerful that all those who contested elections on its platform sailed through, effortlessly. It was at that point that the political career of Nwobodo took a snow dive. Ever since, Nwobodo’s efforts to re-launch himself into political relevance have consistently met brick walls.
Although Nnamani rode to political prominence on the back of Chimaroke’s towering influence at the time, the duo parted ways shortly after the election. Although Nnamani may be bringing into the APC a character of integrity built over the years; although he may be looked upon as a politician who is not a rabble-rouser, his decision to join the broom-waving band just less than two years after his party lost election, critics say, question his integrity and his claim of selfless politics.
However, an indigene of the state, Paul Ezema, a legal practitioner, said the move by Senator Nnamani to join the APC in Enugu could be seen from the point of view of what the game of politics actually is.
“Politics is not a religion where people consider the kingdom of God and hell before taking any decision; in politics it is purely self. It is about ‘me, I and not we’. And when that self is no longer being served in one party, they opt out. There is no morality in politics,” Ezema said.
According to him, “For Senator Nnamani, he has made good use of the PDP to achieve something for himself when the party was relevant; today, except those who want to deceive themselves, PDP is a destroyed party and can never win any election in its present form, so, forward-looking politicians will find it difficult to remain in a house that has shown signs of imminent collapse and no right-thinking person stays in such a house until it falls on them eventually. I have nothing against his movement.”
Adolphus Oke, a public affairs commentator, also told BDSUNDAY that there is no sentiment in politics.
“I know the question some people may be asking now is, why is he leaving a party that provided him the platform to get to the height he reached, but sentiments apart, people must move and that is the beauty of politics,” Oke said.
Ade Thompson, a lecturer with a private institution, expressed disappointment, saying if the senator decides to join the APC today, he would have disappointed many of his admirers.
Thompson said that the penchant for politicians to ditch their parties at slightest reasons smacks of lack of ideology and integrity.
“When Senator Ken Nnamani wrote the letter to the PDP that he was leaving the party, I thought he was retiring from politics to be a statesman, but when I saw his pictures in the newspapers with the President at the Villa I knew something must be fishy. He led some South East leaders to see the President; again he went to the Villa with David Mark, Masari and some others. People must be known for something. Let those we thought had some grain of integrity retain their integrity. What is he looking for in the APC he has not seen or got? Is it money or fame? People must learn to draw a line. Until we get to that point in Nigeria, we would continue to totter as a nation,” Thompson said.
Zebulon Agomuo
