Chief Bisi Akande, a founding member of the All Progressives Congress, APC, has told the Governor of Kaduna State, Mallam Nasir el-Rufai that godfatherism was essential for the growth of democracy in Nigeria.
Akande was adding his voice to the proxy war going on between the national leader of the APC, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu and Governor el-Rufai.
Akande reminded the Governor that mentorship is what everyone in any endeavour needs to grow and succeed in their preferred career.
He said that some self-seeking politicians have overlooked this and have chosen to attack the idea by referring to it as godfatherism.
He said such politicians were doing this in their bid to wield influence in a political party they don’t believe in its ideology.
This was obviously a veiled reference to el-Rufai’s comment on how to end the menace of godfatherism in Lagos politics.
Governor el-Rufai, had about two weeks ago insisted he has no apology over his comment that “godfather can be defeated” in Lagos State.
Akande said, “You are free not to join any political party. You are free to contest as an independent candidate. It is fraudulent, however, for you to join and win elections on the platform of a political party and subsequently form another group to override your political parties’ injunctions.
“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,” the former Osun governor told Sun.
“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.
