Senator Yisa Braimoh,a member of the Nigerian Senators’ Forum has berated the explanation given by former Senate President, Ameh Ebute, for attacking the position of Chairman of the Board of Trustees (BoT) of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Chief Tony Anenih, on the grievances of the aggrieved G-7 governors.He said Ebute’s position was “warped”.
Braimoh (who represented Edo North in the Senate on the platform of the PDP from 2007 to 2011), in a reply at the weekend, said the clarification by Ameh Ebute for taking on Anenih was distorted and has asked the duo of Clark and Ebute to apologise to Anenih for mischievously taking his (Anenih’s) position out of context.
In a statement Braimoh said: “It is sad that Ameh Ebute has tried in vain to justify the unwarranted attack on Chief Anenih. I wonder what is propelling him to embark on this needless voyage. Is he looking for relevance? Does he think that stomping on the name and person of Anenih would give him that? I make bold to say that he is pathetically mistaken.
“In his published reply, including the text of the communiqué by his group, Ebute had mischievously listed opposition to President Goodluck Jonathan’s second term bid as one of the governors’ grievances in an attempt to portray Anenih’s deliberately twisted position to mean that the governors’ opposition to the president re-election bid is genuine. This is patently warped and bogus.
“I am sure that Ebute and his sponsor, Chief Clark, did not even believe in their deliberately orchestrated gambit, which was devised to put a wedge between President Jonathan and Chief Anenih. That Anenih is supportive and, in fact, promotes Jonathan’s second term bid is common knowledge and no amount of mischief and propaganda can diminish that fact.
“Besides, I had disclosed that Anenih, in his speech at the South-South leaders’ meeting on May 12, 2013 in Asaba with Clark in attendance, as well as in his speech at the May 30, 2013 unity dinner in the Presidential Villa, said that during the BoT delegation’s visits to the states, he had discovered that some of the governors had some genuine complaints against the party leadership just as the party leadership had genuine complaints against some of the governors.
Mr Fix It , Anenih had been quoted to have said that some of the grievances of the aggrieved governors were genuine and had assured that the party would come out of the minor crisis stronger as the leadership would work towards resolving them.
However , the Congress for Equality and Change (CEC), led by Chief Edwin Clark and under the National Chairmanship of Ebute, came down hard on Anenih for admitting that some of the grievances of the aggrieved governors were genuine.
And for rising in defence of Anenih that the BoT chairman said some and not all the grievances of the G-7 governors were genuine, Senator Braimoh had come under vicious attack by Ebute who, in a rejoinder published online in Vanguard, described him as a failed senator and chorus boy of Anenih.