APC Replies Sagay, Says He Is ‘A Rogue Elephant’
The Presidency was, Monday, mute as verbal warfare broke out between the leadership of the All Progressives Congress, APC and Professor Itse Sagay, one of the key aides directing President Muhammadu Buhari’s anti-corruption fight.
In attacking Prof. Sagay, who the National Working Committee, NWC, of the APC described as a ‘rogue elephant’, the party also warned all appointees of President Buhari to show respect and decorum to the party which won the victory that made them occupy the offices they hold.
The party in a strongly worded statement issued by the National Publicity Secretary, Mallam Bolaji Abdullahi, castigated Sagay as a ‘rogue elephant’ determined to wreak maximum havoc on the party, insisting that he had nothing constructive to offer the President and the nation.
The attack on Sagay, chairman of the Presidential Advisory Committee Against Corruption, PACAC, followed assertions by Sagay in a national newspaper, last weekend, in which he dismissed the APC leadership as lily-livered, weak and incompetent.
Sagay had said: “As for the leadership of the APC, I think they are the most unprincipled group of people. They are lily-livered, weak, and cannot run any organisation.
“The whole party is collapsing under them. They cannot control anybody. Because they cannot control anybody, they’re now, in fact, encouraging and accepting ‘rogues.’ When I say rogues, I don’t mean stealing. In literature, when you say someone is a rogue elephant, it means people who are running riot and destroying the party. Responding Monday, the APC said: “The Webster dictionary defines ‘rogue elephant’ as “one whose behaviour resembles that of a rogue elephant in being aberrant or independent.
“Clearly, if we have today, anyone in our government or, by extension, the party who feels accountable only to his own ego; who does not feel the need to bridle his tongue for the sake of anything that is higher than himself; who feels independent of everyone and every institution; that person is Professor Sagay.”
Continuing, the party said: “Asked by the interviewer if he would stop speaking if the President asks him to stop speaking, he said: “Yes, he is my employer. If he tells me to stop talking, I’ll stop talking. But I have certain rights too that I can exercise in addition to that because I’m not going to be in a position where I am impotent. So, I must obey him, but I can go beyond that and obey myself too. That’s it.”
“Framed in another way, what Sagay is saying here is that, no matter what is at stake, he would rather resign than obey the President if the President tries to restrain him. This is the quintessential rogue elephant behaviour.
“In his sheer arrogance, he forgets that it is impossible for him to call out the leadership of the party as “weak” and “unprincipled” without indicting the President, who is the leader of the party and has the fundamental responsibility to build the party.
“If Sagay had any iota of respect for the man who dug him back from inevitable oblivion and put him in a position in which he now feels superior to everyone, he would channel his opinions and advice to the President on how to make the party stronger and more principled. It appears, however, that Sagay does not have anything constructive to say about anything. He only knows how to tear down and assault everyone and everything.
“We want to remind Sagay and all other appointees of our government that the only reason they occupy their current position today is because the APC won the election.
“There is, therefore, a matter of honour to show decorum and respect for the party and its leadership. You cannot love the fruit and hate the tree that produced it.”
