Prince Vincent Ogbulafor is the famous former National Chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) who is known for his frequent controversial statements.
Ogbulafor, who emerged the PDP national chairman on March 8, 2008, had his tenure started on a controversial note when he said that he did not worry if Nigeria became a one-party state at an interactive dinner he had with media executives at the Banquet hall of Sheraton Hotel, Abuja.
“I don’t intend to speak longer than this. I have done justice to addressing you on issues and party politics of our great party and I expect that all Nigerians in no distant time would all return to PDP. I don’t care if Nigeria becomes a one-party state. If we succeed in bringing all the states of the federation under one umbrella, then it means we are doing a good job,” the former PDP National Secretary said.
Also in 2008, Ogbulafor boasted that the PDP would rule Nigeria for 60 years. In an interview conducted this year, the Board of Trustees (BoT) member of the PDP explained that he boasted because of the number of states under his control as National Chairman.
“When I was National Chairman, I controlled 28 states where we have governors. That was why I said the PDP will rule for 60 years. For somebody who is controlling 28 states as national chairman of the then ruling PDP, why can’t I rule for 60 years? But the former President, Jonathan came and scattered it,” he also said.
Two days after his emergence, he made another controversial remark when he pledged 101 percent loyalty of the PDP National Working Committee (NWC) to late President Umaru Musa Yar’adua.
Ogbulafor gave the pledge when he received the ministers who served between 1999 and 2003 under ex-President Olusegun Obasanjo who paid him a solidarity visit. He was also a Federal Minister for Economic Matters during the period.
He said, “That we are here is designed by God. Indeed, I never expected to become the national chairman of the PDP.I never expected. I never printed posters. I never made one advert. But here I am serving the party.
“Therefore, anything that I can do, it’s better I do it now because there may not be another opportunity. I have said that with the president we have, he needs our support and we have pledged 101 per cent support for him. We want to make this party a place that every Nigerian will like to belong.”
He added, “When I was National Secretary, we inherited 21 states from Bernabas Gemade. We moved it up to 28 and increased the number in the National assembly. That was then when I was National Secretary. Now, as the National Chairman, the entire Nigeria must be in the PDP.”
Prince Ogbulafor, who resigned on May 13, 2010, was seen as a victim of high level political intrigues that arose after the demise of the late President Yar’adua. Ogbulafor had said after a meeting with Mr Bukola Saraki-led PDP Governors Forum that power would return to the North in 2011, a statement which was considered an abomination.
He was removed shortly after making the announcement in May 2010. The PDP zoning formula was subsequently manipulated in favour of former President Goodluck Jonathan in 2010, following the death of Yar’adua, who ought to have spent two terms of eight years as a candidate representing the North after the former President Obasanjo, a Southerner has spent eight years.
The fifth National Chairman of the PDP, on Tuesday, May 18, 2010 formally handed over to the Deputy National Chairman Dr Bello Haliru Mohammed, the party’s former spokesperson Prof. Rufai Ahmed Alkali said.
In his resignation letter, which was copied to President Jonathan and the then Chairman of PDP Governors Forum Dr Bukola Saraki, Ogbulafor said the decision was prompted by the case he had with one of Nigeria’s anti-graft agencies, expressing confidence that he would be vindicated.
The letter read in part: “In view of my recent meetings and discussions with Mr. President, Dr Jonathan, GCFR, and the Governors of PDP extraction, I hereby give 30 days notice of my intention to resign as the National Chairman of the PDP.
“This is in strict compliance with the provision of Article 14.4 of the Constitution of the PDP, 2009 (as amended) as follows ‘Any officer elected into the Executive Committee of the party at any level may resign his or her office by giving thirty days notice in writing to the appropriate Executive Committee, except in the case of resignation for the purposes of vying for an elective office which shall be effective within the period stipulated in the guideline issued for such elective office by the NEC of the party’.
“This resignation was informed by the case I have with the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC) in court, for it will give me ample opportunity to prepare and face my case frontally in order to prove my innocence; and for the interest of our party and the nation at large. I thank our great Party for the opportunity given to me to serve.”
After this event, Ogbulafor became a quiet man to face his case with the ICPC. On October 2, he was, however, discharged and acquitted of a 17-count charge of corruption by an Abuja High Court.
The Abia State born politician, in his reaction to the verdict by Justice Ishaq Bello, attributed his travails to the handiwork of his enemies.
Shortly after the victory of President Muhammadu Buhari at the 2015 presidential election, Ogbulafor congratulated the president-elect in a letter dated April 6, 2015 and titled “An Inspiring Victory”.
In the letter addressed to Buhari, he predicted that the scourge of corruption would not only reduce under the next administration, but that Nigeria would become a model of good governance and a benchmark for all nations within Africa and beyond.
His subsequent visit to the APC National Chairman, Chief John Odigie-Oyegun in 2015, at the party’s national secretariat in Abuja, was, however, interpreted as the declaration of his plan to dump the PDP. The visit came after being out of the news for a long period of time.
Speaking with journalists after emerging from a private meeting with the APC National Chairman, which lasted for 45 minutes, Ogbulafor said “I just came back into town and I came to congratulate the national chairman of the APC for a job well done”.
Asked if his visit had anything to do with an impending move to the APC, Mr. Ogbulafor said “I am still in PDP”, adding “Not yet. Even if I will, not yet”.
But in a telephone interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Umuahia this year, Ogbulafor said that he had no plan to defect to the APC
He said there was no truth in a media report that he was holding talks with chieftains of APC in Abia on how to defect to the party.
Ogbulafor, however, recalled that when the APC won the presidential election in 2015, he visited the party’s National Chairman to congratulate him.
He said the gesture should not be misconstrued, adding that he had no intention of joining the APC.
The former national chairman said, “I am still in PDP and I have not discussed with any other person on plans to defect to the APC.”
After the defeat suffered by the PDP in the 2015 presidential election, Ogbulafor blamed former President Jonathan for the incident. He attributed the defeat to his refusal to respect the PDP’s zoning arrangement.
“The person who caused the failure of PDP is Jonathan. PDP had internal democracy, a zoning pattern which worked for them for 16 years, and we agreed at a meeting that power would stay in the North for eight years before it returns to the South for another eight years”, Ogbulafor was quoted as saying in an interview with a national newspaper.
