It will come as no real surprise because the rumours have been swirling for weeks. But the Defence Minister, Pio Tikoduadua, is evidently about to betray his colleagues in the NFP and those who sent him to parliament in 2022 by jumping ship to join Sitiveni Rabuka’s PAP.
He isn’t doing so in the honourable way with a formal announcement that he is resigning from the NFP. No, that would be too much to expect of a man who has made a career of posing as a pillar of integrity yet is proving to be just another grubby politician.
We know the defection is imminent because Pio is headlining the following fundraising event in Sydney later in the month with another turncoat – Ioane Naivalurua, the former FijiFirst MP who is now Rabuka’s Minister for Policing and Communication.
Like Tikoduadua, Naivalrurua is also formally joining forces with Sitiveni Rabuka, abandoning his position as leader of the so-called Group of 11 “independents” to join the PAP.
Whoops. Has Pio told the NFP party leader, Biman Prasad, about this event in Sydney, which has nothing to do with the NFP, and of his imminent defection? When was he planning to tell the rest of us that he is jumping ship?
Either way it leaves a bitter taste in the mouth of anyone who voted for Pio Tikoduadua in 2022. Grubsheet happens to feel an acute sense of personal betrayal. Because I specifically urged the 30,000 “followers” I had back then on my Facebook page – subsequently shut down by Meta on a complaint by Lynda Tabuya – to vote for the NFP hoping the party would put a brake on any excesses by the People’s Alliance and “keep the bastards honest”, as I specifically said at the time.
As a former colleague of Tikoduadua’s in government, I held him in the highest regard and a large part of that endorsement four years ago was because he was standing for the NFP and was then its national president. Alas, it appears that my confidence in him was misplaced.
Let me address the Minister directly:
Pio, if you want to leave the NFP – which you recently offered to lead given the legal travails of Biman Prasad – that is clearly your prerogative. But here’s the only honourable way to do it.
- Resign from the NFP and the Parliament immediately and leave altogether.
- Then join the People’s Alliance and stand as a candidate for the coming election along with all the other would-be candidates.
Is that what you’re planning to do? It appears not.
Instead of doing the right thing by NFP supporters who put their trust in you to represent them, you’re simply going to defect and move from the NFP benches to sit with the People’s Alliance in the parliament.
That way you get to keep your lucrative position as Minister for Defence and Veteran’s Affairs and the prestige and influence it gives you. Oh and the money. Let’s not forget the money.
Well, there’s only one way the NFP voters who put you there in 2022 are going to regard you. As a rat. A turncoat. A traitor. And someone who hasn’t even had the guts to make a formal announcement of your treachery. It emerges on a poster for a fundraising event in Sydney on November 27.
Personally, I am beyond disappointed that you would sell out not so much your colleagues in the NFP but the ordinary men and women who voted for you in the mistaken belief that you would bring integrity to the parliament and the task of serving the nation.
When were you planning to tell us? Because the manner of your going only underlines the grubby expediency you have displayed in ratting on the lot of us.
Frankly, you deserve to be sacked from the NFP and driven from the parliament, as the 2013 Constitution stipulates for renegade MPs. Except that in his weakened state and surrounded by turncoats, we have to assume that Biman Prasad doesn’t have the guts to do it.
Shame on you.
_____________________
Sadly we’ve known it’s been coming for some time.
Is Sashi Kiran next? Another NFP member who is being less than candid about her intentions.
Rats in the ranks…
The following profile is still on the NFP’s official website even though Pio Tikoduadua is no longer NFP President and has been replaced by Parmod Chand.
That the former president would now defect to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with Rolex Rambo is beyond belief for any NFP supporter.
Pio, is this your idea of integrity in government?
And finally, more evidence of Tikoduadua’s imminent defection. While his fellow NFP MP, Lenora Qereqeretabua, is openly endorsing the party’s position that the Constitution must not be rushed, here’s Pio’s cagey response.
What happened to straight-talking Pio? Verbal gymnastics to camouflage the fact he plans for vote with the government and betray his fellow MPs.
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