Do you support the convening of a national conference?
I am for a national conference and a national dialogue. I am
for a national conference of stakeholders, be they organised on regional or
ethnic basis, that will discuss the future of Nigeria and how best to unlock
the potential that we have as a people. Nigerians are very creative, but
collectively, we haven’t done very well.
Why is that the case? We must resolve the issues. Anybody
who has spent time analysing our problems will realise that there cannot be
much wrong with our leaders from the 60s to now; from Tafawa Balewa to Aguiyi
Ironsi, to Nnamdi Azikiwe, to Gowon, to Babangida and Abacha. If we say they
haven’t all done well, then the problem cannot be in them; it must be in the
structure. So, the sooner we admit that there is a problem and we address it,
the better for us. The argument of whether power will go to the South-South or
to the South-East is a waste of time.
The New PDP led by Abubakar Baraje has said that President
Goodluck Jonathan would be running for a third term if he seeks re-election in
2015. How do you react to this?
As far as I’m concerned, there is no faction in the PDP
because Nigerians were witnesses to the very colourful and massively attended
convention where every state in Nigeria was represented. Before we dispersed,
we elected officials in a free and fair manner before the Independent National
Electoral Commission, INEC, and other observers as well.
So, if a few people felt disgruntled and decided to create
an impression of a split by walking out, I think it is not consequential. In a
family as big as ours, if certain persons walk out, even though they may be
governors for that matter, to me, it doesn’t affect the family because it’s a
big family.
PDP is a party that has come to stay. I want to also caution
that those who don’t respect the President are showing disdain for Nigerians.
You cannot have the President of a country seated in a convention and you walk
out.
That was a bad behaviour and Nigerians must tell them off.
So, I don’t believe that we have a faction. We have disagreements which the
party in its usual manner will solve and people should understand that the PDP
has come to stay.
That is why those that are aggrieved do not want to leave
the party and they want to carry the same name again if possible. I think that
the problems we have are surmountable. They are problems within a family and
they will be solved.
People should understand that they mustn’t take extreme
positions because ultimately, we sit together as a family and solve the
problems. So, you must not show disrespect to the president of a country by
walking out because you offend Nigerians who gave him the mandate by doing so.
Again, it is also an office that you hope to occupy one day. How will the
governors feel if the local government chairmen walk out on them at a ceremony
in their states?
They will not like it. On the argument of a third term, the
President I know and which most Nigerians will admit, has been president for
only one term and he is going to do a second term in 2015 by the grace of God,
if Nigerians give him the support. If he declares for the presidency and wins
the votes, he will do a second term, not a third term.
The argument is that if he wins the 2015 elections, he will
be getting sworn in for the third time, having been sworn in as Acting
President and as a President?
When he was sworn in the first time as a president, he was
sworn in to complete somebody’s tenure. Are you saying that he should do only
six years as president of a country and not eight years? He should do eight
years that everybody else has done as president of the country. The first time
he was sworn in as president, he was finishing the tenure of late president
Umaru Yar’Adua. It wasn’t his doing that Yar’Adua died. What should he have
done? Walked away? He had to complete the joint mandate that they had and that
was another man’s tenure that he was completing. His own tenure began in 2011.
What do you think should be the appropriate punishment for
any party member who shows such disposition and disrespect?
The party’s constitution prescribes clear measures. First of
all, if you tried to form a faction or to split the party, it is anti-party and
the punishment is suspension and expulsion. It is very clear in the
constitution. But in this case, our elders have intervened in the crisis and
they have agreed that everybody should sheath their swords. I hope that the
agreements will hold and in this instance, we cannot really apply the
constitution. We hope that everybody will sit as a family, but we should also
learn the lessons that in the future, we should not try to split the party
unnecessarily.
Parties in the dispute reached an agreement to sheath their
swords, but shortly after a meeting in the Villa, the aggrieved PDP members
visited the National Assembly, which lead to uproar. Does that suggest that
dialogue has collapsed?
I think that the dialogue as I said is still on and earlier
adjourned till October 7. We shall keep appealing to people that they should
realise the value of the platform they are currently in. Most people who are in
politics, their victories, be it landslide in their states, be it by majority
vote, owe it to the party they are in. The PDP is a driving force. The PDP is
the vehicle they are in.
They will be surprised that if they were to leave the party
and go somewhere else, they will be walking alone. For instance, in my state,
if anybody leaves the party to another party, he will go alone because our
people are for the PDP. They don’t care about any new PDP because they know the
PDP that we all know, of which Goodluck Jonathan is the national leader. That
is what they know about. They don’t know about any new PDP.
So, anybody who leaves the party and goes elsewhere, you
can’t just take Nigerians to any other place. They are used to a particular
culture and a particular party. So, if anybody decides to leave the party and
go to another party, he may not be able to command the kind of crowd he
believes he will command. He will be walking alone and I think they should have
a rethink. In politics, what devalues a politician is constant movement. I am a
founding member of the PDP since 1998 and I have been in the party since then
till now. The party hasn’t been fair to me in many instances but I’m still in
the party.
In England, if you are in a particular party like the Labour
Party, you will stay there for life. Sometimes, you may run for eight years and
at other times, you lose. So, people must learn to focus on the ideology within
the party. You shouldn’t see a party as a vehicle only for getting benefits and
once you are not favoured, you leave the party to another party. It doesn’t
show consistency.
What is your take on this alleged one-pact aggrement the
President allegedly entered into with the governors?
I have no idea at all of any agreement. Agreements that are
made between party stakeholders may not have been made with other stakeholders.
Agreements that are made secretly, nobody can verify such agreement and I think
people should disre-gard all such talks. You cannot bind people behind their
backs. The President holds a mandate for all the people and I’m not sure the
agreement they talk about exists. They haven’t shown us the agreements. Even if
they were to show us such agreements, they will not be valid. I’m a lawyer; so,
I think those things are mere sentimental distractions.
If the President wants to run for a second term, they should
allow him to contest and defeat him if they can at the polls. Of course, that
is if the President wishes to contest. So far, he hasn’t said he wants to
contest but they mustn’t abridge his rights with a purported agreement even
before he declares. Those who say he signed an agreement with them, do they own
the country? How come he had an agreement with them? What is their stake?
Do they have more stake than myself in Nigeria? What is
their own locus that prompted an agreement with them? Is it because they own
the country or what? Nigeria is owned in common by all of us. Nobody has a
right to force another person to have an agreement with him over a property
that we all own together. It’s our country and we are governed by the
constitution. Whatever is not allowed there, we shall leave it. What is
allowed, we contest it.
The issue that is really causing all these problems seem to
be the 2015 elections and the 2015 ambition or possible ambition of Mr.
President. Do you think he should contest?
First of all, he has a constitutional right to contest and I
believe that he has done very well and his records are there for anybody
to see. He deserves to re-contest if he so wishes and if he does, I’m sure that
he will get the support of Nigerians. But what I must urge at this time is that
we should not focus attention too much on the second term ambition of Mr.
President in 2015.
We have close to a year and six months to go and he can
still do a lot by way of trying to address the major problems that confront the
country like insecurity, provision of infrastructure, educational backwardness,
medical health, infant mortality etcetera. So, we should allow the President to
focus on his agenda and not distract him.
And I think that those who have been given the mandate by
the people to govern at state or local government levels should focus on the
jobs for which they were elected and try to add value to the lives of those
that they govern because I find that this level of politicking distracts from
the main activity of governance, which is why they were elected in the first
place. There is too much politics and too little governance going on.
The G7 governors have enumerated their grievances. Do you
see these complaints as having any bearing on the people?
For instance, I hear – but I don’t know if it is true – that
the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, should not investigate
people. That will be a covenant against Nigerians because Nigerians have a
right to the enjoyment of their resources and if certain persons have in the
discharge of their duties taken those resources away and kept for themselves,
the anti-graft agencies must investigate and prosecute them. So, you cannot
bargain away that duty of the EFCC. They must be allowed to do their work.
So, that I think is not possible. Even if they were to sign
an agreement, it will not work. I’m also aware of the point that particular
persons should be given the party structure. If it was obtained from the
courts, he must go back to the court to get them back.
You cannot negotiate the structure back. I think that those
things are purely personal issues with the people who are involved directly. I
don’t think they are for the interest of Nigerians. They need to talk about
whether they should put more infrastructure in their areas or they should put
more money in schools or health.
That is what will benefit Nigerians. But when you say that
they shouldn’t prosecute those who are corrupt or that they should give them
back the party structures to come back to the party, these are personal issues.
One of the arguments of the North against President Jonathan
is the issue of power shift in 2015; do you believe that 2015 is the time that
power should shift to the North?
Each time we talk about power shift, we try to play God.
Nigeria is a country in formation and we are still evolving. Some people are
even arguing that going forward, power should just go to the best Nigerian who
comes out to contest.
But the North seems to believe that 2015 is the right time
for power to return to its fold.
There is nothing to talk about there. But all I can say is
that let us think about the country. Let us address more fundamen-tal issues. I
don’t think that where power goes to is important. What is important is the
quality of governance and what is also important, which we mustn’t forget in
this whole stampede, is the issue of our structure. Our structure is faulty and
must be addressed.
It is a hindrance to our progress. That is what we should
look at and not the issue of where power goes. If power goes to the North,
comes to the South, there is no guarantee that a Southerner or Northerner will
benefit under his own brother’s leadership. There is no guarantee that even the
masses welfare from there will fair better.
The only guarantee will be if we have the country
restructured and governance becomes more meaningful to the masses and our
energies are released for production, that is when you can talk about people’s
lives becoming better enhanced. But to talk about power shift, I think those
arguments are simplistic on the surface as to who takes power or gets power.
The issue is what will power be used for? What we need now
is to talk about our problems. We have been a country for almost a century. In
every index that you choose, we haven’t fared very well. Why is that? Those are
the issues that we should talk about. Those are what should occupy the minds of
the elite and not the issue of whether power should go to the North.
Do you see President Jonathan winning in 2015 if he decides
to declare for second term?
The President won the 2011 elections because of the support
of majority of Nigerians from across the nation – Igbos, Yorubas, Hausas, Edos,
Efiks, Ekpe, Ijaw etcetera and the President has tried to placate every segment
of the country. He has toured the whole country and he has kept faith in his
promise to them.
He is a Nigerian President and I see these same tribes
replicating what happened in 2011 because they will weigh him against the
so-called opponents and see that this President is the one that has been the
fairest to them.
He has been detribalised and he has ensured that what even
their own people couldn’t do for them when they were in power, he has done it
for them. So, I see him winning in the same manner he did in 2011 with roughly
the same margin. That is why those of us who are party elders will continuously
appeal to Nigerians for their show of support to the President and we know for
a fact that he will rely on all Nigerians for his victory.
That is why we appeal to everybody to say that Mr. President
has proven that if given a chance and support and in spite of the distractions,
he has done so much. Without those challenges, he would have done much more and
if allowed to run again, he will do even more for Nigerians.
So, I have every faith that when he decides to run and he
declares he will win because of the facts that his record is impressive and of
course people have faith in him.
You are from Rivers State; so many reasons have been given
for the crisis rocking the state. Can you shed light on this?
On the Rivers State crisis, I think the crisis is internal
and it has to do with the stakeholders of the PDP in the state who felt
aggrieved at the manner of governance and lack of communication by those who
are in power. That is the primary fuel for this crisis. Whatever else happened
there can be an addition to it. No matter how popular a governor is, he cannot
be in every local government at a time.
There are stakeholders who worked for him to become governor
of the state and it is only a matter of honour that when you get to a position,
you should consult those who worked for you to get there. That is the idea of
politics. They all have followers who anticipate that they should have an input
in governance. But where only one man governs a state by himself after you have
secured a joint victory, it’s a recipe for the kind of issues they have in the
state.
The fear is that if the crisis persists, the PDP might lose
Rivers.
Nigerians keep equating states and electoral strength to one
governor. But that is not correct. In my state, you have other stakeholders who
brought along their supporters to vote for the PDP. The governor is one
stakeholder and you have 20 other stakeholders, for instance. Let’s say because
he is a governor, you give him 20 per cent on the voters’ scale and you give
the others 80 per cent.
If he doesn’t contest or goes away, that 20 per cent will go
on maximum. But to give him 80 per cent and give others 20 per cent will not be
right because Nigerians don’t vote only for money. They vote for character,
primordial sentiments of tribes and ethnicity as well. So, people overestimate
the capacity of a few individuals.
Some people are of the view that Bamanga Tukur is the cause
of all the crises in the PDP. What is your take on this?
Did they also say he is responsible for Boko Haram? I think
it’s just a case of people who don’t like somebody look for an excuse. What is
going on in the party is all about 2015, if we must be sincere. So, whether we
like it or not, there will be crisis. Elections are near and there are many
things at stake. So, it’s not a matter of Tukur being the cause of the crisis.
The crisis is election-based and not Tukur per say. Under
Audu Ogbeh during our first elections, there was also crisis in the party and
eventually he was forced to resign. So, it’s always normal. It’s the same with
Solomon Lar and Vincent Ogbulafor. It is the nature of politics that when
elections come closer, there will be jostling and positioning and that will
generate crisis.
If you like, you can put an angel there as the party
chairman and still there will be crisis
Culled from National Mirror
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