**Nigerians believe in PDP, it is their own. They don’t want to handover to an individual, like Buhari, Tinubu or Ali Modu Sherrif.
As a formal deputy national chairman of the PDP and now a serving governor, INEC has just released the time table for all elective positions for 2015 general elections. There is this stiff opposition against President Jonathan seeking a fresh mandate, especially from the North. What is your take? Secondly, the party is facing a lot of crises that led to five of your colleagues defecting to APC. Do you see the new chairman being able to redress these challenges? On the impasse in Rivers state, what do you think can be done to douse the tension and restore peace?
Yes , I was honored by my party to be a deputy national chairman, I was chairman national disciplinary committee, I was chairman of its Democratic Institute, I was chairman of its south-west reconciliation committee, and if you like I was in the fire brigade team to solve crises in some.
I was in Imo, I was in Benue, I was in Edo, Ibadan to solve crises, so it is something that I am quite familiar with. About 2015, we have spoken about it severally. Whenever it is time for election the temperature goes up, every time there is election.
Even if it is the chief of a market that we are electing, the human temperature will go up, so it is no exception. And the President himself hasn’t yet declared whether he will run or not, but there have been speculations that he will run, that he will not run and so on and so forth.
But I have always asked people, especially last year, up to this time, it is only in Nigeria that people start running for election right after swearing in. So what worries me is, are we really thinking of providing service to our people?
Because, if we are thinking of service, the time isn’t ripe for politicking, but I can tell you that 70 percent of the time people are talking about who contests, who will take over from the incumbent and on. Unfortunately, that is Nigeria for you. Maybe it is because our democracy is just coming up. But we can’t be in so much of a hurry that we will say we have caught up with nations that have been practising it for over 250 years.
It will be stupid to do that. But it is good to learn and make corrections when mistakes are made and it is good to try our best to reform. The president will come out and make a statement at the right time. And for the stiff resistance you see, to my mind, it is because some of the people challenging him are also interested in the same office – some of them have made categorical statements, some speculations are in the air .
So, if somebody is interested in your office, yes, he can go to any length. That’s the truth. So, on the issue of our party, we have our challenges. That isn’t to say other parties don’t have challenges, the reason why people see our own is because of our size and in politics size does matter. It is always easy to talk about differences in political parties, or any organisation.
What people failed to realize is that PDP have succeeded tremendously in Nigeria since 1999. First of all, in capturing power and retaining power. The party has succeeded in the first transition, from one civil rule to the other. I know PDP belongs to Nigerians and that is why everybody talks about PDP even none party members who belong to the opposition parties, because it is truly a Nigerian party, every Nigerian thinks PDP is his own.
Unlike other parties where you can say Mr. A owns this party or that party belongs to group A, but PDP really belongs to Nigerians. It is truly a national party; that’s why whatever affects PDP affects Nigeria, even the opposition talks about PDP, even you journalists, as if you belong to that party.
You are worried about what we do; it is because it is truly a national party. So on the challenges we are facing over defection, I am sure you are aware of the efforts made by Mr. president to make sure that they didn’t leave the party, to change the tide of those who wanted to leave. Even in a family there is bound to be a quarrel but to resolve the issues maturely is the way of the PDP. Look at the issues of the resignation of our former Chairman, Bamanga Tukur.
At the end of the day, PDP is the only party in Nigeria where a party chairman can resign and another one step in without rancour and breaking of heads. I don’t know of any other party in Nigeria that does this except the PDP, because we truly have the interest of Nigerians at heart.
Hope is not lost on the question of reconciliation. We can reach out and reconcile those people; of course, politics is a voluntary business. Those who don’t want to belong to PDP, I am sure they have their reasons why they don’t want to belong to PDP, but as they are leaving, let me assure you that others will be moving in.
That’s politics. In fact, there are those who left PDP that rushed back. But we will make our efforts; we aren’t closing our doors on our members who have left. And even those who are not our members who want to come in, they are welcome. And I am sure our new chairman is equal to the task.
He had been a governor for eight years under PDP and I have no doubt in my mind that he can reach out and make deliberate efforts to see that our party grows from strength to strength. It will be in the interest of Nigeria if PDP continues to do what it is doing, to stabilize Nigeria. You people know the situation of this country in 1998; it is the emergence of PDP that was probably the saving grace for our nation that helped to put the nation in peace and harmony.
In PDP all the tribes and tongues are the same. So, whatever happens, Nigerians still believe in PDP, because they know that it is their own; they don’t want to handover to an individual, like Buhari, Tinubu or Ali Modu Sherrif.
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