If I Were President I Would Disrupt Our Budgeting Process and Get Nigeria Working Again
It’s easy to imagine the abstemious politician taking a cursory look at some documents on the shiny, transparent coffee table as he steadied the glasses on the ridge of his nose. A sombre smile on his lips lingers fleetingly as he reminisces about his pas
Afew weeks ago you resigned from the All Progressives Congress and returned to your original party, the Peoples Democratic Party. By doing that you livened up the polity, momentum was in your sprint, that all seems to have ebbed away. What happened? Did you suddenly developed cold feet about your return to the PDP?
Cold feet? Not at all. I think what has happened is that some people may have confused an event with a process. Resigning from the All Progressives Congress was an event. Rejoining the Peoples Democratic Party is a process. The law of process is one of the most vital laws of leadership. Worthwhile processes happen over time; they do not happen overnight. You must remember that unlike the APC, the PDP is a party governed by processes. And then on a wider scale, there are other processes that are controlled by the Independent National Electoral Commission. I understand that standards have slipped in the last few years and people expect ad hoc behaviour from the political class. But I come from a tradition of discipline.
I had a Facebook live video interface with Nigerians where I announced my resignation from the APC on November 24, 2017. The leadership of the PDP in the North-East geopolitical zone paid a solidarity visit to me on December 3, 2017. I visited the PDP national headquarters on December 5, 2017 where I was received by the party’s caretaker committee including the then caretaker Chairman, Senator Ahmed Makarfi. I was a participant and major speaker at the December 9, 2017 convention of the PDP. Thereafter, I began national consultations. I was in Ekiti State to confer with the Chairman of the PDP Governors Forum, Governor Ayo Fayose, on January 25, 2018. Between February 1 and 2, 2018, I attended the funeral of Dr. Alex Ekwueme, and was energised by the legacy of that great man and fellow founding father of the PDP. So the issue of cold feet does not arise. If anything, my feet are warm. Let me add that politics is not about delivering activity. It is about having a positive impact and that I have been doing.
We are hearing yet again that you are perfecting plans to defect to the Social Democratic Party, the SDP. Can you clarify this once and for all?
The SDP? This is news to me. Yes, I was a member of the Social Democratic Party along with Chief MKO Abiola, the late Shehu Musa Yar’Adua and many other patriots. As a party, we worked with Chief Abiola and helped him win the June 12, 1993 presidential election. However, that party was made defunct by the military on the 17th of November, 1993. I have no plans whatsoever to join any party known as the SDP. I never left the PDP. I was pushed out. I did not go looking to join the APC. It was the APC that came to me at my house on December 19, 2013, appealing to me to join their party because my party, the PDP was factionalised at that time. I am one of the founding fathers of the PDP. I have absolutely no reason to contemplate leaving the PDP as those
As an opposition party, the APC was vocal to the point of exploitation on the issue of the Chibok girls’ kidnapping. They did not cut the Jonathan administration any slack. They criticised that government every step of the way and some may even claim that they undermined the then government’s efforts at resolving that unfortunate incident. So it is rather surprising that a set of people who were so unsparing in their critique of the previous government would be in a situation whereby they have allowed these same terrorists kidnap 110 girls