Ogun: Why I am Routing for Peter Obi
A People’s Democratic Party (PDP) member of the House of Representatives, Hon. Serguis Ogun, in this interview with Udora Orizu, explains why he believes Labour Party’s Presidential Candidate, Peter Obi, is the best marerial to lead Nigeria come 2023. Ex
The primaries are over and the country is now gearing towards the general election. Looking back, what were your observations? I think the primaries especially for the two major political parties, the APC and the PDP, it was a disgrace what turned out because a situation where, maybe we didn’t have these statutory delegates. In the first case, I don’t think there was anything wrong with section 84 (8) because we just copied the Electoral Act 2010, just copied, I think, section 87 or is it 78, lifted it and put it there. And if you cast your minds back since 2010 till now statutory delegates have been voting. So where did the brain wave come from that we now said people might input certain things into it and will not allow statutory delegates to vote and we now have to amend it. But the impression we were giving was that it is all tied up with the president; I never had any problem but I thought it wasn’t necessary and the day we amended it I actually said it on television that it was not necessary because I think we were dabbling too much into the political parties’ affairs. These are areas where we should leave to the political parties if we really want them to deepen the internal democracy, these are things they should handle. But well, we have had the primaries. They have come and gone and the way it turned out, I guess because the statutory delegates were not there, so it had only few people to deal with. For the national assembly election, they had to deal with the adhoc delegates, for the PDP three per ward and I think the APC, it was much more than that and for the presidential, for PDP it was one per local government, national delegates I think for the APC it was about three or five. So, they had few people to deal with and of course more money went in there. So, that is the disgrace really. That you are going to spend that much money just for somebody to emerge and a lot went down, a lot of money and this is a country that we are borrowing for practically everything; borrowing to pay salaries, borrowing to subsidize petrol, borrowing for everything and yet we had that kind of money in circulation just to buy votes at that level. I mean, if a party is going to nominate somebody, the way I know this in the past and I think the candidate of ADC said it that they put money together for the delegates because they are going to come from all over the country and for then, for their transport and accommodation. That is what I am used to. In the past when you go Benin from my state, from my local government to Benin, they will give you transport money. You give people from my ward, maybe
N5,000 or N10,000 but now that it is so heavily monetized, it is unfortunate. Well at the primaries, PDP produced Atiku and APC Tinubu and Peter Obi had to go to Labour which I think was a good thing.
Labour Party’s Presidential Candidate, Peter Obi was a member of PDP, just until recently he left; how did you receive the news of his departure even though you said it is a good thing? Some people said he would have become the running mate to anyone who emerged as the presidential candidate if he had stayed put.
You can’t be too sure that Atiku would have picked him because there is rumour here and there that the Delta state Governor sank in so much. Maybe that deal was already closed before the day of the primaries. It is said that he who pays the piper dictates the tune. It is possible that stew was already cooked before the real event took place but I don’t know. These are just rumours on the street.
Would you think Obi just left without some bad blood? There were speculations that he was forced to leave by the activities of some governors before the primaries.
I think he saw the handwriting on the wall and it was a good thing he left. Was he going to be able to match Governor Wike? He was not going to be able to match Wike, neither was he going to match Atiku. He didn’t have that kind of war chest and this is a private businessman. So, serving in office is a public service and the office is a public office. So, why should you spend your entire savings, family savings to come and serve? He has the appeal. He served as a governor and he showed to the world what he can do. So, why does he need to go and break the bank to become a candidate of a political party. People should be begging him to become the candidate because we can see clearly that he has the footprint to take this country to the height we desire for it to get to. So for me, I think he saw the handwriting on the wall and it was a good thing he left otherwise he would have been humiliated.
People say he has no structure and all of that and there is so much frenzy. Those who are really campaigning for him are basically on the social media.
The structure will come. I believe that the structure will come. We need to know how TUC and NLC are standing because they are supposed to be a major party of the Labour party. Usually, when the NLC has strike or they are picketing any establishment, you see the way they come out in their numbers. For example, the National Union of Teachers (NUT), when they are on strike, they have a team to implement that strike. They go round all schools in every community. So, they have people. They have road transport workers. They have the teachers and you will agree with me that you have this set of people everywhere. In the smallest community, you will have a school and you will have a teacher. But I think we need to go and study how the Labour party works in England. It might not work like that here because here we are emotionally attached. If you are my brother and you are a member of the PDP and by virtue of my work affiliation with labour, there is every tendency that I might want to vote for my brother who is a member of PDP. That is because we are Africans. But like I said, we need to study how it works in the UK.