Ndoma-Egba: PDP Needed the Shock Treatment
Outgoing Leader of the Senate, Victor Ndoma-Egba, spoke with journalists on sundry issues at his Calabar residence following the outcome of the March 28 presidential poll. Bassey Inyang presents the excerpts:
Is the rumour that you are planning to defect to APC true? Well, you said it is a rumour. If I want to take any major political step, I will tell you directly. For as long as I have not told you anything, it remains a rumour. But one thing I find very amusing is that anybody who leaves PDP today and goes to another party is an Ndoma-Egba’s supporter. That’s what I find very amusing. Meanwhile, the story before now was that I had no supporter. So, where are the supporters coming from? Anybody who leaves is an Ndoma-Egba supporter, including those who have been Chief of Staff for more than seven years, when they leave, they become my supporter.
So, I think that there is an over-simplification in our dynamics in politics in Cross River State today. We are no longer thinking deeply; we are no longer analyzing issues. We have become mentally lazy and when mental laziness comes in, it breeds impunity and impunity breeds arrogance. So, that is where we are and we are paying a very high price for the impunity that has become a culture in our party. But are you under any form of pressure to leave PDP? I have pressure, not only from my supporters, but from every quarter. But it is for me to reflect on it. But I will like to just make this point, and that is one of knowing whether what we are doing is right or wrong. After the so-called primaries nation-wide, there was a lot of traffic, a lot of movement. But that movement was in one direction, and that is where we ought to have gotten the alarm bells. It was out of PDP to other parties. We did not see a corresponding traffic from other parties into PDP. That should have sounded an alarm. Two, the crisis over the primaries were more pronounced in states that were ordinarily PDP strongholds – Rivers, Akwa Ibom, Bayelsa, Cross River, Ebonyi, Benue, Nasarawa and Adamawa – these are ordinarily strongholds of the PDP. That was where we had the crisis. So, the party was weakened long before the election and with our own complicity. So, I will advise that moving forward, parties should be owned by members of the party and not individuals no matter how powerful they are.
Because the PDP, especially at the state level, is not even a parastatal, it is worse than a parastatal. It is the personal property of certain people. And when a party depreciates to the point where it becomes the personal property of somebody, it will implode in the person’s pocket. A party is supposed to be a vehicle for a contest of ideas, but it is not so. It is now a venue for us to perfect sycophancy. This is an opportunity for the PDP to reinvent, to recreate itself and for other parties to learn that this kind of situation where the party is donated to an individual will not endure. Do you share in the view that Nigeria could become a one-party state, given the surge towards the APC? I think our concern really should be how do we ensure that the will of the people is reflected? If the will of the people reflects one party, so be it. But, if the will of the people reflects something else, my appeal is that the powers-that-be should let the will of people prevail. One big lesson that we’ve learnt from this election is that impunity is not sustainable. Impunity can only hold for a while but in the long run, it’s not sustainable and it’s going to be very costly. We’ve seen the price we have paid. Let’s take Cross River for instance; we have 1,170,000 registered voters, almost 1.2 million registered voters. We could only deliver about 400,000 to the President. That is about 30 per cent of the votes. The impunity is costing us a lot and it is going to cost us much more. So, the PDP as far as I am concerned, needed this shock treatment. We needed to be shocked back into reality and this is an opportunity. Rather than be boastful and arrogant, we should go back and do proper introspection and look at what has happened. If we think that what is going on can endure for much longer, then we are living in self-denial. Impunity is not sustainable. It is not sustainable in PDP and I believe that the APC would have learnt a lesson too that it is not. It cannot be sustainable anywhere.
I will advise that moving forward parties should be owned by members of the party and not individuals, no matter how powerful they are. The way I see it now, the people, especially at the state levels, are personal property of certain people. It depreciates to the point where it has become personal property of some people. A party is supposed to be vehicle for a contest of ideas, but it is not so. So, it is now an avenue for us to perfect sycophancy and hear who shouts the highest “Yes Sir.” What’s next for you since your Senate bid has failed? People forget that before the Senate, I had a life. I will be 38 years as lawyer in July and out of those 38 years, I spent only twelve in the Senate which means the other twenty six years, I was doing something else. I had a life; I had a busy practice as you know. So, for me, I have very many options and I am still assessing the options. But what I can assure you, I have given you that assurance before and I am giving you again, that I will remain in politics. I will be in politics and I will be there to deepen democracy both at the level of the party, and that of the polity generally. So, I am going to be an advocate, essentially for internal party democracy and for true democracy at every level. How do you intend to come in for your party given a likely potent opposition in the state by the APC? My role will depend on the PDP in the state. For almost three years, I have not been invited to a meeting by the PDP in Cross River. So, if I am shut out, I will play my role from outside. If the doors are open, then that will define the role that I play. The body language that I see is that they prefer me outside the house. What role I will play depends on where I will be standing. Am I inside the house or outside the house? Even the campaigns – they ran their campaigns I was not consulted. Anybody who was suspected to have sympathy for me
was excluded. As the seventh Senate leaves the stage, what are the things it is going to bequeath to the nation? If you look at the history of the Senate from time immemorial, you will discover that the Senate was designed to stabilise the polity in times of crisis. It wasn’t expected to descend into the arena of conflict. I have heard criticism such as ‘Oh Senate is a rubber stamp; it is not activist.’ The Senate is not designed for activism; it is designed for stability. And I believe that at very critical moments in our recent political history, where we have been constitutionally tasked, the Senate has always risen to the occasion.
You will recall that in the unfortunate absence of President Yar’Adua, it was the Senate that came up with the resourceful doctrine of necessity to get us out of a constitutional bind. If you also recall the last labour strike, as a result of the removal of the oil subsidy, it was the Senate that played a major role. So, at every stress point in our recent political history, Senate has intervened to stabilise the polity. Essentially, that is the role of the Senate – to stabilise the polity. That our democracy has endured, that we have moved from one election to another is made possible because we have a stable polity. And that stability must be credited to the Senate largely, and to the National Assembly. Now, talking about specifics, we have passed as many bills as we can possibly pass. I don’t have the statistics here. But they are far-reaching bills and we committed ourselves to an open society and that was why we were able to pass the Freedom of Information Bill which is now an Act of the National Assembly. You know, because structurally, that bill was meant to alter the way we do things, to alter the way we view public responsibility and the way we respond to public responsibilities, so, I think that the Senate has done fairly well given the circumstances of our political history. You were a commissioner when Buhari was Head of State and you can be said to know him. What do you think his democratic administration given high expectations? He is a no nonsense person. I remember I was commissioner for works and transport. The state was then present day Akwa Ibom and Cross River. It was from Ikot Abasi to Obanliku. And there were only seven commissioners in what is now two states. We were only seven. My ministry then is eight ministries today and I was 27 and I had no difficulties coping with the responsibilities of the office. It was because of the kind of system that we had. They had efficiency. Everything had a time table. Deliverables had a time line. If N2million was budgeted for a 10 kilometre road, you will come up with a programme to show how much of the N2million that would be used at what time and when the project will be completed; and it was done. The state executive council had only eleven members, and then we had a representative of the army the navy and the police plus seven civil commissioners. So, what I have said is that his bureaucracy – that is his cabinet is going to be much leaner than we have today. Unfortunately, the constitution has restrained him because you must appoint a minister from each state of the federation. So, I don’t expect to see more than 36 ministers, which is what the constitution has provided. He has always believed in a lean team and he believes that it is easier for a lean team to fly than an overweight team.
One big lesson that we’ve learnt from this election is that impunity is not sustainable. Impunity can only hold for a while but in the long run, it’s not sustainable and it’s going to be very costly... The impunity is costing us a lot and it is going to cost us much more. So, the PDP as far as I am concerned, needed this shock treatment