APC Plotting to Use SARS to Win Rivers Governorship Poll in 2019
office: it does not matter who or how. And that is why it takes them time to settle for governance. You must have to prepare yourself. So, the party was not prepared for governance. It was only prepared to take over the reins of power and that is what we are seeing today. Much as people are disappointed, I knew from the beginning that the APC will not offer Nigerians what they want; to take them to the El Dorado. I know that most of them in APC are just people who had grievances against Jonathan; therefore Jonathan must leave. It is a formation of people who do not have the same ideology. You can see the crisis in the party today. Never mind that PDP had its own crisis as an opposition party, but we have come out of it. But APC, a ruling party, cannot hold a convention since they came to power. It is unheard of; it has never happened.
So, what are you telling Nigerians?
What I am telling them is that no more hope for them in APC. Nigerians should vote APC out of power. You see, the strategy of APC is always the blame game: ‘we did not promise this’; ‘we did not say we will solve this problem in two years…’ Nigerians should not have anything to do with that party again. The only hope they have is PDP. You cannot compare what PDP has done and what APC has done. You cannot compare. The facts are there. It is not an issue of fighting corruption just to victimise people. That is what is going on. So, I believe that Nigerians will not make the mistake of voting for APC again.
APC talks about PDP’s 16 years of waste and that seems to resonate with Nigerians. Don’t you agree?
It is resonates with gullible Nigerians. Now if you say 16 years of waste, the majority of those who are in APC today were in PDP: some were governors for eight years, some were senators for eight years, and some were the speaker for eight years. Are they saying they could not achieve anything when they were in office? Bukola Saraki was in PDP; Kwakwanso was in PDP; Amaechi was in PDP, and many of others. In fact, 70 per cent of them were PDP members. So, how can they talk about PDP’s 16 years of waste? It is clear that when you do not have anything to offer, you start blaming people. You say you are fighting corruption, how many people have you convicted? So, nobody is interested in these stories. Nigerians are saying they prefer the PDP government. Tell me one thing Nigerians have benefitted under the APC?
You have become the rallying point for the revival of PDP with many blaming you and Governor Ayodele Fayose for bringing Modu Sheriff to lead the party. What do you have to say?
First of all, I don’t think I am the rallying point. I believe that every stakeholder has a role to play. All the governors came together and said that we must put our acts together. We must put our house together to see that our party bounces back. So every governor played a role. Other stakeholders also played a role to make sure that we came out the crisis. So, I want to commend all the stakeholders, the governors who came together to say this is the way to go. So, it has nothing to do with me as the rallying point.
It is also not correct that I was one of those who brought Modu Sheriff. I always tell people that when you go to a meeting and issues are discussed, even if your own ideas were not accrued, the moment the majority takes a decision it becomes part of your decision. So, you do not come back to say you were not the one who suggested that. That is not leadership. So, yes we thought that Senator Ali Modu Sheriff, based on his experience as former governor, a senator and former chairman of an opposition party, he had what it takes to lead the party. The mistake we did was that we did not run a background check on him and when we discovered it on time, we had to act. So, the issue is not whether you brought somebody or not. If you brought somebody and you found out that the person has no capacity, what would you do? That was what we did by making sure he was booted out of office.
Until a few weeks to the convention, the chairmanship was zoned to the South-West. At what stage did your party jettison that arrangement?
The zoning was not concretised. Mind you, that convention, then, did not take place. And a lot of things had happened. Circumstances came up. In politics, it is not one plus one is two. You have to look at the circumstances we are in now. It is germane that you take somebody who has what it takes to lead as the opposition party. And if you are doing that you won’t narrow it to a particular area. When you narrow it to a particular area, it means you have somebody in mind. So, some of now said, why not open this thing let the best hand come out within the South. That was what happened. When people made the allegation that I was one of the persons who denied the South-West the chairmanship slot – that’s not fair. Mind you, and that is what I tell politicians, you must keep your house in order when you want to fight a war.
If your house is not in order, it may affect you. The point I am making is that I felt I know Uche Secondus very well. He has been a party person. He has been a chairman of the party at the state level for over eight years. From there, he became the Deputy National Chairman of the party. Who will be in a position to lead the party than such a person? Not somebody who will say I am one of the founding fathers of the party. There are many founding fathers. That you are one of the persons who founded PDP does not mean you can run the party. They are two different things. For instance, we are meeting and we say we want to form an association. Who will lead the associa- tion? The mere fact that I am one of those who formed that association does not mean I can run the association. There are those who have the skills. I think a governor is leading that committee – Governor Dickson of Bayelsa. From what I hear, I think he is doing well and given the responses, even if they have not submitted their report, from what I hear, people are responding very well.
This Fresh PDP that has opened a secretariat in Abuja, are we experiencing a replay of the New PDP saga?
Some people are just looking for how to be relevant. Just mention those people. All the chairmanship aspirants have all conceded defeat, and some people are coming to say something else. You know it is very painful. They say Fresh PDP – what does that mean? So, for me, no attention should be given to them.
Do you see PDP getting its act together to win next year’s election?
Of course. We are doing a lot of things which I may not be able to reveal to you. So many things are being put together to make sure that we take over power in 2019. It may not be easy knowing how rash this government, who does not believe in democracy, is. What they believe is that they do everything and announce results no matter how the results are got. But what they fail to know is that Nigeria has passed that stage. When you do that, then you are pushing your luck too far. I believe that with what PDP is doing today I see the likelihood, and with the yearnings of Nigerians for the real change, because they cannot continue under this hardship, we have very big hope.
The governors met and approved the President’s request to withdraw N1 billion from the Excess Crude Account to fight Boko Haram. Were you part of that meeting and what is your take on that?
No, I was not at that meeting. My deputy was also not at that meeting. But let me tell you the simple truth. Money that belongs to everybody means that my state has a share. That you met and agreed does not mean that my state has agreed that you take part of our share. It is everybody’s money. When have you become governors to approve that you take money from Excess Crude Account? Why is it that governors will not approve that the money they are getting