Your party, the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP is deeply embattled, hit by a gale of defections both at the national level and in Edo State. How worried are you?
No, no, no; in Edo, the real officers from the ward to the state level, none of them has so far defected. So, those people that have defected are those people who came to look for daily bread and they see the situation on the ground as an opportunity to say okay, let us go and safeguard what we have achieved so far; that is why they are defecting. It’s not because they love where they are now better than where they are leaving.
So, to me, those defections don’t make any meaning to us, and it does not move us at all. As far as we are concerned, PDP as a party is still very stable because the officers are still together and we are not shaken.
We can understand the crisis at the national level. It has been there for some time now. But to me, when people say there is crisis in the party at the state level, I disagree with them totally because as far as we are concerned, those people that are loyal to (Dan) Orbih that he has gone to open a secretariat for, they have been working with APC since, and they are not members of PDP. They are APC and their mission is, they want to destroy the party and by the grace of God, they will not succeed.
They are pretending to be PDP, but they know that they are not PDP. Ask them, what party did they vote for in the last election. Ask them, that party secretariat they are using now, who paid for it? Is it not Philip Shaibu? That was Philip Shaibu’s campaign office. So, let nobody try to assume and believe in them in their claim that there is crisis in the PDP. There is no crisis whatsoever in Edo PDP.
Their claim is that former governor Obaseki destroyed the party.
It takes two to tango. Yes, Obaseki had his own fault. What of Orbih and his people, including myself? I was with Orbih. We left Obaseki to play the game alone and the man took advantage of it. What did we do to want to work with Obaseki, to say okay, like when Obaseki will call a meeting – Orbih was the national vice chairman, South-South. I was the state deputy chairman. Hilary Otsu was the secretary. If any of us went to the meeting of the PDP called by the state chairman, Aziegbemi then to attend the meeting with them and say no, what you are doing is not correct, this is what is correct, will they drive us? Will they fight us?
So, when they say Obaseki, everything Obaseki, whether we like it or not, Obaseki was elected to give governance to the state, and the question is, did he give governance, and the answer is yes. He gave governance and he took Edo from where it was to where it has a better stand. As far as I am concerned, it has nothing to do with party issue at all. The party ought to have been allowed to manage itself and allow Obaseki to govern because as the governor of the state, he was governor to PDP, governor to APC, governor to SDP, governor to all the parties. He is governor of the people of Edo State.
They accuse him of bringing people from outside Edo for patronage, giving what ordinarily should have gone to party men to outsiders.
Whether he brought people from outside to come and do jobs or take jobs or whatever, the person there now, what is he doing? Is he bringing people from Ubiaja or bringing people from Irrua? Are people not coming from Lagos, Kaduna and Abuja to come and do the same job in Benin? So, when people are saying what they are saying, it is rather unfortunate. For example, look at the issue of the candidate of the PDP, Asue Ighodalo. People were now saying because of Obaseki, they won’t vote for Asue Ighodalo. What has Obaseki got to do with Asue Ighodalo?
They were two different persons, and I am always quick at asking people, point to one state in the country today where a candidate emerged without the support of the incumbent governor. And again, also point to one state when that candidate emerged to be governor where he becomes very subservient to the immediate past governor. There is none. So, why would they want to take Obaseki’s own to be different?
Instead of them to look at the achievements and developments Obaseki had brought to the state and say okay, how do we move from this stage to the next level, you are bringing in unnecessary issues and dragging us back to bring somebody that does not know the technicality of governance. And some people will say the friend of my enemy is my enemy. That is absolute rubbish. In life, there is no part two; everything about life is part one. You live your life for the day. That is the bitter truth.
With the way members of the opposition are trooping to APC, there is the fear that the country is drifting to a one-party State. What is your take?
Honestly speaking, the issue of becoming a one-party State is the minutest of the Nigerian problem. When you look at social media and see the way our soldiers are being decimated by little ants in the name of terrorism, and they are gaining ground, and the question is, are our soldiers not trained enough? The question is, is all the money that has been budgeted to buy armaments for national security not being spent? We should rather think of that; it’s not about a one-party State at all. Are our lives secured? This was Nigeria that went to help to solve a similar problem in Sierra Leone, in Liberia, now we are having it, our soldiers are being decimated every day, nobody is talking about it.
When the APC government of President Buhari opened the northern borders to bring Fulanis into the country, nobody asked questions. When Fulanis were hiding under cows to come into the South and entered our forests, nobody was asking questions. Today, our farmers can’t go to the farms across the southern belt of Nigeria, nobody is talking about that, we are talking about one-party State.
The National Assembly resolved to hold a security summit to address all these problems you have raised. Is this a step in the right direction?
What kind of summit? The unfortunate thing here is that everybody in Nigeria is about belle (the stomach). People are talking about safety, in their comfort zone that are looking out for their belle. They want to get the comfort for themselves. Nobody is talking about how we salvage the ship of the country. Nobody is talking about what brought us to where we are. Nobody is talking about that.
That is why when somebody just woke up one day and said Emilokan, that it’s my turn, and then people started making jest with it and the man really got there. And today, yes, all candidates campaigned that if they won the election, they were going to remove the fuelsubsidy. But when you were removing the fuel subsidy, what were the alternatives? What were the arrangement to ameliorate the sufferings of the people?
Overnight, the price of everything went up over 1,000%, nobody is talking about that. The country has become so mesmerised, and people still sit down and start talking about primordial issues like one-party State, summit; what kind of summit? Summit for what? Let us tell ourselves the home truth. Buhari should be brought back to ask why did you open the northern borders for these Fulani to come into this country? What were your intentions?
And the unfortunate thing is that the people in the northern part of the country align with these Fulanis who are not Nigerians. Afterall, there are Yorubas who are not Nigerians; the Yoruba in Lagos and Abeokuta, do they allow them to flock into the country? Do they align with them? But these northerners, they still align with these Fulani who are non-Nigerians. Afterall, we have been living peacefully with Fulanis in the past. Let us look at ourselves face to face and tell ourselves the truth. Abba!
But your members defecting to the APC claimed they did so because the president is doing so well and they want to identify with him and also benefit from his development programmes.
You are living in Nigeria; can you in all sincerity point to one thing that oh, this is the area where the president has excelled. Those people are just there taking advantage of the hunger in the land, and they will go and collect millions. Maybe when they get to the village, they will give some few coins to people and the people will say that they are good. So, to sustain the millions they are collecting, they sing all sorts of praises of the president, is that right? It’s not.
I speak the way I speak because many people fear to die, they say make I nor go die. The reality of life is that we all live to die. Nobody is going to live forever.
How did the defection of Governor Sheriff Oborevwori and his predecessor in particular, Dr. Ifeanyi Okowa, your vice-presidential candidate, come to you?
Okowa, when in 2020, Akpabio was going to decamp to the APC, Oshiomhole said now that you have decamped to the APC, your sins are forgiven. As of that time, Akpabio had billions of naira cases at the EFCC. He was the Senate minority leader, so he quickly went to APC and truly, the sins were forgiven. EFCC never talked about those cases again, and today, he is Senate President.
The same thing, Okowa. Okowa had cases of billions of naira, even trillion, on his head in EFCC, now he ran into APC hoping that the case would be dropped. That is unfortunate, very, very unfortunate.
He was quoted as saying that he regretted running as vice-presidential candidate to Atiku. How do you react to this?
Whereas, between you and I, the real cause of the problem that PDP is suffering today was caused by him. Number one, if he knew that he was not man enough, was not strong enough to be able to help Atiku to win that presidency, he shouldn’t have lobbied for it, because he lobbied for it.
If Wike, whether we like it or not was given this thing, Wike, by all intents and purpose, and everything on earth politically, would have proven to be of more political substance than Okowa. Okowa could not even deliver himself to the PDP, but Wike delivered his state to the party he was supporting. If Atiku had picked him as his running mate, Wike would have delivered Rivers State to PDP. Am I lying? That is the gospel truth. The problem at the national level of the party, Okowa was one of it; he cannot run away from it.
But the way PDP is handling the Wike menace, it’s like he has become a sacred cow that cannot be sanctioned.
No, no, no, you see, let us be frank to ourselves. To whom much is given, much is expected. Whether you like it or not, Wike has paid his dues in this party. Once upon a time, everybody, including Atiku himself, abandoned the party. It was Wike that single-handedly financed the party and carried the party to where it is. The party was unfair to him, that is the truth.
Now that he has taken the path that he is taking, let’s call a spade a spade, let the party be bold enough to say my friend, we know you did the best for us in the past, now, we wish you goodbye. We wish him goodbye, and we move on. But this one that they are now playing Tom and Jerry, playing hide-and-seek with him, that is not the best for the party.
Are you saying Wike should be expelled?
They should tell him to go? Yes, because whether we like it or not, the man has demonstrated that he’s not wishing us well. He keeps showing that he wishes Jagaban (President Tinubu) to continue and if he’s wishing Jagaban to continue, it means he will not be there to support the candidate that PDP will bring out for the 2027 election. So, for that reason, the earlier we ask him to go the better for all of us.
How do you see the Rivers debacle and the predicament of the suspended Governor Fubara?
Well, it’s unfortunate that Fubara found himself in the entanglement he is. But in life, once you want to fight anybody, don’t fight shy; fight dirty. For Christ’s sake, you are the governor of a state. Is it not governor that Wike did that made him this powerful? Now you are the governor, somebody from outside is fighting you and he’s succeeding, then you are a foolish governor. That is the bitter truth. We call a spade a spade
The last time he spoke publicly, he said do you know I still want to go back? My spirit has left the place. And people are saying why not just resign.
That is it! You sit down; you just do what you want to do. You are fighting shy. For Christ’s sake, is money not the bullet and gun these days? When you do the needful and you win them over, when next Wike will call them, they will be the one to tell Wike let us meet the governor first. But you are there, Wike is from outside calling the shots on top of your head, haba!
Your party is making efforts at reconciliation by setting up a committee. What is your expectation?
Well, I don’t know; all I know is that Senator Saraki and Wike are both in the same boat so, if the reconciliation is going to work, I don’t see sincerity in it. let us pray that at the end of the day, the party will be able to reconcile.
A major issue is that of who the national secretary is. How do you resolve that?
Before 2027, there would be a convention. That is one. And then two, the Supreme Court has said it is the party that decides the party’s affairs. That is why this Anambra issue the other day, I learnt that (Umar) Damagun in his normal style, took the form to Senator Samuel Anyanwu to sign. INEC rejected it, sent it back Gradually, I think everything in the party will find its footing.