This interview is explosive and the
former Vice President unlike him said a lot of things ordinary he avoids
delving into and www.odogwublog.com
brings you the details.
Though it was not a Sunday, Dr Alex
Ekwueme, former Vice President, who had a scheduled interview appointment, took
The Sun team to his chapel, a sanctuary in the upper chamber of the
right wing of his house.
He had led the way from his living
room to climb the staircase to the chapel, explaining that it was the only
place the interview could be held without much distraction from visitors.
After we had ascended the ‘holy’ upper
chamber, we began the business of the day that lasted for about two hours, with
the octogenarian looking at the country, remembering what had happened as if
they occurred just yesterday, appraising power equations from independence in
1960 till now.
Dr Ekwueme, who co-founded the Peoples
Democratic Party (PDP) with some other illustrious Nigerians, also looked at
the current state of the party, saying that things have fallen apart in the PDP
envisioned to be a mass movement that would rule the country for 60 years.
He also told the story of how the
party has derailed from the original vision of the founders, and how the
leadership has abandoned him.
Looking at the crises rocking the
PDP across the country, he said that he was not sure if the successes of the
past would be the same during the February elections.
He pointedly said that President
Goodluck Jonathan may not be fortunate again to have overwhelming support like
he had in the past in the South-East, saying that he had taken the zone for
granted.
Dr Ekwueme spoke just as there are
vociferous voices from the South-East, alleging unfair treatment by the
Jonathan administration. It would be recalled that when Dr Ekwueme turned 80,
the president did not attend the ceremony, but he was in Lagos to attend the
birthday of Dr Tunji Braithwaite. Former Abia State governor, Dr Orji Uzor
Kalu, had written President Jonathan then, pointing out the possible oversight,
but the president reportedly minuted the letter to Chief Anyim Pius Anyim,
Secretary to the Government of the Federation, who merely laughed the matter off.
Just on New Year eve, Catholic
priest, Father Ejike Mbaka, had also delivered a sermon, which was very
critical of the Jonathan administration. In fact, the priest asked the
president to step out of general elections coming up next month, as he would not
get a second term in office.
Why has the party you formed turned
around to neglect you?
I told you that I have no business
being in PDP today because I am not a noisemaker. I am not created to be a
noisemaker or to create trouble, they are using it to deny me whatever is due
to me. Because you are a gentleman, you won’t disturb, rather the people who
shout and make noise, they try and accommodate themselves so that they don’t
create problems, I think it is an unfortunate approach to life. But those who
don’t make noise and don’t create troubles also have feelings as human beings
and they should not have been denied what is due to them.
If I am a trouble maker, Obasanjo
would not have been civilian President because that Jos convention where he was
elected, after the returning officer announced the results, I had in my pocket
a copy of the NEC decision of November 1998 showing that to qualify you must
win your local government. All I needed to say after the candidates’ result was
announced is ‘I’m sorry, this election which we just finished there is supposed
to be seven candidates but in fact only six, the person whom you said had won
is not a candidate and cannot be because the NEC has taken a decision and
only a convention can change that decision and no convention has been called to
change that decision, so I expect that of the six candidates left, Don Etiebet,
Francis Ola, Philip Asiodu, Jim Nwobodo, myself and Douglas, of these
candidates left I scored the highest votes; so I expect the party to forward my
name to INEC as the candidate of the party and Secretary of the party then was
Dr. Okwy Nwodo and the constitution which the party was operating at that time
for the administration of the party, the secretary of the party is the chief
executive of the party, the chairman was just like the chairman of a board of a
company. It was later that we changed it and made the chairman chief executive
of the party. And if I had done that, Nwodo would have been bound to forward my
name to INEC. And Solomon Lar who was instrumental in Obasanjo running in the
first place by asking the screening committee to give him provisional
clearance, which was never substantive before the election, would have
forwarded Obasanjo’s name to INEC, so PDP, which was a frontline party would
have had two candidates and there might have been crisis and the military might
have postponed exit for us to resolve.
And I don’t want my personal ambition
to be the reason for prolonged military rule in Nigeria, which I risked my life
to fight against. So, I embraced Obasanjo and greeted him. Three weeks after
that, at the dinner fund raising for him, I chaired the dinner at the
conference hall of Hilton and in the East here I paid for broadcast in all the
nine FRCN stations in the former Eastern Nigeria, saying that they should
support Obasanjo. So, as I said maybe because I am not a troublemaker I have
been taken for granted, anybody can step on my toes and I’m not given what is
due to me but there is a limit to one’s acceptance of humiliations and
provocations and one will come to say enough is enough.
If you had gone ahead to become the
President of Nigeria, we know that Presidents run the country based on party
manifesto, would you have made any difference bearing in mind that you have
same PDP party manifesto to guide you?
Of course, yes. Presidents make
impacts because of their personal stamp of administration. For instance, you
don’t tell me that Obasanjo’s presidency, of course, they were on PDP
manifesto, was not different from Yar’Adua’s or Goodluck Jonathans,’ the
incumbent president. The presidency must have an imprint of the person who has
the presidential power, so I would have given Nigeria something different.
So, in essence the Yar’Adua/Jonathan
presidency is better than that of Obasanjo?
No, I am not saying that, each one
has its merits and demerits.
How would you assess that of the
President Jonathan. How would you see the presidency under Jonathan?
Well, it’s not a question you should
be asking me really, as long as I’m in PDP, I cannot come out to say PDP
president is rubbish, except that each president must have his own decision
making capabilities and must make a personal input in the presidency for which
he will be remembered. Some are remembered for what they have done and some are
remembered for just having occupied that seat.
But many believe he has lost grip
because of what is happening in the
country. You can see insurgency in the North, kidnapping and all the rest of
them in the South, because of all these people said he has lost grip?
Well, you should bear in mind that
this trouble in the North-East didn’t start with Jonathan. At a time insurgents
were occupying local government headquarters in Yobe State before Jonathan
even came on the scene, but it escalated after Jonathan was elected and 2011.
Stories connect it to some statements made in 2011 that if Jonathan wins, they
will make the country ungovernable. And after the election, insurgents took
over a whole region of a country that out of 26 local government areas in Borno
State, Boko Haram is in charge of 22. So, it’s a situation that is not
necessarily of Jonathan’s making. However, his approach to it, it’s a matter
of approach. In our time we had Maitatsine, I think in the same Borno State,
the same Maiduguri but President Shehu Shagari didn’t waste time in crushing
them. They resurfaced in Kano, we faced them again squarely, surfaced in Sokoto
State, his own state, in area that was our showpiece for rural development,
irrigation, there they were finally crushed, they didn’t rear their heads again
until we finished. Then when Buhari came in 1984, they resurfaced again this
time in Yola and he dealt with them as well. Some people said that you can’t
kill insurgency with the force of arms, but even insurgents are not immortal,
except for few who are suicidal elements; many of them don’t want to die in the
final analysis. So, if you face them squarely, they are bound to retreat.
How is your relationship with
President Jonathan?
Well, if I should describe, I will
say the relationship is cordial, but that doesn’t mean that he gives me my due
or that I endorse every action he takes, that’s how I can put it. I try to make
our relationship as cordial as I could.
But he has been going around seeing
some of the party leaders, recently he was in Minna and we have not heard that
Jonathan came to see Dr Ekwueme, yet you said you have a cordial relationship
with him?
It’s a good question to ask him
because Obasanjo was here in this house in November 1998. While he was
President and on visit to Anambra State, he slept in this house in my bedroom.
He came here and we had dinner with Anambra leaders, traditional rulers,
political leaders and others and he spent the night here and the next morning
he went on visit to some projects and he left. When he came again on a state
visit, he couldn’t sleep here because the governor insisted that he sleep at
the Government Lodge but he came here for lunch. I’m giving you examples,
Jonathan since he became President has visited Anambra State severally but he
hasn’t come to this compound, so I’m using it as an example.
Does it not mean that your relationship
with him is not cordial instead as you claimed?
It is cordial, but maybe he doesn’t
appreciate that without my risking my life there would have been no PDP and
the popularity that made it possible for him to become the President of
Nigeria. Okay, I know, for instance, my friend Braithwaite of NAP had his
birthday, the President went to Lagos to celebrate with him but I had my 80th
birthday and he did not come.
Was he invited?
The whole Nigeria was invited. Of
course, he was invited but he did not appear personally at any of the events,
even the ones in Abuja. So, it is a matter of style.
Let’s come to your state. You co-founded
PDP and one would have expected that your state should be core PDP but over the
years it’s APGA that holds sway here, what happened?
In the1999 election, Anambra State
in the presidential election gave the highest number of votes throughout the whole
federation to PDP. The state was 100 per cent PDP as it was from Anambra State
that they sent people to go to other states including Baylesa to set up PDP
state branches. But then we are in Nigeria, at one stage I suspected that the
then President Obasanjo was not so happy that PDP was in control of my state,
when he had no state executive and there was a deliberate effort to disorganise
PDP in this state. Even some people went as far as burning the government
property. So, the party was disorganised, and in fact, the emergence of Peter
Obi was as a result of protest votes by PDP members.
Now, we have election in less than
two months, people are disgruntled. At the last election, the state voted
overwhelmingly for President Jonathan, we had the highest per cent of all the
six geo-political zones for the President. In less than two months when
elections are held, many people from South- East may not vote for Muhammadu
Buhari for reasons which I will not go into now, but it does not necessarily
mean they will vote for Jonathan because of how things have evolved. Many will
not vote at all. Not casting their votess at all is a minus for the President,
so he shouldn’t take the South-East for granted that it will be the same 99 per
cent votes that will come from the South- East in 2015. It might not be.
Is it too late for PDP to make
amends and revive its fortunes?
Well, because the leadership of the
PDP in every state in the South-East does not have coherency, well organised
PDP structure today. Ebonyi is in disarray, Enugu is abdicated, Abia, Anambra
have about six different factions, Imo is not serious at that, so it requires
hard work for PDP to bring together the South-East to how it was eight years
ago. My worry is that many of them in the leadership of PDP don’t even realise
that there is this danger, they think it is business as usual, so they take
South-East for granted that they will vote that same way they voted, 90 per
cent of vote to President Jonathan, it may not happen.
So, in the heat of this crisis, did
you make any effort to advise the gladiators?
One of them, I won’t mention names,
who was most offended by the machinations of the party headquarters, when he
wanted to leave the party, I talked to him and said, I am still in this party
in spite of what has happened over the last 20 years, so why are you leaving
just because of one incident, stay and carry on in PDP as you used to do, and
he listened to me.
As it is now, what is your earnest
advice to PDP to avert danger in the upcoming elections?
Go down to those offended in all the
states, and make peace with them. Actually, call genuine reconciliation and do
give and take to accommodate all. Not if you take a decision today, one group
comes you promise you will do this, next week another group comes you say a
different thing and you follow that group, that is not how to bring the party
together.
Your Excellency, the problem of PDP
appears to be that of lack of internal democracy, why is it difficult for
internal democracy to reign in your party?
If you read our report, half of it
is devoted to internal democracy. If there is internal democracy and somebody
loses primary election he will not go crazy about it and start being
destructive. But if things are not done fairly that is what causes trouble most
of the times. The problem of internal democracy is linked to lack of
integrity, equity and justice.
When your presidential ambition was
truncated, one would have expected that subsequently you would launch back to
actualise your dream, why did you jettison that dream?
Well, it was truncated actually in
1999, and I have talked about how the election went and somebody who was not
qualified in the first place was given the ticket. But four years after that, I
tried again, people told me that I was wasting my time contesting against the
incumbent who has all the resources and the power of information and so on. In
spite of that, I felt I had some ideas that would benefit Nigeria but it
failed.
By 2007, Obasanjo had done eight
years based on our own arrangement at the national convention that the
presidency would move to the North, so I didn’t want to utilize my opportunity
again. In 2011, Jonathan acted as President although Vice President and wanted
to actualize his own dream and I supported him.
There is this new agitation for an
Igbo man to succeed Jonathan in an unbroken line. Ohanaeze Ndigbo is
in the forefront of that campaign that it is the turn of the Igbo to produce
the next President after Jonathan. Do you think this is feasible?
The feasibility is a matter of
negotiation that in terms of justice and equity, I think the South-East is to
produce the next president. The Northern states can’t be taking the
presidency after Jonathan because for seven years the North-East had the
head of government of this country, Tafawa Balewa, the South-West had three
years of Obasanjo from the military formation, 1976 up to 1979 and then 82
days of Shonekan and eight years of Obasanjo, the North Central has had nine
years of Gowon from 1966 to 1975, eight years of Babangida, 1985 to 1993, one
year of Abdulsalami, that is 18 years.
The North-West… three years of Abacha,
so it is the South-East that has six months of Aguiyi Ironsi and South-South by
the time Jonathan takes his second term will be nine years. So, the South-East
has been short-changed and on the basis of equity and fair play, the spirit of
live and let live, everybody should support the South- East, that is why I said
it is a matter for negotiation. That is the right thing to do but whether all
Nigerians will agree to accept it is what I can’t tell now.
Back to your party PDP, as a father
you will always wish your children well, have you in anyway approached the
leadership of the party to proffer solutions to the party’s problems?
Do you think I should be looking for
the leadership of the party or the leadership of the party should be looking
for me if they have any sense of history? I will give them my advice but I will
not go to beg to do so.
But as a father, it is incumbent on
the father if his son is going astray to call him to order
We have cases in the South-East
here, South-East national offices and those offices were shared/zoned to the
five states, even the one that was zoned to Anambra State, when we had
South-East zonal meeting, I was there and people who were in APP before were
now the people sitting on the table telling me that they have decided that so,
so and so should apply and so, so should not in my own state. I told them it
was unfortunate because not only that I addressed them, I told them that what
was zoned to Anambra State should be left for Anambra State to decide how they
want to fill it. Just because you have an office in the national assembly or
state, you felt you would dictate what will happen in every state, that is what
I observed physically at the meeting.
What do you think will be the fate
of the Igbo man, looking at the two dominant parties PDP and APC. Are you not
worried that after the 2015 general election the Igbo man will still remain at
the background?
The fact is that we are the
minority. Before, we used to talk of Nigeria standing on a tripod, North,
South and East; Hausa, Yoruba and Igbo, the others were complaining. Now, the
Igbo is less effective in the list of minorities and is unfortunate.
You proposed the six geo-political
zones during the National Conference upon which things are supposed to be
distributed in this country. But today we still see that the South-East is the
only geo-political zone that still has five states while others have six and
one even seven, how do you feel about this?
In the political dialogue during
Obasanjo’s regime, it was unanimously agreed by all the delegates that the
South-East should have one additional state to make it six. It was adopted but
as usual, the South-East tendencies could not agree on which state it will be,
everybody wants it in his or her backyard, which he will control and there was
no consensus. Nothing came out of it. Whereas, if we had agreed, it would have
been pushed to the National Assembly in the constitutional way.
The Sun Interview conducted by
Chidi Nnadi and Geoffrey Anyanwu . The interview was conducted before Jonathan’s
courtesy call to Ekwueme on 10th January , 2015
‘’I was abandoned by PDP even as a founding father and former Vice President,’’ Dr Alex Ekwueme
Reviewed by Unknown
on
Saturday, January 10, 2015
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