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It’ll take APC 20 years to reach PDP’s size –Ben Obi

In this interview featured on African Independent Television (AIT), a chieftain of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and former Secretary of the Caretaker Committee of the party, Senator Ben Obi, delves into a wide range of issues in the polity and governance in the country

 

 

Last year came with all sorts of challenges, particularly the pandemic. How do you see the new year? The year 2020 was indeed a very troubling year. There were so many problems ranging from terrorism to the pandemic, the political disorders,

 

etc. With 2020 gone now, the first thing we have to do is to put our heads together and face the equally troubling situations that have occurred in this country that is disturbing the peace and tranquility of this country. The country is thoroughly challenged, there is no question about that.

 

It is important to know that there is a government that has the responsibility of taking charge of problems like these. The question is: Have they done so? Are they doing so?

 

Are they willing to do so?

 

There is a saying in my place that when a king governs well, it is because there are people around the king that tell the king the truth. In this situation, I believe a good number of those around President Muhammadu Buhari are not telling him what is happening outside.

 

President Buhari cannot be everywhere so they have a duty to present to him the true scorecard of the situation. Nigerians are unhappy. Nigerians are suffering. With the pandemic the situation became unbearable so any little thing that you have now can ignite a lot of problems in this country.

 

You served as a presidential adviser and you were around the President. So you understand the intricacies and the dynamics. Is it by structure or design? How do we always get to a point where we get the wrong persons around our leaders?

 

Unfortunately, the situation that has arisen is such that the team around the president does not have the kind of access some of us had when we were advisers to President Goodluck Jonathan. Those who have access to him are not doing the right thing and those who are defending the policies of the government are in most cases defending wrongly.

 

That is the problem. I had instances of walking up to President Jonathan to tell him: Mr. President, we are going in a wrong direction and if we do not stop it now, we will have problems. I did that when we had the fuel protest in 2012 that shook the nation very strongly.

 

I also did that when Boko Haram started and the issue was being politicised by all political parties. I went to Mr. President and said to him, ‘we need an all party summit so we can stop the politicisation of the Boko Haram.’ You don’t politicise matters with terrorists; all parties must be on the same page.

 

That was how we had the All Parties Summit on June 12, 2014. I was able to convince General Muhammadu Buhari, as he then was, to attend the summit. They never believed he will attend but he did.

 

Are we seeing similar initiatives or nonpartisan approach now?

 

When the President was away in England undergoing treatment, we had the PDP care taker committee under the chairmanship of Ahmed Makarfi and I was national secretary.

 

It was the mandate of the committee that for every public function, we prayed for his quick recovery to come back and handle the assignment given to him by the Nigerian people.

 

When he returned, in agreement with Makarfi, I called the then Chief of Staff, Mallam Abba Kyari of blessed memory and I said to him: ‘the PDP will want to welcome the President on his quick recovery’ and he said: ‘I will call you back.’ Indeed, three hours later he called me and said the President has given us 1.00pm.

 

Two hours after, he called and said to me, ‘I hope we don’t mind if he includes the APC’ and I said, the more the merrier. We went on that visit. The purpose of that visit under the leadership of Makarfi was to create an opportunity for the President to start an all-party meeting, that was what we tried to do but it evaporated.

 

You can’t run a democracy without having some kind of understanding with the political parties and APC has to understand that they are the ruling party today but APC is not as big as the PDP. There is a huge difference between the PDP and the APC.

 

But in terms of the number of governors and control of states, are they not ahead of your party?

 

We know all those things. Let’s not go into it because the reality is that, as we speak today, there are certain localities where you do not even have APC; like in the South-East and South -South geopolitical zones. The PDP remains the largest party in the country. There is no doubt about it.

 

Is it because of the fact that PDP was in power for 16 years that it was able to achieve this and APC has had just six years?

 

The founding fathers of the PDP did a lot of work. They mobilised and galvanised Nigerians and being in power for 16 years is not a joke but a serious business. Of course, with all sense of humility, it will take APC, 20 years to achieve that premise in terms of political spread and acceptability.

 

The one man riot squad in the APC remains President Muhammadu Buhari and even some APC members have said that once Buhari is out of the scene, only God will save the party. Even key politicians have said the same thing and they know it is the truth. A President who is closing his doors to some of his advisers?

 

It’s hard to take. If you, including ministers and others, have any correspondence, you have to take it to the Chief of Staff or Secretary to the Government of the Federation.

 

What do you think could be the reason why access is now a problem for presidential advisers?

 

The problem started when they were appointed; that was when they could have drawn the road map on how to function; that is when you go as the appointee to meet the President and agree on what days of the week you can have audience with him.

 

You can agree with him on how many times in a week or in one month that you will have audience with him. It’s your responsibility to secure that you don’t have to wait for the Chief of Staff because the Chief of Staff is an appointee and an adviser like yourself except that he is the chief adviser.

 

Once you have put these things in place clearly, then you go to the Chief of Staff and say this is what we have agreed upon, but all of them, including the ministers appear so scared of going to the President.

 

So the President said since that has happened, pass all the files through the Chief of Staff and that’s why they have a problem. Under President Olusegun Obasanjo, the access was there but of course he will tell you, the advisers at the swearing in that your duty will be to advise, mine is to accept or reject it.

 

At least there is an acceptance part of it and a rejection part of it so you can understand that in 10 cases he might accept three, four, five, or even six. But in this case, the access is difficult and it is because they did not confront him from day one to secure the access.

 

What do you see as the impact of this no access?

 

If the access is not there, the president is forced to rely on official reports and briefings and this raises a lot of concerns because information could become distorted along the line. For example, it was wrong information that led to the invasion of Iraq by the United States and its allies. At

 

what point can we trust the official briefs and reports going to the President?

 

The problem I have there is we need to know how the security apparatus is being coordinated today. In our time, the National Security Adviser (NSA) coordinated the entire security apparatus, so he distills all information that comes to him and proceeds to Mr. President with an executive summary and in most cases, they were perfect, correct and uncontestable. But today, what you see is disagreement between the security agencies so it does not help matters.

 

We find a lot of confusing issues in governance today and added to all of that, is that in this country, once elections are come and gone, and the president is sworn in, our political leaders do not wait for governance to commence, they start politics for the next election. It is wrong, it is unacceptable.

 

When I went into politics in 1978, I went into politics believing it is for the noble to serve and fortunately for me, I met the founding fathers, so I went through proper political tutelage from Dr, Nanmdi Azikiwe, to Chief Obafemi Awolowo, to Shehu Shagari to Waziri Ibrahim to Aminu Kano and my late leader and brother, Tunji Braithwhite. I met the masters.

 

In 1983, when there was a lot of crisis in the country, late Dr. Chuba Okadigbo, as presidential adviser to Shagari, wrote a memo to him and advised that the government needed to meet with three of the topmost leaders of each political party to douse the tension in the country.

 

President Shagari approved it. So every three months, all the top leaders of the six political parties will meet with President Shehu Shagari and every one of them comes to the table with issues and problems affecting them.

 

If it is with the Police, the Inspector General of Police, Sunday Adewusi is standing by and if with the Army, you have the Chief of Army Staff.

 

All the security agencies are put in place to attend to issues so it douses the tension and that was exactly what we were trying to do when we went to welcome the President and thought that they will seize the opportunity to work with others outside the ruling party. They need a skipper in the team who will initiate some of those things and be able to convince him.

Even if it is the cabal that is advising the President, a skipper will be able to convince the cabal that look, two years from now the President will leave, what legacy is he leaving behind? It is important. I have a personal relationship with President Buhari. So I am a bit worried that certain things are not being done, but it is not my duty as a member of the opposition to guide him.

 

In fact my duty is to expose completely the inadequacies of the ruling party and the government of the day. It is the duty I owe to Nigerians. But as a patriot and an experienced politician, I also should be able to say these are the things that are wrong or going wrong in the system.

 

You talked about the absence of a rallying point in the ruling party. Did the PDP enjoy such privilege?

 

Yes, we did. I just told you about the All Party Summit which President Buhari attended. The day I went to discuss the matter with the interim chairman of APC,

 

Chief Bisi Akande, Asiwaju, Bola Tinubu was there so it was a perfect opportunity. As soon as I left the two of them, went to the former Vice President, Atiku Abubakar to inform him; I went to Bukola Saraki to seek his support before I went to meet Buhari. I got the buy in, they said I should write. I wrote. It was discussed at their NEC meeting and unanimously endorsed.

 

The problem here unfortunately is to your tents O Israel, that is what is happening in the ruling party today and it’s sad. One might be right to say that the late Chief Tony Anenih played significant roles for the PDP and that’s why he was called Mr. Fix It.

 

He did so many things and thank God he was very politically sharp and astute. Although some persons didn’t like his approach but then the issue was resolved for the party and for the President

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