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Deputy National Chairman of the Senator Ali Modu Sheriff
faction of the Peoples Democratic Party(PDP), Dr. Cairo Ojougboh has
said that the main opposition party would come out stronger from the
internal crisis bedeviling it. In this interview with some journalists,
he speaks on various issues, saying the PDP crisis would strengthen
democracy in Nigeria.
What is the state of affairs in your party, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP)?
Our party is very, very strong. The NWC set a committee on
mobilization and strategy and they went round the entire country and
when they submitted that report, they said the party is very strong at
the grassroots; that the party is well represented in every ward in the
774 local governments in this country and that the people are desirous
of PDP putting its house in order so that they can strategise and get
ready for election as quickly as possible. That is the state of the
party.
Do you think that with the effort you are making amid the
protracted crisis that has bedeviled the leadership all this while that
the party still has a future?
Well, we are optimistic that the Court of Appeal will give its
judgement very soon. The Court of Appeal adjourned for judgement and you
know that they have a period of 90 days within which to come up with
their judgement. As I have always said, there will be no legal solution
to the problem of the PDP but the legal solution is a prelude to a
political solution. So, as soon as the Court of Appeal gives its
judgement, a general meeting will be called where everybody will know
his right and then, we will all sit down in a room and we will take it
from there. I am very optimistic that the National Convention of the
party will hold within the first quarter of 2017. That is the way I look
at it because people have talked about mega party; of course, the PDP
is a brand and a lot of leaders have rejected the issue of a mega party;
people have talked about change of name. Of course, the founding
fathers have said that the reason they are keeping quiet, is for the
people of impunity to leave the party and they will return. They’ve said
look, that the slogan of the party is “Power to the people”. In fact,
it was Bamanga Tukur who said it when we visited him some few days ago
and luckily, he too is in touch with most leaders of the party and I am
of the opinion that they will not accede to change of name and that is
the general conclusion.
Of course, the custodians of the right of the party is Alhaji Senator
Ali Modu Sheriff; he is also of the opinion that we rebuild the party
and that is where we are today.
When you talk about the National Working Committee, how did the
members come into place because we are not aware that they held a
convention? How did they come about?
The National Working Committee is still in place because their tenure
will expire sometime in 2017 according to the court judgement of
Mohammed J. of Abuja, and then also the interlocutory order of Buba in
Lagos. And then it was only the unfortunate Liman judgement that of
course, the Court of Appeal in Abuja has described as unfortunate, that
brought all these crises in the PDP. But basically, the National Working
Committee in the last six months, we sat down, set up committees to
look properly at the way of repositioning the party and to review the
constitution of the party and then we came up with three major additions
to what we agreed in May. Number one, that after governors have done
their second terms and presidents too and party chairmen, in the
subsequent election and primaries, no governor or president or party
chairman would be allowed to adopt any candidate. Any candidate who is
adopted by a president, by a governor would be disqualified from the
party. This is to ensure that all party members have a say in producing
the party leaders in the following election.
We have also taken a critical look at the composition of the National
Convention. What we feel is that members of both present and past
members of the National Assembly, all of them will soon be members of
the National Convention. This is because for a person to rise to the
level of National Convention especially the House of Reps and the
Senate, you know as it is constituted, you cannot be doing a National
Convention and you exclude the person, a super delegate. If such persons
know that they are so recognized, they will all assiduously work for
the party. And these are leaders that at all times muster votes for
their people. We’ve also proposed that at least, one member each from
each state, one Senator and one member of House of Reps should join the
National Exco of the party. Usually, it was one member of House of Reps
and one member of Senate from the zones. But this time, we’ve increased
it so that a member each from the Senate and the House of Reps would be
member of the NEC because we want to make the NEC large enough to carry
the opinions of the people so that decisions of NEC will reflect the
thinking of the people. These are the three major things we believe
should be included in the next NEC we are convening and once that is
approved, we will take it to the National Convention and once rectified,
we will also work on it.
Then the final one we are also amending is that, if you are a member
of the National Working Committee, a member of the State Exco, or a
member of the party executive anywhere and you want to return to office
after your first tenure, you should not necessarily resign from office
because if the entire country vote for you to be the chairman of the
party and then because you’re a chairman of the party, you have to lose
your position to re-contest, it is unfair, it is unconstitutional. In
fact, it runs against the constitution of the Federal Republic of
Nigeria because even the governor and the president produced by the
party, they don’t abdicate their office for them to re-contest. And then
members of the National Assembly, they don’t abdicate their offices for
them to also re-contest. So what is good for the goose is also good for
the gander.
Luckily as I will always say, the NWC and Sheriff, they have become
the major pillar for multiparty democracy in Nigeria because if what is
happening in PDP didn’t happen, we would not have had the opportunity to
correct the ills of this impunity-driven members of the illegal
Caretaker Committee. If you also look at it, what has happened in the
PDP has also helped to stabilize the APC; of course by now, John Oyegun
would have been out of office because APC now knows that they cannot
mess around with John Oyegun because if they do so, the crisis the APC
will get will be worse than that of the PDP. So you can see Nigerians
and lovers of Nigeria democracy; that is why till today, they are very
happy we are able to say no to impunity and I am using this opportunity
to thank Nigerians and party members for the huge support they have
given to Alhaji Modu Sheriff and the National Working Committee.
What will you say about the impression that Sheriff is a mole in
PDP and that he is just there to cause confusion and ensure that the APC
comes back in 2019?
I’ve answered this question over 50 times in the course of the last
one month. The answer is very simple – Sheriff was sitting in his house
when Governor Fayose and Governor Wike went to invite him to become the
Chairman of the party. Governor Fayose and Governor Wike gave him three
months to be in office. At the end of three months, they went to
Sheriff, they said, Chairman, you have repositioned the party; look at
the number of ‘Agbada’ in the PDP Wadata Plaza, you are the only person
who can lead this party to the promise land, we therefore want you to
continue.
Governors Wike and Fayose, they set up a convention committee
and they made Govenor Udom of Akwa Ibom the Chairman of the zoning
committee. The zoning committee in their wisdom, they went to Sheriff
and said: Sir, we are going to zone the chairmanship of the party to
you. So we are zoning it to North East and to Borno especially. The
North East met, they said look, Sheriff we have endorsed you to continue
as chairman of the party at the zonal congresses.
My very good friend, so you mean the whole of the North East, you
mean the whole of the governors, you mean the whole of the PDP people,
all of them are working for APC? That is the question. There were six
governors in the zoning committee of the PDP. The six governors endorsed
Sheriff and endorsed the zoning project. So you mean it is the APC?
So my very good friend, my answer has always been that it is not
President Buhari and APC that sourced and zoned the PDP chairmanship to
Sheriff and that the coming of Sheriff is a blessing to multiparty
democracy in not just the PDP, but in Nigeria because today we now know
that people can ask questions and we are very happy with the teeming
grassroots. You can see the people with the illegal Caretaker Committee;
they are people who like money, who will want to go and collect money
from the people. But if you actually love PDP, you love multiparty
democracy, you love one man, one vote, you are with Sheriff. Go and look
at the grassroots, all of them, they are waiting; the people are
praying. They are saying prayers that this Caretaker Committee should
go. Since the emergence of the Caretaker Committee itself, it has been
one problem or the other. Since their illegal emergence, PDP has not
even rested. So it is time for Nigerians to appeal to them so that they
can find their way and go. And look at also the issue at Rivers State,
where normally the PDP will not have a problem but the illegal Caretaker
Committee would not allow PDP to work.
The fortunes of PDP keep dwindling especially with the recent loss of Ondo State. Do you think your party will bounce back?
Of course, some lessons were learnt in Ondo and Edo states especially
in Ondo. In Ondo, it was clear that the masses, the people sent a
message to the PDP in Ondo that never again will any governor adopt a
candidate and not allow for a free contest. Number two lesson, never
again will somebody come from another party and then you give him the
entire structure of PDP; it should not happen again because as soon as
Mimiko returned to the party, every member of the PDP left and they left
with Oke. Oke secured 125,000 votes in the last election, PDP secured
155,000 votes, APC scored 250,000. The votes given to Oke are all PDP
votes. If Oke didn’t leave and Mimiko was able to manage his coming back
into PDP as a sportsman, we won’t be where we are. So, that is the
lesson learnt there.
And again, things have to get worse for it to get better.
So do you think the PDP has the potential to upstage the APC in
2019 and maybe if you could also assess the present administration under
Buhari?
APC as I have always said, is not a party yet. There is only one
party in Nigeria and that is PDP because if you were to put APC in a
basket, you can very easily in the basket pick out CPC, pick out ACN,
pick out the APGA faction and pick out the PDP inside the APC in the
basket. But PDP still remains one; that is what you have to see.
So luckily, until APC is able to become homogenous, until they are
able to become a party, it is not expected that they will give serious
challenge to the PDP. The mistakes that PDP lost the election are being
corrected one by one. That mistake is especially what is happening now
in the PDP where the PDP people now coalesced into the Caretaker
Committee of the party. So that is the issue as it is today.
