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| Bode George, ex-deputy chairman of people democratic party (PDP) |
The conflict in your party appears intractable. Will the forthcoming National Convention bring an end to the conflict?
Let me state very clearly that it is not an intractable conflict. You know that when you have a massive organisation like ours that was in power and suddenly it lost power control, first there will be delayed shock. In the first few months, you will still be doing as if you are still there. We call it delayed shock. Later, you see a new group in power and you are empty. It takes a lot of guts.
It is not only in Nigeria. It takes a lot of guts, reorganisation, resillence, dedication and loyalty to that system for it to survive. It was a huge shock for us, having been in power for 16 years and suddenly you just hit the bottom; you tanked like the Americans would say.
You have to do a lot of post mortem analysis and find out what you did wrong, how you can get back and in the meantime, those forces will be jumping. The party that defeated you will be fighting to make sure that you don’t come back again. They will assist to decimate you.
So, it requires a lot of people. Unfortunately, the former president who was the leader of the party, decided he wanted to have a sabbatical. You are talking of an organisation without a head. You know the type of people that are jumping in. All types of leaders; all types of masquerades are jumping into the fray, singing different tunes. But I am happy that we have passed the eye of the storm. The party has an incredible resilience and we are gradually coming back.
By the time we had the last convention, Senator Ali Modu Sherrif was brought in as the acting chairman and he wanted to contest at the convention for the post of chairmanship.
Unfortunately for him, he has collected the form; he has appeared before the screening committee, which means he has ceased being the acting chairman. He was on the bridge for election.
He was a candidate. Somehow, there was a court order that there should not be an election into the posts of the chairman, secretary and auditor. So, in the wisdom of those who were at the convention, they decided to have a caretaker committee. And because the convention is the supreme law of the party, they are allowed by the law to set up any law they wish to. And that was why a committee was set up to manage the party for 90 days; to prepare the party for another convention.
That was all the authority that this committee has. There are about six of them, one from each geo-political zone. Now, that is what they have been doing. Unfortunately, Sheriff came. That is the danger we have when you get people who are yet to understand the culture of your party, the norms, the dos and don’ts, the constitution, the grand norms of your party to come and be an acting chairman.
Everyone knew that PDP was struggling but the coming of Sheriff seemed to have busted the party in a way that it is now struggling to remain a party. Would you say the choice of Sheriff was a mistake?
Absolutely! That is exactly where I was going.
When he came, they found out that he sold them a dummy. He said in the open that he was there to fill in the gap, finish the remaining tenure of Adamu Mu’Azu, stabilise the party and quietly go.
He went on his own to say he was contesting, created a zoning committee that re-zoned the national chairmanship to the North-East, his zone in particular and retained the secretary in the South-West. That is no zoning. Those of us who have spent time managing the party thought something was amiss.
When you talk about re-zoning, it means whatever has been in the North will come to the South and whatever had been in the South will go to the North. That was not what they did.
The original concept of zoning was not lateral; like from South-East to the South- South. It is North to South, South to North. And we had agreed.
The National Executive Council (NEC) had approved the Senator Ike Ekweremadu report, which said in the next election, the presidential candidate will come from the North, which means that automatically, the national chairman will come from the South. That zoning committee didn’t do that.
Are you referring to the committee headed by the Akwa Ibom State governor?
Yes. The Akwa Ibom governor is also a new guy in the party. He didn’t know the culture of the party. People should have guided him right.
They were not guided. A night before the convention was another story.
The truth came to the fore. A lot of things were discovered.
What were discovered?
I am not ready to go into that. It’s another Pandora Box.
But certain things that were inimical to the party were discovered. All the governors and stakeholders, who were there decided to set up a committee.
That was why Sheriff came back and said he was the chairman.
But he had gone on the channel, submitted his application, went for screening and became a candidate. So, he has ceased to be chairman. It became messy and disheartening what has happened to the party.
Today, the caretaker committee went to court to justify the convention and the court said that Sheriff has ceased being the chairman and ordered the committee to plan another convention. That was the saving grace. Whatever Sheriff is doing is on his own. Hopefully, new managers of the party would emerge on August 17.
Of course, before that, there would be zoning. All the positions in the North will come down South and vice versa. That is the next function of the committee – what goes where? Some of those who are going around with Sheriff have seen that there is no road and they are back to re-align.
My advice to Sheriff is that PDP is not owned by one individual and cannot be controlled by one individual; it is a party that came together and for the first time in this country, is completely detribalised and has no religious connotation.
It was during the administration of the late General sani Abacha that the process started. The people who started that move like Bola Ige, Alex Ekwueme, Sule Lamido, Adamu Ciroma and others could not have been in one political party. Previous political settings in the country were tribalised. The common goal was that Abacha must not transmute to a civilian president.
When he died was when the process of a political party started. That is why it is so strong. There is no village in Nigeria that you don’t have PDP. Many people have said let us rebrand and we asked them: What are we rebranding? If we do that, we will end up like the All Progressives Congress (APC) and have strange bedfellows in the party. Tribulations will come but you must get up.
When you talk of former President Goodluck Jonathan being on sabbatical; how much of a disappointment is it to the leaders that somebody who used the party for a straight 16 years as a vehicle could just keep mute in the face of crisis now?
I don’t know really because that has to be personal. I was there the night, few days before handover, when he called us and told us that he wanted to thank all the leaders and wanted to go on sabbatical. A lot of people said ‘Mr. President, you cannot go on sabbatical. This is not a university.
You should continue to manage the party until another presidential candidate emerges.’ That is because in our party, the president is the leader of the party. That is why it looks like a headless organisation now.
We don’t have the Villa anymore. That would have been the Supreme Court, where everything would be settled.
The two presidents your party produced are no longer with you…
Yes, one has gone to another par- ty and one is still with us but said he needed a break. It has affected us because most of those agitators would have been calm one way or the other. I remember that night. It is a night I would not forget because a lot of appeal went to him that he has to stay because that’s what happens in America. He must manage the party until a new candidate emerges.
That is one of the reasons why it looks like a long time to settle down. I thank God that some of the leaders, the founding fathers, have come out to settle it. I have no doubt that we will sail through.
With the zoning arrangement, if the presidency goes to the North, the chairmanship will come to the South. The South-East has had it likewise the South-South. So, it means that it is the South-West will produce the chairmanship but there are pockets of disagreement in the zone, leaving the question of how you are going to manage it.
There is no zone without pockets of disagreements. You know we have a saying that all of us cannot sleep and face the same direction. You will always have that but you can manage it. The constitution is there.
Yes, there will be competition. The grassroots and stakeholders will debate and we will decide who is the best person for that position. It is like a full basket. All position in the North is coming to the South and the South to the North. Which zone will produce what will be debated by the committee and we decide it for fairness, equity and balance.
This is where you are going to see the resilience, the managerial skill within the PDP. If we don’t get it right, we go to hell. If we get it right, we will bounce back. Like you have mentioned, the South-East has had its turn.
The South-South just left the presidency and has had a stint at the chairmanship. So, ideally, it is the South-West that should go for the chairmanship. We have never had it.
For equitable reasons, we should have it. We know ourselves in the South-West. This is the time, you need the experienced hands, you need your first eleven, you need people who are courageous, who know the party, who are committed, ready and strong to hold the party. We are in a state of flux. We need somebody to stabilise the platform and deliver us.
We need that kind of person. People will come and compete and show their track record. This is not the time to bring a fresh leg. It is going to be a lot of work. We will sit around and get the right person.
We need to have a platform to challenge the government in 2019. If we don’t get it right this month, we are doomed. We have to forget our personal interests to look for somebody that has the nerves, the experience and know the nooks and crannies of the party. We need the best to survive now because we don’t have the Villa.
Source: NewTelegraph
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