Author: The Nation

Chief John Okiyi-Kalu is the Commissioner For Trade and Investment and the Director of Strategic Communication of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in Abia State. He spoke with reporters on why the party lost the recent governorship poll.

What went wrong with the elections in your state that your governor lost the Senate ticket and PDP lost the governorship?

We are still reviewing data from the elections to better understand what exactly happened. At the same time, we are preparing for seamless handover of power to the incoming administration based on the declaration by INEC. There will be more than enough time to look back but in all of these, I personally appreciate the democratic credentials of Governor Okezie Ikpeazu, who does not see electoral contests as “do or die” affair.  Posterity will be kind to him and his family.

Was there issue of internal sabotage in your party? Many government officials were not visible during the elections?

While many people talk about “sabotage”, I prefer to speak to individual choices and protection of personal interest. In politics, people take positions on the basis of personal interest and of course, group interest. I am in no position to know, if there are cabinet officials or others in government that did not share in our collective aspiration to install a PDP government, led by amiable Okey Ahaiwe. I am also not inclined towards propagating unverified rumours and innuendos but I won’t be surprised if there are government officials whose personal interests clashed with our collective position on voting PDP and her candidates. It is the nature of politics, especially during a transition year cycle such as we have just been through.

But, your governor did reasonably well. Do  you think he paid the price of PDP’s hold on the state since 1999?

Certainly, Governor Ikpeazu performed well in many areas including the primary function of government, which is to secure the people. Abia is today the most peaceful and most secure state in the South-East region and one of the top five in Nigeria. Beyond that, I am proud of the fact that after all said and done, we did not lose a single life during this election cycle.

Governor Ikpeazu’s  Abia State came 1st  in performance ranking of Nigerian states by WAEC back to back for 4 years. He has built many new classroom blocks, improved public school enrollment from about 140,000 to more than 600,000 pupils, established a foreign scholarship scheme that is first of its kind in Abia and remains the first Governor to establish a teachers’ continuous training institute in the state. When you look at infrastructure development, it is safe to say that no administration before him has done as much as he did with road infrastructure across the state. More than 160 road projects completed.  Under his watch, we now have permanent structures for ASOPADEC, ABSIEC, Investment House and even completed ASUBEB building among many. I am also certain he will sleep in the new government house in Umuahia before May 29th. Similarly, he did very great work with healthcare, agriculture, SME development and industrialization. Our trading environment improved tremendously under his watch and our traders are now making more wealth relative to where they were in 2015. When you examine where Abia was in 2015 and where we are today, you can’t help but agree that Governor Ikpezu performed well and I am happy that the recent report on Multi-Dimensional Poverty Index vindicated him by placing Abia among the top three best states in Nigeria. That report came from a federal agency with support from global institutions and nobody can in his right mind say that Ikpeazu sponsored or orchestrated it.

I think what has happened is that while Abia positively turned the development corner under his watch, his opponents managed to frame all the real or perceived  failures of the past as his personal fault. It is like carrying the burden of all those, who were governors  before him on his head and because of his nature and beliefs, he deliberately refused to make excuses or demonise past administrations to save himself. If you know Dr. Ikpeazu, you will know that he is not the type to engage in blame game. Instead, he will try to see what he can do to change the situation.

Interestingly, most of his traducers were major actors in PDP governments in the state from 1999 to date. So, you begin to wonder how they have suddenly become saints while Ikpeazu is now the one wearing black. Personally, I think time will expose those who actually messed up the state and yet turned round to gang up against Ikpeazu to save themselves politically. You can’t hide pregnancy forever.  I’ve listened to some of those who worked with different former and even current PDP governments in the state take to media houses to praise themselves and their superb contributions while in office and I continue to wonder that if they did all those wonderful things as integral members of PDP-led governments in the state, then our people should actually be happy. It is either they are lying about their individual achievements as part of a team or they have taken new positions to protect current personal political interests that make it necessary to attack the platform that brought them to limelight. Whichever way, time will expose all of us and like I told a friend, who is with the incoming administration, the only advice I would have loved to give Dr. Alex Otti is simply to say to him that given all that have been said and written about our dear state, he should not allow anyone that has ever been in government from 1999, be part of his new executive team. Let’s make a clean break from the past and see if we will get a better leadership outcome as proposed.

If PDP actually failed Abia, then there should be collective responsibility for all of us, including me. It is disingenuous to single out Governor Ikpeazu as the bearer of burden of failure because he has only governed for eight years and didn’t do so alone. In my personal view, Otti should make a clean break from the past and assemble a completely new team to help him govern since many of those who were in past governments publicly admitted that they failed collectively and individually.

Yes, Ikpeazu paid the price for the real and perceived failures of previous administrations in the state but now that he is going off the stage, I suspect it will soon become clear to all that he was not the problem. He did his best and of course, is a great leader who loves our people, does not want to see violence and bloodshed in Abia State, even when his personal interest is threatened. It is only a matter of time before the truth will emerge that Dr. Ikpeazu is a good leader of our people and some of us are prepared to wait to see that day. Same way we waited and saw much vilified Dee Sam Mbakwe emerge as a leadership icon in Igbo land after many years.

From your vantage point as the campaign spokesman, can you let us into some of those behind the scene events that cost you the election?

I think the magnitude and ramifications of the  “Obi wave”  in the South -East unsettled us to a great extent. You must know that most of us in Abia PDP, including Governor Ikpeazu, had sympathy for Peter Obi and quietly supported him without fully considering likely consequences beyond the presidential ballot. Even where consequences were mooted, I think Governor Ikpeazu was ready to sacrifice his senatorial ambition for the greater good of Ndigbo and Nigerians. In Abia, we felt that it is actually the turn of the Southeast to produce Nigeria’s president and with our brother, Peter Obi, representing everything good about Nigeria, we decided to do what in our view is the right thing. Obviously, our major opponents rode high on that our altruistic disposition to conjure a seemingly irreversible electoral hurricane from the Obi wave.

Beyond that, there were issues of internal organisation and structuring of our campaign. Some had reasons to feel personally alienated  and when that is added to the strong demand for power shift to the northern zone in Abia, we ended up with a bad cocktail. Amazingly, the same people, who wanted a candidate from Abia North to emerge ended up supporting a candidate that claims to be from Ngwa side of Abia Central for reasons they are yet to fully make known. May be, they got sucked into the hurricane Obi and keyed into what they perceived as being inevitable. Politicians will always follow whoever they think will win and Abia politicians are not different.

Again, we suffered massive setback with the ill health and ultimately unfortunate death of Prof Uche Ikonne. Immediately after he was given the flag in Umuahia, opinion polls indicated that we were on course to victory and only needed to pacify a few dissenting voices within the PDP leadership ranks in the state. But, Prof leaving the stage immediately afterwards, we could have managed the dissenters and gone ahead to win easily. But, with his prolonged medical absence and the rumours around his health status, our opponents had the opportunity to poach many of our party faithful, who were hitherto on the fence. By the time Chief Ahiwe emerged, it was difficult to find enough time to woo everyone back to the fold and really raise the momentum again to the right level before the actual election. In reality, Ahiwe had only two weeks to campaign before the first election. Even then, Ahiwe’s amiable personality helped us to cover much ground, but until we have all the data on the election, we won’t know how far or how well he actually performed. I know for a fact that a lot of things happened during the election on March 18th,  but we will wait to see the full data before commenting further.

What next for the PDP after this loss? Are you going to tribunal?

I believe we have to review and of course, also work hard to keep our members together. Four years is not a lifetime. The Governor has made an appeal as the leader in the state that all those who contested against Dr. Alex Otti should eschew litigations. As father of the state and someone, who suffered immensely from multiple litigations by Otti and others, who contested against him in 2015, I think he made the right call as a progressive leader. What I do not know at the moment is what the party, PDP, and her candidate think. Naturally, the candidate and the party are free to heed the call of the Governor or choose another course based on facts available to them, but I personally commend Ikpeazu for his peaceful and progressive disposition to leadership. He doesn’t believe in do-or-die politics and at all times prefers to place the greater good of Ndi Abia over and above his personal interest. Let us wait to see what the candidate and party will decide because as you know, the party is supreme and they sponsored the candidate. If the party feels there is a basis to litigate the election result, I doubt that the progressive call of the Governor will deter them because the structure of the party goes beyond Abia. We have seen instances in Nigeria where even a candidate decided not to go to court and the party chose to go to court. The most recent case is the one involving the Senate President, Ahmed Lawan.

Prof Nnenna Otti, the INEC Returning Officer for the governorship election has received different gifts and praises for her feat in the election. Do you think it is merited?

I am not aware she has received gifts but read about folks, who promised to give her this and that. I just hope those individuals are not chasing clout only. As per whether she merited whatever they promised her will be decided by time and history. I personally won’t want to get into that as I have scanty information on what she did or did not do. All I’ve heard are rumours, including that she was specifically nominated by the APC candidate in the election, Ikechi Emenike, to do a particular job. To me, all that is being said are yet to be verified, hence it should not interest me one way or another. If she has acted altruistically, I pray that God and posterity reward her, but if she has not, time will tell.

A coalition of human rights and civil society groups under the aegis of the Nigerian Human Rights Community (NIHRCO) has described last Saturday’s governorship and state assembly elections in Lagos as free and credible.

The group made the remark yesterday during the presentation of its preliminary report for the election. In its address, Senior Programme Office, Mr Taiwo Adeleye, David Ajetunmobi and the former secretary-general of the Nigerian Automobile Technicians Association (NATA), Fred Ojinika said the outcome of the election in Lagos substantially meets public expectations and that no election anywhere in the world is perfect.

The presentation was supported by members of the Nigerians in Diaspora and the Southwest Professional Forum (SOWPROF) who spoke via Zoom from abroad, describing the election as one of the best in the country and a model for future elections. For instance, Nosa Osaikhuiwu, a project management expert from Colorado State University said he followed the elections in Lagos and that it was one of the best in the country.

The coalition, made of 130 civil society and community-based organisations, said the election was not devoid of hitches. But, overall, it said the result tallies with the wishes of the people. The report states: “What is left now is to heal wounds and fix broken hearts fueled by ethnic baiting and hate speeches promoted by non-state actors.”

It commended the Lagos State Government, saying that its commitment to a free and fair election eliminated acts of violence compared with previous elections when lives were lost often due to intervention by the federal authorities in their attempt to influence the outcome of the elections.

The NIHRCO said the Independent Electoral Commission (INEC) should be commended in many areas, including the early arrival of officials and materials, provision of BVAS and the prompt transmission of election results across the various polling units in Lagos.

The group said it chose Lagos as one of the focal points in the last governorship election and that deployed 680 observers across the 20 local governments and local council development areas (LCDAs).

It said though the atmosphere was preceded by ethnic and religious baiting, “but there was no violence, as the feud did not result into any major confrontation between the parties”. It added: “Residents of Lagos still came out to vote.

“We observed that the Lagos State Government made concerted efforts to engage all the stakeholders in Lagos State before the election. We recognise the impressive moral authority demonstrated by Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu and his constructive engagements with communities, irrespective of religion or ethnicity, before the election where he sought fair and free election.”

The NIHRCO said the election was the most peaceful election since 1999 in the post-military era. It added: “There was only the report of the death of one person linked to the voters, but not to security operatives. This is regrettable. The death represents a remarkable decline compared with other previous elections in Lagos State.”

The group said INEC officials deserve commendation for their actions throughout the conduct of the election. It said: “The INEC officials arrived early in many of the polling units. There were provisions for Bimodal Voters Accreditation System (BVAS) in all the polling units across the 20 local government areas and the 37 LCDAs monitored.

“The BVAS has led to tremendous improvement in voting culture in Nigeria. It has reduced rigging. It has helped the democratic process to eliminate phantom voters, reduced the voting time per individual and eliminated the prospect of double voting.”

It regretted, however, that the campaign mostly by non-state actors was characterized by ethnic and religious baiting. It said: “Some of the actors in this dangerous enterprise are people who live outside the country. The ethnic baiting was mostly between Igbo and Yoruba people. However, those responsible for the baiting are fringe elements, as people of Igbo and Yoruba extraction in Lagos are more concerned with their livelihood and not interested in promoting violence and mayhem.”

The just concluded governorship election in Lagos State was one of the fiercest. It featured major three candidates, including incumbent Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Gbadebo Rhodes-Vivour of the Labour Party (LP) and Abdul-Azeez Adediran of the Peoples’ Democratic Party (PDP). Adediran had boasted that he will win the election at the initial stage of the campaign. But, he eventually came third in the race. Assistant Editor EMMANUEL BADEJO examines the factors that may have hurt the chances of the PDP candidate

The threat to take Lagos, the Centre of Excellence, away from the All Progressives Congress (APC) reached a crescendo prior to the 2023 general elections when Abdul-Azeez Olajide Adediran, popularly known as Jandor, defected from the ruling party with his supporters. Lagos has not been governed by another political party since Nigeria’s return to civil rule in 1999.

In 1999, the Alliance for Democracy (AD) under the then Governor Bola Ahmed Tinubu, now the president-elect, led the state. Thereafter, Babatunde Raji Fashola, who took over from Tinubu contested and won the election on the platform of the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN). The party later joined forces with other parties to form the APC under which Akinwunmi Ambode ran and won the governorship seat in 2015.  And now, the incumbent, Babajide Sanwo-Olu also flew the APC governorship ticket in 2019 and 2023.

But, between 1999 and 2015, the Peoples’ Democratic Party (PDP) held sway at the centre. Even then, it could not break the reign of the ruling party in Lagos. By May 29, 2023, the state would have been under the control of a political family for 24 years.  All efforts during the election year to dislodge the ruling party in Lagos failed.

The battle for the soul of Lagos became so loud that some commentators made a caricature of the incumbent Sanwo-Olu. He was said to have run helter-skelter all in a bid to retain his job and the APC’s grip on Lagos. One of the contestants that gave the APC and Sanwo-Olu sleepless nights prior to the election was the PDP and its governorship candidate, Adediran, who was a member of the APC. He left the ruling party for the main opposition party in December 2021. He joined the PDP with members of his Lagos4Lagos Movement. He immediately became a new bride in his new political family and within a space of four months, he was able to warm himself into the hearts of some leaders of the PDP, who eventually conceded handing over the governorship ticket of the party to him.

With the ticket in his hand, Adediran set to work. He mapped out his strategies, raised his team of workers, got his campaign office in the heart of Lagos, chose Funke Akindele as his running mate, appointed some close aides and began his campaign for the election. It is on record that the PDP candidate was the only contestant that covered all 246 wards in the state. He was the first to kick-start his campaign, assuring voters of his readiness to lead an independent government and the certainty of winning the governorship poll. He prided himself as ‘the Peoples’ Governor’, saying that the majority of voters in Lagos had accepted his candidacy. Some of his aides even call him ‘His Excellency’, and he carried himself as such all through the campaign period.

But, when the result of the presidential election was announced, the party got only 75,750 votes.  It was placed a distant third in the race; after the Labour Party (LP), which polled 582,454 votes and the APC which recorded 572,606 votes. The PDP performed abysmally when compared to the 448,015 votes it secured in 2019.  With this unimpressive showing, some analysts believe the main opposition party has been decimated.

Adediran dismissed the notion that the PDP does not stand much chance in the March 18 governorship election, based on the outcome of the presidential and National Assembly elections. He said: “By this time next week, all of us will be out of that government that will not let us breathe on the road and at marketplaces. That government that releases hoodlums to be attacking its citizens without condemning it for one day; their days are numbered. Next week, we will put an end to their existence in Lagos.

“Please, make no mistake; put out the votes, I am ready to protect it. They have been threatening; Jandor is ready to deploy security both conventional and unconventional for next Saturday’s elections. Whatever has happened at the centre is inconsequential; this is Lagos and we are taking our Lagos back. This election that is coming is for our freedom; when they announce Jandor as the winner, the kind of jubilation that happened when Abacha died will happen in Lagos.”

At the end of the day, Adediran could not make much impact in the election. While Sanwo-Olu polled a total of 762,134 votes to win the contest, the LP’s Gbadebo Rhodes-Vivour was Sanwo-Olu’s closest challenge with 312,329 votes. Adediran could only score 62,449 votes. Why did Adediran perform abysmally during the election?

Internal crisis:

To defeat the ruling APC in Lagos, the PDP needed to put up a strong and united front. Unfortunately, the party has remained disunited due to the internal crisis that is tearing it apart at the national and state levels. For instance, due to the crisis at the national level, Rivers State Governor Nyesom Wike, an influential chieftain of the party, openly campaigned against Adediran.

Wike, at a state function in Lagos, had said at the 22nd National Women’s conference organised by the Committee of Wives of Lagos State Officials (COWLSO) in October: “Any party contesting against the APC in Lagos is wasting its time. Sanwo-Olu is a super performing governor.”

At the state level, the PDP candidate lost the support of prominent party chieftains. For instance, he lost the support of former PDP Deputy National Chairman, Chief Bode George, because of Adediran’s choice of running mate. The PDP candidate chose Funke Akindele, a prolific Nollywood actress, as his deputy governorship candidate.

George said Rhodes-Vivour ought to have been given the deputy governorship ticket because he was prevailed upon to step down for Jandor to have a seamless primary with the agreement he would be the running mate. Jandor, George added, betrayed the agreement by dumping Rhodes-Vivour for Akindele. This pitched Jandor against George and some other prominent members of the PDP in Lagos. Instead of carrying other party members along, Jandor chose to run a one-man show. The PDP chairman in Lagos and a few other executives hardly showed up during the campaign to support Jandor.  

The LP factor:

Besides, Peter Obi’s foray into the presidential race changed the narrative and depleted Jandor’s earlier influence. This was coupled with the sharp disagreement between Jandor and Rhodes-Vivour of the LP. Rhodes-Vivour had at different times accused Jandor of lacking integrity because he could not honour the simple agreement of partnership. Having denied the LP candidate of the running mate slot, he moved on to pick the governorship ticket of the LP ahead of the polls. This significantly affected Adediran’s chances as votes that were supposed to go to the party were shared with the LP.

Sanwo-Olu’s performance:

Though the October 2020 EndSARS violence adversely affected Governor Sanwo-Olu’s rating, some landmark achievements, including his handling of the COVID-19 pandemic and the railway project, seem to have made the Lagos governor popular among voters. For instance, in November 2022, the ANAP Foundation released a poll which predicted Sanwo-Olu’s re-election in 2023.

The poll, commissioned by ANAP Foundation and conducted by NOI Polls, revealed a significant lead by Governor Sanwo-Olu (APC), with Jandor and Rhodes-Vivour both trailing behind. The report added that Sanwo-Olu’s lead might be unassailable as opposition votes are fragmented, a development which could be considered the direct consequence of the PDP’s internal crisis which forced Rhodes-Vivour out of the party. While 30 per cent of voters proposed to vote for Sanwo-Olu, only eight per cent agreed that they will vote for Jandor. As for Rhodes-Vivour, only four per cent of the respondents agreed that they will vote for him. This implies that Sanwo-Olu had a 22 per cent-point lead. The only hope for Jandor, according to the poll, was the huge percentage of undecided voters and those who preferred not to reveal their preferred candidate.

Identity crisis:

Some PDP chieftains did not believe in Jandor’s sincerity.  They saw him as a mole that was planted by the ruling party to scuttle PDP’s chances.  They said he was close to the ruling party’s presidential candidate, now president-elect, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu. Adediran, who got wind of this perception, during one of his engagements, denied the rumour. “I am not a mole for APC,” Jandor had cried out, saying he was strongly determined to end the ruling party’s reign in Lagos. Jandor added that it was illogical for him to be the APC’s mole in PDP and be giving the party ‘headaches’ in his campaigns. He added that though he was in the APC until January 2022, he had not had a one-on-one meeting with Tinubu.

Cash crunch:

Jandor began his campaign with a big bang and many saw him as a man who had the financial wherewithal to confront the ruling party. He got new vehicles, police orderlies, aides, and a campaign office in a high-brow area in Lagos. He fared well until his financial fortunes began to dwindle. Sources told our reporter that at some point he had to sell some of his belongings to stay afloat. As his financial muscle was threatened, some of the hired political canvassers started withdrawing their loyalty. Some party chieftains who had expected some form of ‘settlement’ didn’t get it, hence, they began to shift the goalpost in the middle of the game. It was also reported that the governorship candidate had hoped to get some largesse from the top and some governors in the party. This expectation was dashed as the G-5 governors could not come to terms with the party at the centre. Hence, they withdrew financial support from Jandor. This further decimated his support base. The loss of the party’s presidential candidate in Lagos also affected cash inflow, as Jandor and his team could not deliver the state for Atiku.

The situation became so bad that by the time the election was conducted, it was reportedly said that he didn’t have enough financial resources to prosecute it.  This led to disaffection in his camp and some openly supported other parties.