Governor Seriake Dickson of Bayelsa State has been saddled with the responsibility of heading a committee that will oversee the reconciliation of dissenting voices within the Peoples Democratic Party. In this interview with newsmen in Abuja last week, the governor explains why another committee is needed to look into the crises plaguing the party in most states, noting that the focus will be on non-PDP ruling states with the hope of presenting a cohesive party during the general elections. Managing Editor, Northern Operations, YUSUF ALLI and Deputy Editor, Nation’s Capital, YOMI ODUNUGA, were there. Excerpts:
What does your committee hope to achieve?
Ithought we should begin by looking at a few of the challenges that we are trying to solve arising from the mandate given to us by the working committee of our party. Already, as you may be aware, we have taken several steps to address some of the issues in the state chapters of our party. You will recall that the focus of our mandate essentially is on non-PDP states—reconciling the various factions and stakeholders and some members in the states that are not under PDP control for now. That in itself is challenging, and those states are about 13 or so in number. We have held series of meetings since our inauguration and because we are aware of the Independent National Electoral Commission’s guidelines released on the Anambra elections, which has made it imperative that actions must be taken immediately, we are taking that as a priority. In fact, I have just signed a circular calling a meeting for the members of the working committee of their state chapter and they have to be recognised by the national committee. As regards Anambra, we know there are so many factions, there are so many court orders and situations to resolve but we are starting from the known to the unknown. I think a day or two ago, the national committee recognised one of the factions and we want to start our interactions by engaging them and thereafter we will also have a section with all aspirants under the platform of our party. These series of interactions will take place from Thursday at Legacy House, which is the official secretariat of this committee. We also intend to interact with the chairman and members of our working committee in Ekiti State. You will recall that in the last couple of days and weeks, events in some state chapters of our party is fast deteriorating from bad to worse and we don’t want it to get ugly. So, it has become necessary for us to take some proactive measures and step in. So what would then be the immediate objectives of your committee? Of course, in all of this, the ultimate objective is to reconcile various stakeholders so that they can now understand the commonality of interest that should exist in a political party. In a party, we know people take personal interest too far. Inasmuch as the personal interests are legitimate, the party itself has its interest and that is what we are there to promote. We want to see how we can bring them together, play by the rules and then see how they can maintain a united front going into the general elections in Ekiti State. We hope to do so in almost all the state chapters, particularly state chapters that are not under the control of the PDP. As states that have PDP governors, that is a different challenge and that is slightly outside the area of our immediate focus even though it still falls under the general umbrella of some kind of reconciliation. For those cases, I think we need to work with other stakeholders and senior members of the party and maybe a different approach will be required because we have sitting governors who are also leaders of their party in those states who will also need to be part of the reconciliation effort. And that is why, in the wisdom of the National Chairman, Alhaji Bamanga Tukur, and the Working Committee, we have been told to focus on the non-PDP states. Since you have harped on the need to reconcile your party members in 13 non-PDP states while the PDP is already controlling the levers of government in 23 states, is the ultimate objective of this reconciliation to win more states? As a loyal party man, I believe in the capacity and potentials of our party to provide leadership in more states than we currently do have. But, as a democrat, it is my hope and belief that every party will sell its message as best it can and follow democratic due process and the best organised party with the best candidate should, at the end of the day, emerge. Again, as a democrat, the product of that outcome is what we will respect and work with. So, let the best party win. That is why we are democrats. Yes, it is my duty as a loyal party man to work for my party, advance the work of my party and its candidate duly selected and talk about the programmes and potentials of the party. I won’t stop without adding what is unique about the PDP. It is the party with the greatest potentials for uniting our diverse nation. The party, from pre-independence politics till now, is the only party that has provided a common platform for all Nigerians. It is the only platform that is not built on the fault lines of our nation, be it ethnicity or religion. It is the only party that has made it possible for a so-called minority to emerge as president. That is akin to what the Democratic Party did in the United States of America by sponsoring the first African American in the person of President Barack Obama. These are the unique features of the PDP. Other political tendencies are legitimate but we know that a number of times, they are built on the fault lines of our country. Whether fault lines of ethnicity, religion or even regionalism. The PDP is not an insular party, it is not a religious party and when the campaign starts, I expect that that message will sink. Yes, I will work for my party and we expect to win more states but we should win it fairly. Others also have the right to sell their message but we should respect the choice that Nigerians make because politics, as they say, is a market place of ideas. You have reconciled some aggrieved members. What were their grievances and how were they convinced to drop the case in court? Well, some of the operations, by virtue of oath we took, are confidential. Some of the grievances I have listened to were given in confidence and we will take them up with the appropriate authorities and address them. Members of a party have a right to their expectations, aspirations and views. I am a political liberal and therefore, I am in support of protecting the sanctity of individual opinion. But the party is a collective and so there comes a time when your individual’s views and opinion are subjected to the collective overall goal of the party. We are doing some of these things quietly. The important thing is that the gentlemen have submitted their grievances to the party under this committee and we are very grateful. I want to commend them again for that act, for realising that there comes a time individual expectations and aspirations end and the collective interest begins, otherwise there will be no organised society. So, this is what the gentlemen have done and my committee and I are looking at it and we will pass our recommendations to the appropriate authorities to address. Fundamentally, our appreciation is to them for withdrawing their case. If you said you have reconciled and the parties have agreed to withdraw the case, how come the lawyers refused to agree in court and the judge did not give a verdict that aligns with that line of thought? Well, let me say this. Firstly, it is not the duties of lawyers to take matters to a court for adjudication. It is also not their duty to take or resolve these matters out of court. That is the prerogative of the client. A lawyer is only a facilitator of process. Now, it is an on-going proceeding in a court and I will not want to go into the merits and demerits of the proceedings in court. I also don’t want to comment on what the judge should have done or shouldn’t have done but I know that the party will resort to the rule of law, follow due process to handle the challenge. Fundamentally, once you establish a desire on the part of a litigant to withdraw, from that time the desire is indicated to the court, the matter is dead. All that you have is a question of procedure. So, these are minor procedures because the cause of action is gone once a man says ‘I have withdrawn my case.’ The world is even moving towards Reconciliation and Mediation now. It is called Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) and that is what every court exists to facilitate in the first place. It is only when that fails that you go for litigation. I think it is a major success because the parties have communicated the desire to withdraw the matter at the court. I know, as a lawyer, that there are some rules about how counsel is changed and those ones are technical legal things that don’t affect the fundamental issue which is that a man who has gone to court is at liberty to say, ‘judge, I have settled my matter.’ For me, that case is dead and because they have a right to counsel, that is a good thing with our constitution. The right to counsel is sacred; they can go to court with you and decide to change their mind. Still on reconciliation, is your committee looking at the larger picture especially now that some PDP governors appear to be engaged in a war of words with national leadership of the party? With the adversarial role being played by the Chairman of your party, how does that help the reconciliation effort? As I said earlier, you can only have too little reconciliation, we cannot have too many reconciliation. We have to reconcile, reconcile and reconcile. The Chief Tony Anenih-led committee is doing a great job which we are also going to look at. I am saying that in the context of the remark I earlier made that our primary focus is the non-PDP states and we are doing so precisely because of this issue. In the PDP states, we have governors in charge and therefore, if there are differences as there should be, we can always resolve them. We need to be clear about this. Maybe because of the long years of military rule, we have this attitude to politics that is not democratic. In a party, there must be allowance made for differences of opinion because democracy thrives on diversity of views. But when you have all these diverse views, the party is there to harmonise them and hold them together. I know that the Anenih committee is doing a lot of work in terms of engaging the governors and I am not aware of any PDP governor who is not happy with the party. All of us are in the party. Yes, there may be one little complain but these are all legitimate because politics allows for that. The important thing is how we reconcile all of these. There are efforts going on by the Anenih’s committee and the Ekwueme’s report and I believe that, by the end of the day, you will have a truly reconciled set of governors because they are major stakeholders in the party and none of them will want the party to disintegrate contrary to what you hear. We are colleagues and we talk. They all want a strong PDP but they are also entitled to their expectations and even when there are ambitions tied to it because it is politics and also because, sometimes in this game, you have got to manage differences of opinion, ideas and sometimes a clash of interest and sometimes even a clash of ego. So, all of that is part of the game. So I think, with what the senior members of the party are doing and I am happy that the seniors drive some of these efforts with our little humble support, we will resolve the problems. I don’t think it is true that the national chairman made the kind of comment that you talked about. It is very possible he was quoted out of context because the national chairman is the head of our party and subjected to the person who is the overall leader, President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan. You are also aware that the President himself, a few days back, engaged some of the governors you are talking about. I am also in touch with some of them because they are my leaders and I am privileged to work with some as colleagues. What you read does not matter, we meet at different levels and all share common idea of a united strong party. At all times, we should be united by national interest. Differences of views are allowed but you do all of that within the context of a common view about the national interest. A few weeks ago, a workers’ union described you as an absentee governor, how far have you gone in piloting the affairs of Bayelsa State? No comments on that because everybody knows what I am doing in Bayelsa and the absenteeism has nothing to do with what we are doing. I am okay when people disagree and criticise. It is all part of it but I cannot be an absentee governor when we are building primary schools, secondary schools and roads. We have done a lot of things in the state and I like situation where people visit and see things for themselves because I am not a propaganda governor. I am addressing the real challenges of development of our people. There is the challenge of providing security such that, in one year, Bayelsa has become the safest state. We are also turning Bayelsa to become a tourism destination, to be an investment destination within our country and within our sub-region and I have just started. I keep telling the people of Bayelsa that they have not seen anything yet. When I was campaigning, I told them to get ready for a big bang and they knew that what was coming their way was big and revolutionary. We are fighting poverty, we are addressing issues of human capacity development and we are at the same time transforming the rural infrastructure that we met on ground. We want to modernise it and then get it to be a springboard for the industrialisation that we seek. You know, Bayelsa is a state where we have deployed CCTV cameras and in the next couple of months, you are going to see a model society emerge. In the health sector; we are building hospitals and then the health insurance: it is an overall comprehensive development. We are building the first storage pharmaceutical centre in this country so that you will not talk about fake drugs in Bayelsa. We are investing a lot in tourism and very soon, you will not need to go to Dubai. The infrastructure must be provided, the atmosphere must be created for that and I think in no distant time, we will extend an invitation. In fact, when people visit, they cannot understand how we are able to put all of this within a short period and they keep asking themselves, ‘if this was possible, why was it not done before now?’ Why are we talking about free education now when in one year, we have sent over 100 Ph.D scholars across the world? In one year, we have selected primary schools pupils into boarding schools all across the country, in one year; we have built constituency secondary schools with boarding facilities. And they have not seen anything yet because I know that education is the most realistic tool anybody can use in transforming any society and I want that society transformed. Not only while I am there as the governor but even when I am out because I don’t want the society to be a breeding ground for militants, criminals and people who have no capacity to take part in their own economy. I want to arm them with the tools, skills and confidence that they must have in themselves to make a difference. Now, what is going on in the state is a revolution. It is something that you need to be there to understand and appreciate. What we have in the state is what is possible when there is leadership and commitment. This office that I hold is by the grace of God and the support of my people. There is enormous potential for good in every state and that is what I am demonstrating. When these secondary schools start, because we are building 30 secondary schools with boarding facilities because what has happened in this country is because we have neglected human capacity development. Even schools like Barewa College that has the honour of producing the first president of this country, we have allowed all those schools to die. Schools that Soyinka and Achebe attended, I am sure it is now in shambles. In this country, education is the key. Sometimes people tell me that I am investing too much on education and I tell them I have not even invested enough. When these schools are finished, you will see that it will be compulsory boarding from SSS1. I will take the children and put in these schools, that is why I am building schools close to the communities and they will be fed at the expense of the state. Now, they don’t pay school fees, they don’t pay for WAEC or JAMB, I pay because I proclaim free education and I meant it. I buy textbooks, uniforms and sandals; for a government in one year to build 400 schools, it is not a joke. I am building teachers’ quarters because when I send teachers out there, I don’t want to hear that they have no place to stay and the key to all of this is the Teachers Training Institute that I am building. You cannot be a teacher in Bayelsa without going through that school, I will say no to it. Yes, there are constraints I am dealing with. I have not imposed any new tax but I told them, they should all pay according to federal tax. Before now, workers in Bayelsa were paying 10% of tax and they feel it is too much money and I said no, everybody must pay his own part according to the federal law. That is, the Personal Income Tax Act. I have also done the welfare bill where, for the vulnerable members of our society, I give them stipends of N5000 once they are up to 75 years, the state maintains you. Also, the disabled and handicapped, the state has a responsibility. I am a people politician. I am in this game for service to the people. To make a difference in their lives and I am determined to make them have the highest possible best from their government and I am institutionalising these things. I am setting these things based on laws so that when I am gone, the laws are there. Just as I am doing on transparency, it’s a law because I don’t want any governor to take us back to where we were. Every month, the governor will do what I am doing. Today, I was happy when a local government chairman was doing his transparency programme to his people because for you to be a chairman in Bayelsa, you must announce what is coming to your people every month. Very soon, because of the terrible rot we inherited, you will see the benefits of what we are doing. We are doing a lot and we need support and understanding of our friends because for a long time, that place was like a dumping ground, nobody cared. Big men stay far from home. We are wiping all that and giving government back to the people. Like the criminals and cultists that renounced, after coming up with a law and enforcing it well, we will address their condition because, as a governor they are my people too. So, we have made it possible for their rehabilitation. You talked about the pension funds in Bayelsa, and there are speculations that you did not really deduct their envelopes well before taking the step. Sir, would you confirm to us that you don’t really know what happened to some pension arrears in the state? Let me tell you, pension arrears were owed for five years before my government came in. They had not paid pension liabilities for five years and I know who was governor for five years in case you don’t. Now, that is criminal. You cannot allow old people who served to go home without their entitlements. I came up and set a small administrative panel and they came up with unpaid pension of about N4bn. People are taking advantage of the weakness of institutions and laws in this country. So, the pension arrears were not paid and every month when I came, I made it a policy to save in addition to paying loans and facilities of about N4 bn every month. That is what Bayelsa sets aside to service loans and useless liabilities. In addition, I said these people are in this situation due to no fault of their and so, we must address it. And so I began to save N250m every month to address to backlog. So you see what I am doing that was not done before? I have paid over N1 bn. Later I said I will not pay the N250m again and I will set up a commission that will tell me when the payment of the pension arrears stopped, who were at fault, and my concern was to really find out what went wrong. And I am going to find out. It is not a question of not reading large, no. You see, the problem is that people thrive on propaganda and blackmail and I hope that we don’t promote criminals to take over leadership in this country with the way we are going because it is the criminals and despicable elements whose voices are heard loudest. It is a major challenge to our democracy. I know we are all savouring our new found freedom but we have to be very careful because people should be asking questions that they need to ask. So, I want to establish facts and then introduce measures that will prevent a repeat of this. I hate what has been done to these old people. My own small gratuity for the ten years I served as a police officer, I get it. I want to sanitise the pension system and when the result comes out, with the kind of interest you have, I am sure you will know. Still on the reconciliation, Nigerians expect that your committee will do all the reconciliation and go the whole hug. Nigerians expect that your committee will come up with a solution to the Rivers crisis. So, what is your committee doing to bring peace to Rivers? On Rivers State, I don’t want to talk about developments in Rivers State because I don’t even know the basis. But for you to say I started it because I am an interested candidate, I am not. I am interested just as other Nigerians are and nothing beyond that. It is not the duty of my committee unless there is a specific referral from the national leadership. It is not our intention to go into Rivers scenario reason being that we have so many matters in court and we have intervention by the National Assembly and there is an international dimension also coming up with people granting interviews to the international media. The only thing I can say is that Nigerians should pray for the mental stability of their leaders because it is part of what they owe us. They should pray that all those who take executive decisions should have stable mindset with which to do their job. When you say leaders should have mental stability, are you suggesting that they should undergo psychiatric test before aspiring to political office? I won’t say our leaders should undergo psychiatric test but I know it is a suggestion that has been made by so many people but I think in the light of some of these developments, it is something we need to discuss.
