Former National Secretary of the defunct All Nigeria Peoples Party (ANPP) Chief George Moghalu is the National Auditor of the All Progressives Congress (APC). In this interview, he speaks about the party’s preparations for next year’s elections. TONY AKOWE met him in Abuja, the Federal Capital Territory (FCT).
Could you shed light on the proposed composition of the All Progressives Congress (APC) Board of Trustees (BoT)?
The formation of the BOT is a constitutional matter. It is the responsibility of the BOT to choose its chairman, its secretary and its leadership. It is not for the party to do, but for members of the BOT to decide who will lead them. It is their internal affair and they have to vote among themselves to chose their leaders. We cannot influence them from outside or sit in the national secretariat and say that the Chairman must come from this place or that place. If you have an opinion, you can canvass it through the national chairman who is also a member of the BOT. It is not all of us in the NWC that are members of the BOT because there are people who are statutorily members of the BOT as provided for by our constitution. Issues of the BOT is strictly the affairs of the BOT.
What is the position of the party on the zoning of elective positions?
One thing I know for certain, which I can tell you, is that we are going to provide the enabling environment for everybody to express him or herself. As a party, we have agreed that there will not be any imposition. We want a situation where the best candidate will emerge. But when you are looking at zoning, you must not also lose sight of the fact that in our constitution, there is provision for federal character, there is provision for balance and for you to achieve this, you must out of political exigency be compelled to bring in zoning. So, the essence of it is that one thing we will do ,which I can tell you we will do is that the leadership of the party believes in fairness, equity and justice. We are going to create an enabling environment for anybody who desires to aspire to any office to go ahead, right from the counsellorship up to the president. We are not going to impose anybody because we want the best to emerge. We want the best for the country. We want whatever we do, let the people be the reason. Let the Nigerian people count first before anything. That is certainly going to guide us.
What is your reaction to the defection of APC chieftains to the PDP?
One thing about an individual politician is principally the consequence of the person’s feeling of what he want and what he intends to achieve. What you cannot do about people is that you cannot question their ambition or desire because politics is something that has to do with an individual and its all about expectations, ambition and what you want to achieve at the end of the day. So, I wouldn’t be surprise when we have issues that have to do with movement, because as some people are leaving the APC, others are moving into the APC. Some are also going to other parties, it has to do with the individual and how he or she expects to achieve his personal ambition. Now coming to the issue of Malam Nuhu Ribadu; yes Ribadu is a friend and was a leader in our party. When he decided to go over to the PDP, he made his case very clear. He talked about his ambition, he talked about ones assessment of himself and what he intends to achieve at the end of the day. So, his movement, I want to believe is a consequence of his desire to contest the election on the platform of PDP and so, you can’t stop him. I don’t think there is any other reason. From what I can read and understand, I believe that his decision is a consequence of his ambition which he is entitled to. For somebody like Chief Tom Ikimi, I feel sad no doubt about it having known him for quite a while and the fact that he played a very key role in the course of the merger of APC. He was like the coordinating chairman of the chairmen of the three parties that came together to form APC and all the meetings we had about the formation were incidentally held in his house. So for me, it is a sad commentary. However, we will still not lose sight of the fact that he has his decisions to make. He is the person involved and knows his expectations and what he considers as his challenges. He knows where he feels injured. But if I had the privilege of being consulted by him, I would have advised that he should be a little patient and see how things unfold because some of us believe that whatever maybe the disagreement, there will still be room for reconciliation
What is the implication of the defection for the party?
I don’t think so. Why some of us feel sad that you lose people you have already built some level of affinity with, some other people are also coming in. its about individuals, its about ambition, its about expectation. If you are not realizing your ambition, if you are not getting what you expect, that is enough reason for you to take a decision as to where, what to move at, but I don’t think there’s going to be any advance, I don’t agree with you.
People are saying that there is no difference between the pDP and the APC. What is your position on the agitation for ideological politics?
There is quite a word of difference between the PDP and APC. The APC is a progressive party and we look at progressivism from the standpoint of Nigerians. But, I will agree with you that probably, I don’t know whether it’s a case of im,maturity of our democratic process. But it’s a gradual process and I we are going to get to the point where the dividing line will be so clear that you can easily identify who is who and who is where at any given time. If you take our states for example, the states under the APC government, you will see a visible clear difference. Our approach to the issue of corruption, approach to the issue of poverty alleviation, approach to issue of education and health is entirely different from what we have in the system. And that will tell that there is a world of difference between us and them. You must also understand why we in this situation. One, because of the weakness of the private sector, government appears to be the only business. We are at the point where there is not much of party discipline because this anomaly of the executive being the leader of the party. I have never subscribed to it because once the party structure is weak, people who selected this positions now see the party as vehicles for the actualization of their political power. But with the proposals being made for some levels of legislation that will curtail such movements, I think a little bit of discipline will come into it.
How did your party resolve its post-convention crisis?
I don’t think there is much. One thing you must understand is that we are talking about human being; we are talking about people’s ambition; we are talking about people’s expectations. So, there is no way you will finish it and not expect that some persons will be injured or some people may not actualize or get what they want at the end of the day. Then, there is the need for you to consult and talk to such people and make sure everybody is carried along. So, the reactions after every congress or every convention is expected. But our position is that there must be justice in every given situation, because once there is no justice, the tendency for you to make peace is not there. Once there is justice, the route to making peace becomes wider and easier. When somebody is convinced through empirical evidence that this route you are following is not right, the tendency is there for the person to change route. But when the person has not seen a reason for him or her to change route, it is always very difficult. So I agree with you that the few issues that came up where expected because we are dealing with human beings. But most of them have been resolved
Is there plan by the APC to enlarge its coast, ahead of next year’s polls?
Winning people to the party is a continuous process and we don’t intend to stop and we want you to join us too. So, anything we would do to get you to our side will be done. The important thing is that we have created a mega political platform that we have made available to Nigerians to express themselves. We have brought something that is different from the past, something that has never happened before. You know there have never been a successful merger in the history of Nigerian politics, talkless of a situation where parties with government at various levels collapsed their identities to come together. It is all because of the love for this nation and the desire that Nigeria has come to a point in our history where it is only the best that is good enough. We must create the enabling environment for the people to drive in and not until we do that, we have a problem and that is what makes the APC different from the other parties. First and foremost, you must have a pattern that others can build on by the time we finish our tenure.
Does the likelihood exist that the APC presidential candidate can come from the Southeast?
Yes. The possibility is there. There is no street in the Southeast that cannot generate a federal cabinet. I want to be challenged. Every street in the Southeast can generate a complete federal cabinet. We have presidential materials and so, you cannot shut out
Are you working towards that?
Well, consultations are going on and people who are desirous are moving silently because you still have to wait for INEC directive as to when campaigns will start. We are law abiding people and will not go against the laid down procedures. So, you have to wait for the time then you can now see how many of the South-Easterners are out to be part of the presidential race.
But some Nigerians, still don’t see the APC as a party that will have impact in the South-east. How strong is the party in that region?
We are very strong. Those who have that perception are those who don’t want our party because they are not members of the party and they don’t intend to belong now. So what else do you expect them to say? If they don’t want to join APC or they see APC as a threat, what do you want them to say? They will do everything possible to discourage another person from joining and that is part of the campaign. But as far as we are concerned and as far as we know, APC is a popular party in the South-east and it holds the best for the Igbo man.
As the national auditor of APC, what are the new things you hope to bring into the party?
I will bring to bear my knowledge of the system to ensure that the right things are done so that at the end of the day, by the time we leave, we would have left a legacy. We are the beginners, we are the ones starting it, so we must develop a template, we must develop a pattern that others can build on by the time we finish our tenure.
What kind of structure do you hope to put in place to ensure a self sustained party?
We have already put in place the structure and we have started implementing it. We have a membership base that is quite heavy, very strong membership base and if by the time all our members pay a N100 or N200 per annual, that’s a whole lot of money. So you find out that it’s a matter of putting this in place, articulating it and that is exactly what we have done since we came into office and we have drawn out the pattern and we have put it clearly and we are going to implement it from top to bottom to ensure that everybody is a part owner of the party. No one person owns APC. APC is a mass movement and we want to get everybody involved and that is exactly what we are doing so that even the woman or man who sells Akara on the street should be able to pay N20 a month and with that N20, he or she is a major stakeholder, a strong owner, a part owner of the project called APC, so that at the end of the day, nobody will tell me that he is more important than me in APC. I cannot tell the truck pusher that I am more important than him in APC.
So we are trying to build a movement, is a mass movement. It is not about this one that somebody will dip his hand in a known government coffer and use the resources of government to run a private estate or pursue a political ambition. We don’t want to encourage that, we certainly will discourage that.
Come 2015, do we see you throwing your cap in the ring again?
Am still consulting and talking with my people I am just coming from home now. Anything I do in my political life is guided by the wish of my people.
There is this wave of impeachment across the country which has now come to your region. How do you react to this?
What happened in Enugu state is an embarrassment. I believe that those who designed the constitution and included impeachment in it intended it to be a check on the excesses of the executives. But we are getting to a point where we are trying to abuse the process of impeachment. From what I read in the newspaper, the man was impeached because he has poultry farm and that sound ridiculous? it sounds very ridiculous that he is impeached not because he stole government money, not that he misappropriated government money, not that he did anything wrong; but because he has a poultry farm. It is absolute madness as far as am concerned. The legislatures themselves should please ask themselves questions whether they are doing this in the interest of democracy? Are we doing this so that tomorrow, reference can be made to our activities? The executive also should stop being demigods. People sit in their houses, thinking that your head is not good enough, or that you don’t come to lick their wound or come to wash plates and because of that, you should be impeached. It is not right. We must not allow that knife to get blunt because if it does, it is to the disadvantage of our democracy. It is a weapon provided for in the constitution to check the excesses of the executive, to check the excesses of any public officer at that level. But what we are doing now is a complete embarrassment and what we forget is that these print media, the electronic media , the social media is worldwide and how will a parliamentarian in America feel or a parliamentarian in Britain or anywhere in the world feel when he picks up a newspaper or goes to a social media and sees the reason why somebody is being impeached in Nigeria is because he has poultry farm. If you don’t like what he is doing, you correct him but not to use impeachment because its becoming embarrassing. But I wish them goodluck. They are trying to exercise their power as legislatures.
