Former National Caretaker Committee Chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) Senator Ahmed Makarfi spoke with WALE AJETUNMOBI in Lagos on the party’s post-convention reconciliation and preparations for next year’s elections.
Do you think the PDP is now back on its feet, following its national convention?
Well, not many people gave us a chance before the convention. Many thought that the party was going to scatter, but that didn’t happen. That was not to say that there were no fallouts. After any political party’s convention, you have issues arising from the conduct of such convention. So, the PDP is not different. The party has some minor issues after the convention, but it is gladdening that the party remains solid, united and stand as one entity. Before we conducted the convention, we anticipated that issues may arise. That was why we set up the reconciliation committee which set to work immediately after the convention. Apart from the committee which we set, the current leadership set up two other committees, one made up of essentially former national chairmen and former presiding officers of the National Assembly and another committee headed by one of the governors. All to reach out to the aggrieved and to bring them back on board, with the objecting to providing a united front and to provide a strong and viral opposition to the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC). We have covered a lot of grounds. That is not to say there are no outstanding issues, but I am not in the position to know the details of those outstanding issues, because I am not the national chairman of the party. I have continued to advise the party leadership where I know I have found it necessary to give advice. I will continue to handle issues I could handle on my own to bring unity to the party without necessarily having recourse to the current leadership. So, the current leadership has been meeting relevant organs of the party – the governor, the National Assembly members, former governors and former ministers – to do statutory meetings to consider the way forward. So, I’m sure the party is set and working hard to be an effective opposition party.
How prepared is the PDP to dislodge the APC at the centre?
No meaningful opposition party will want to remain in opposition. The aim of any opposition party is to take over power and that is what we are setting our eyes on. I want to thank the APC and its government for actually making our job easier. I pray that they continue to make our job easier. I know that Nigerians will continue to suffer under the APC. I believe Nigerians will make the right choice by voting out the party in power. As to our preparations, we are doing all that is legally and politically doable to achieve our objectives. But, it will be inappropriate for me to give hints of what we are doing or what we are planning. It would amount to publishing your own plans before going to a battlefront. So, you can as well commit suicide at home and not care to travel faraway. We will keep our plans to ourselves. Be rest assured we are used to the politicking and we shall leave no stone unturned.
The outcome of the PDP’s last convention gave rise to issues, which made some to conclude that there was a deliberate decision by the party to sidelines the Southwest. Is this true?
First, there was no deliberate decision by the party to throw away the Southwest or any part of the country. By the time we went to convention, there was no political arrangement from the South in respect of where the national chairman should come from. After our botched convention in May, we scheduled another convention in Port-Harcourt in August. The party chairmanship, being zoned to the South, made members met in Port Harcourt and micro-zoned the position to the Southwest. When we went to Port Harcourt; that election could not take place because of interference from government, and our tenure was extended. When we were approaching the December convention, our members from the North met, not on our prompting as they did before. Politically, they discussed among themselves and maintained the micro-zoning they had agreed on. The South also met. They could not agree on the micro-zoning. Before each convention, members meet and discuss; they take certain decisions. However, the unity that had existed before the August convention in the South disappeared before the December convention. When the party members from the South met, they could not agree. Then, they met again and agreed on all other positions except two positions – chairmanship and deputy chairmanship. We allowed the South-south and Southwest members to discuss among themselves. The Southeast members excused themselves, but the South-south and Southwest could not agree. And when they could not agree politically, they resolved that the two positions be open to both South-south and Southwest. They said we should allow the convention to decide who wins. Failure of a certain part of the country should not be seen as the rest of the country heaping something on somebody. Nobody directed the North to meet and maintained what they had zoned. As the caretaker committee chairman, I didn’t ask them. Failure to agree was what made the positions openly contested. The Southwest was divided, campaigning against each other. In politics, when you are campaigning against each other and then you want the rest to give you leadership, it becomes more difficult. So, it was a failure of local politics within the South. When elections were about to start at the convention, some of the members from the South started going round that they now had a consensus; some others also went round that they didn’t have a consensus. So, who do you blame in that confusion? We believe no part of this country should be taken for granted when it comes to party issues.
The PDP is weak in Lagos because of internal crisis arising from factionalisation. How is your party resolving the crises in Lagos and other state chapters?
Apart from Governor Seriake Dickson Committee, I know there is a committee, which is being chaired by Dr. Okwesilieze Nwodo. Dr Bello Haliru and Senator David Mark are in that committee to compliment the reconciliation efforts. The Board of Trustees (BoT) chairman is also doing his own bit together with the members. All these efforts to bring about unity. When you said the party is absent in Lagos; I believe you are wrong. We conducted a congress in Lagos to unify the party members. Before the congress, you had two sharp camps, each fighting the other. None could even go into the party office. We conducted a fresh congress in Lagos, harmonised and unified the two camps. The party is properly functioning now from one single office which was not the case before we conducted a unified congress. That is not to say there are no outstanding local issues. Each state you go, you find local issues in the party. But at least, you cannot go into nomination process with two camps; each one nominating and you have one party. In Ogun State, the problems the party faces, not only in Ogun but nationally, were sponsored. The national leadership of the party is trying to make sure people are placed in their proper positions. We should be supported. In Ondo State, there is no much problem. In Ekiti State, members have their local problems, just like any other state. Still, the party is one. Nobody is saying the party is two in Ekiti, even though there are different political interests. In Osun, there are two sharp divisions; we couldn’t organise harmonised congress beyond the ward level. So, the party is very conscious of these problems. In Oyo State, the party is harmonised since Senator Rashidi Ladoja and Seyi Makinde came in. Of course, they have their differences at congress, but they too have agreed to harmonise where they have differences and they are working well. What is important is the grassroots mobilisation which was largely unreported. Don’t be looking at the big picture of ceremonial things. Those things don’t win elections. Which crowd we didn’t have in 2015? Yet, we still lost. So, don’t go by those large crowds when there is a rally. Go down to the polling unit and know what is going on. Then, you will know that PDP is on ground and we are settled to recapture power come 2019.
Restructuring is one political issue that is heating up the polity. In the PDP’s 16-year administration, the party made no effort to restructure. What’s your party’s opinion on this issue?
As national caretaker committee chairman, I addressed a world press conference when this matter came up and I said the PDP is not like a chameleon that changes colours. Right from the beginning, we were for restructuring and we remain for it. Besides that, you recall the governor of Kaduna State, Mallam Nasir el-Rufa’i, and the APC national chairman, Chief John Odigie-Oyegun, were on Channels TV for a one-hour programme, where they were asked about restructuring. They said that was not important and that was not in their party’s interest. The following day, I featured on the same programme. I was asked about restructuring and I said all the processes leading to that debate under former President Olusegun Obasanjo and Goodluck Jonathan were initiated by the PDP during the national conferences. Some of the recommendations bothered on restructuring and we cannot abandon what we started. Restructuring means different things to different people. The starting point is to narrow down the understanding of it and proceed stage by stage because there’s what can be done immediately. There’s what can be done in medium terms and there’s what is long term. The situation we are in has created mutual distrust. What is it we can do today? What is it we cannot do today? If we have passed stage one, we can go to stage two and then stage three. But to run away from restructuring or fail to talk about it is to run away from reality. For a party to say because they want to win an election, they have now changed their position; that is the height of deception. And it is for Nigerians to take them for what they are.
In your opinion, what led to the defeat of PDP at the centre?
Well, the North expected to have the ticket. To some members, returning the ticket to the North mattered. Besides, the language was not even polite during the campaign. The manner some of our members used for campaign in 2015 maligned the opposition candidate. A section of the country felt that foul languages were being used on them. In such situation, even people from that section of the country who are members of the party will feel let down. They became indifferent. Another reason was that, the party structure from national down the line was not used for campaign. Rather, an adhoc arrangement in the name of Transformation Agenda of Nigeria (TAN) was used for the presidential campaign. And TAN was just a body promoted by some people to impress those in power. It was not something structured, but PDP is structured from national to ward level. When you abandoned that asset and used something superficial, there would naturally be problems because you discourage people from participating; people became nonchalant and uninterested. Some governors were not even aware of how campaign was going on. Coordinators were appointed in their states without even knowing. No governor was even in the campaign council. Even the chairman of PDP Governors’ Forum was not in the presidential campaign council.
So, who will go to states and campaign and win elections? It was not that APC won the election; the PDP threw it chance away. There could have been challenges, but if we had acted the way we were supposed to.
There was no way we could have lost the 2015 general elections. Going forward, we only have eleven governors, which means the strength of PDP lies in the hands of those who are not governors. People must work together with the governors we have. The governors are supportive.
