2016-06-03

In this Interview, ex- Political Adviser to former President Goodluck Jonathan, Alhaji Ahmed Gulak, speaks to JOHN ALECHENU about the crisis within the Peoples Democratic Party, the ruling All Progressives Congress and sundry other national issues.

The Peoples Democratic Party used to describe the All Progressives Congress as bad losers, but is it not the PDP that appears to be worse now?

I don’t agree because, the APC so to speak, is not a political party. It’s a contraption of various political parties that have come together for the purpose of the 2015 general elections. Yes, it won the presidential election and the governorship elections in many states of the federation but we have not seen it mix as a political party; that is the position.

Those who oppose Ali Modu Sheriff as chairman before he was removed insist that he does not project a good image for the party. Don’t you think that they must have a good reason for taking such a stance?

Let me correct an impression here, Senator Ali Modu Sheriff has not been removed. He is still the National Chairman of the PDP, and not any other person.

Have you forgotten about Port Harcourt, where there was a non-elective convention and a decision to set up the Makarfi-led committee was taken… (Cuts in)

That is what I am saying; there was no convention in Port Harcourt. The National Chairman postponed the convention in accordance with the provisions of the PDP constitution. I want Nigerians to read the provisions of our party constitution and see what it says. It says there can never be a convention when the national chairman is not presiding. Check Articles 33 and 35 of the constitution; it is so clear and unambiguous. People just do things to satisfy their wishes without following the constitution of the party and that is what got us to where we are today. Why do we give ourselves a constitution if we are not going to follow it? When the constitution says it is the national chairman who presides over a convention, the national chairman presides over National Working Committee meetings and National Executive Committee meetings. The chairman postponed the convention, which should have held in Port Harcourt, based on a valid court order which was duly served on him. Would there be any gathering or convention so to speak? The answer is no. Ali Modu Sheriff being a law abiding citizen and loyal member of the party was not removed, he suspended the convention based on the court orders served on him not to continue with the convention to conduct elections into the offices of the Chairman, Secretary, National Auditor and other offices. The court orders are clear. The Independent National Electoral Commission that supervises political parties wrote a clear letter to the national chairman that it would not supervise any election into the offices of the National Chairman, National Secretary or National Auditor. It was very clear and those that said they could get the order vacated by Friday, before the convention, failed to do so. So that order was valid and subsisting and no convention could go ahead in a clear violation of that court order. That is the position. You see, journalists should not be as lazy as politicians. Go through our constitution, Articles 33 and 35 are clear about this; no other authority can give the go ahead for the convention, in spite of a court order. Can any gathering or any group of individuals under any name or guise continue to violate a court order that is valid and subsistent? Why are we calling ourselves a country that believes in the rule of law? Why are we calling ourselves a democracy? What is democratic about you going ahead to violate court orders? What is democratic about you violating your own constitution that you gave yourself? The constitution says only the national chairman can preside over the convention and the national chairman was on ground. He is a respected person, a respecter of the rule of law, a respecter of our constitution based on the court order served on him, and he postponed the convention. If he went ahead with the convention, it meant that it would have held in contempt of court. It would have been a misnomer to say there was a convention; there was no convention, let alone, talks of removing Ali Modu Sheriff.

What about allegations that Sheriff is putting up structures in states where the PDP does not have governors preparatory for a run for the 2019 elections?

That is the imagination of people that have constituted themselves into a clog in the wheels of progress. Putting structures up? How? Go to the states, you will find that there were open congresses from the grassroots up to the state level. Did Sheriff put structures in Ondo? Did he put structures in Rivers, Ekiti, or Gombe? Did he put structures in Ebonyi? Did he put structures in Taraba? He did not put any structure anywhere; the party as an institution puts up structures through congresses.

But some of your party members have blamed Sheriff’s ambition for causing renewed hostilities within the party’s ranks. Do you agree?

What ambition?

He is said to be nursing an ambition to fly the PDP presidential flag, come 2019.

In the first place, how did Sheriff emerge as national chairman? As a journalist, ask yourself, go and investigate. You know for a fact that when our former National Chairman, Adamu Mu’azu, resigned on May 20, 2015, according to the constitution, somebody from his zone should step in and occupy the seat and Uche Secondus, the Deputy National Chairman of the party, continued on that seat in clear violation of the constitution from May to September, before I went and confronted them. I said look, you are in violation of the constitution. This is what the constitution says: someone from the North East should step into the shoes of Mu’azu, they refused to listen to me. This was what led me to seek redress in court. The court on December 16, 2015, gave a clear judgement that it was either me who was the plaintiff or any other person from the North East that should occupy the position of Chairman of our party. So our stakeholders met and through the National Executive Council-the second highest decision making body of the party- elected Ali Modu Sheriff to be the national chairman from the North East zone in compliance with the court order and the constitution. And when Ali Modu Sheriff was elected at NEC to serve out the tenure of Mu’azu pending the convention, that being the case, who today is the chairman? Ali Modu Sheriff, of course. Who should preside over NWC, NEC and National Caucus meetings and National Convention? None other than Ali Modu Sheriff will continue to hold the office until a convention is held to elect a new chairman and members of the executive. In the eyes of the law, Ali Modu Sheriff is the Chairman of the party and will remain so until the convention is held. If Ali Modu Sheriff as the National Chairman was served with two orders of the courts of competent jurisdiction and if he was served with a letter from the INEC that it would not supervise elections into these offices, if you were in his shoes, what would you do? Will you go ahead with the convention in clear violation of the court order? The answer is no. He had to postpone the convention until the court issues are sorted out; maybe by political solution for parties to withdraw the court cases and then conclude the convention when new officers will take over.

Is it right then to say that you sacrificed your personal ambition to be National Chairman of the PDP for peace to reign?

My struggle was not about an individual ambition. My struggle was for us as members of a political party to follow the constitution we gave ourselves. Why did we give ourselves a constitution? When I saw that there were clear violations of this constitution, I had to take on the powers that be and challenged them in court and the court confirmed my stand and gave judgement. When the NEC, in its wisdom, elected Ali Modu Sheriff to be the national chairman, it is a confirmation that I fought for a just cause and the constitution followed. The court judgement was complied with. As a party man, I had to support the decision taken by the highest decision making body of my party.

Why then do most members oppose his chairmanship of the party?

No, not most members. Where did you get your statistics from? Most members, especially the people who own this party and the grassroots people are in support of Ali Modu Sheriff. Since he came on board, there have been lots of activities in this party. The party was woken up from its slumber and has been revived. That is what people want.

Considering what is happening in your party, do you think the party has the right to criticise the APC?

Criticism is one thing; this is internal wrangling within our party about leadership. That is normal and is to be expected in a democratic party. In every genuine party, there are bound to be divergent interests. That does not remove the fact that as an opposition party, you reserve the right to constructively criticise the ruling party if it concerns governance. Be that as it may, what I will subscribe to is, if the PDP will criticise the APC-led government for always violating court orders, then we should not toe the same line. We should not violate court orders. Once there is a valid subsisting court order, we must obey it. What are subsisting court orders? Those are clear orders of the court that the PDP should not go on with convention to elect officers into various offices. That was why Ali Modu Sheriff had to postpone the convention to sort out the legal issues and probably settle it out of court and then continue to conclude the convention where we will elect our officers.

What do you say to those who say that the former President Goodluck Jonathan administration under which you served is responsible for the poor state Nigeria has found itself today?

This sounds like a broken record. For one year, this has been the APC’s song, ‘PDP ruined Nigeria, PDP ruined the economy, 16 years of PDP ruined Nigeria’, but one simple question I want to ask is, what is the PDP? PDP since 1998 has been populated by individuals who are Nigerian citizens today. In the APC, if you remove President Muhammadu Buhari and Asiwaju Ahmed Tinubu and a few of their leaders, who among those in the party today, has not been a member of the PDP? Where should I start from? Is it from Kebbi, Sokoto, Katsina, Bauchi, Gombe, Kaduna, Benue, Plateau, or Adamawa State? Where do I start? All the people in the party have been in the PDP, so, if the PDP ruined Nigeria, these people that defected to the APC in 2015 are those who ruined Nigeria. That is the clear fact we must live with. It is wrong for somebody to say the PDP ruined Nigeria in the last 16 years while 90 per cent of those that have been in the PDP until 2015 are now in the APC. It will be right to say the political class ruined Nigeria.

Is it wrong for Buhari to go after PDP members who used government money to run PDP campaigns?

Well, if money from government accounts was used for campaign, it was wrong. And the government of the day has every right to say it was wrong and bring those who were involved to book and to make them account for it. It also has the right to arraign them before the court of law for them to answer questions. It is equally wrong to be silent on APC state governments, which equally used government money to run the campaign for the APC in 2015. What is sauce for the goose is also sauce for the gander. The law should be of general application; let the APC be brought to book, let the PDP be brought to book. Whoever was involved in wrong doing, let them answer for it. As I said, it is wrong to apply the laws only to members of the PDP; it is right to apply the laws to all parties.

Are you surprised to hear about the huge amounts of money shared for PDP campaigns?

In fact, I still don’t believe it. If it is true that that kind of money was taken and shared and it can be proved, then it is mindboggling. But like I said, I don’t believe it. Most of these cases are still in court. The judiciary is supposed to adjudicate and the verdict is theirs, not mine, not yours, not the government’s. The government has done the right thing to arraign those it suspects of committing these alleged offences; it is left for the court of law to make a pronouncement after trial.

Can you give us a fair assessment of the last one year under the President Muhammadu Buhari–led administration?

It is for you to assess and tell us.

But your assessment is what our readers are interested in.

The APC has been in government for one year. If the party has made promises and it has not fulfilled them, it is left for Nigerians to speak out. If they have fulfilled them, it is left for Nigerians to say. Let me say this, in the area of security, this administration inherited the fight against the Boko Haram insurgency from the past administration, it built on it and continued from where the last administration stopped. I think we are moving towards success. On the economic front, everybody knows what is happening. Ours is to keep on praying; we don’t want any government to fail. Even as members of the opposition now, we don’t want Buhari or this administration to fail. We want him to succeed because his success belongs to all of us. And if he succeeds, Nigerians will not suffer. With the terrible economic situation now, no Nigerian is happy, irrespective of whether you are in the opposition or not. This nation comes first. If you were given a choice between your political party and your nation, definitely you would chose your nation first because whatever we do, it is first to make sure that this country remains united and progress.

Is it right then to say that the PDP was not prepared for the role of an opposition party?

Neither was the APC prepared for governance.

Looking back now, can you honestly say that the PDP did what it was supposed to do and deserved to retain power in 2015?

As a party, we did everything that was humanly possible but there were other circumstances in 2015. Nigerians wanted change; the insurgency in the North East was the albatross of the PDP, to tell you the truth. The insurgency was in the North East in particular and the North in general. If you saw the pattern of the votes that came in for the APC, you would see that Buhari secured over 70 per cent of his votes from these areas. The Boko Haram insurgency was the albatross of the PDP and Nigerians wanted change, believing that a change of government would tackle the issue headlong and bring it to an end immediately. During the campaigns, Buhari said if he won, the insurgency would end in three months. Those were campaign slogans. Now he is there, he is dealing with the reality on ground. He is now standing face to face with the myriad of problems of Nigeria and he is tackling it the best way he can. We pray for him to succeed.

You talked about PDP members in the APC. Is it right then to say that the PDP has lost the calibre of persons who made it tick?

Take this from me, the last has not yet been heard about these political parties; you see, some people went to the APC to get a platform to run for elections. Like I always say, it is Gen. Muhammadu Buhari (retd.) that brought the APC to government not the APC bringing him to government. People should clearly note this. To me, it is Muhammadu Buhari that brought APC to government at the centre and even in the states. That is the right thing to say, not the other way round. APC did not bring Buhari to government. Be that as it may, this brings us to the question: is the APC today a cohesive political party? I don’t believe so. The PDP must be having its own problems as a result of the deceit of 2015. As a political party, we must pick up the pieces and begin to rebuild.

You speak so passionately about the PDP, are you sure you won’t consider dumping the party at some point?

I am committed body, soul and spirit to the PDP for now and I will continue to work for the success of PDP.

With the benefit of hindsight, you served as the Speaker of the Adamawa State House of Assembly before your appointment as Political Adviser to former President Goodluck Jonathan. What would you say is the problem of the Nigerian political class?

The Nigerian political class has not yet developed politically. Somewhere along the line, the military did not allow the political class to emerge willingly and politically. When Gen. Sani Abacha passed on and Gen. Abdulsalami Abubakar became the Military Head of State, there was this desire to return the country to democracy and the political class started aligning and realigning, but there was a subtle blackmail from the military. It was like this, you want democracy? Yes, we will give you democracy, but on our own terms. That was how (Chief Olusegun) Obasanjo emerged because Obasanjo was one of them. In fact, Obasanjo was in prison, they removed him from prison, gave him pardon, made him a candidate and told Nigerians to vote for him. Right from Day one, the Nigerian political class was not given a free hand to develop freely and form political parties on their own, make their mistakes and correct them to strengthen the system.

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