2023: Only PDP can rescue Nigeria —Pearse

Dr Adetokunbo Pearse, a university lecturer and former governorship candidate in Lagos State, served as a Returning Officer at the recently held South-West Congress of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in Osogbo. Pearse, who had earlier in March served as chairman of the South-South zonal congress of the party, speaks on issues of national interest, in this interview with BOLA BADMUS.

Your party, PDP, had its zonal congress for South-West where a new national vice chairman in person of Ambassador Taofeek Arapaja emerged. What is your view about the politicking that was seen in the build to the congress?

In spite of the various challenges that faced the exercise, it eventually held. You know there was a lot of delay, the [Dr Eddy] Olafeso group took the party to court that they did not want the congress to hold. They wanted the zonal caretaker committee that was in place to continue for another term and Governor Seyi Makinde objected to that. He said the PDP must not continue to allocate positions to people, and that they must go for the congress and that’s why we had the exercise. So, the fact that we had the Congress was a success for democracy because it afforded the people opportunity to vote and the congress was peaceful, contrary to what anybody may say about it. Ambassador Taofeek Arapaja emerged as the chairman and Rahaman Owokoniran from Lagos State emerged as the secretary of the zone.

What implication does the lack of unity in South-West PDP on the party?

Well, frankly speaking, Fayose cannot derail anything anymore because the new officers are in place. The governor is there and they are going to continue to do their work.

Now, if you look at the gap between the votes won by Arapaja, the winner, and Olafeso, the loser, it was quite very close, and this speaks volumes and people might want to say Arapaja did not win by popular vote.

First and foremost, you must consider the fact that Olafeso was the incumbent zonal chairman.

In what way?

He was the one in office as of the time the congress held.

No, the party had a caretaker committee in place then.

The caretaker is just temporary. He was the one in office. The caretaker committee was just temporary towards the process for another election. He was the incumbent. The caretaker cannot be incumbent, cannot take part in the election. So, that is one.

Number two, a lot of people in the zone, particularly in Ogun State, have gone to APC and the reason they left for APC had to do with the way Olafeso and his group handled them when they were there. These people were not accommodated and they were not happy. And think about it, what can a zonal chairman do without the governor? It’s difficult. So, it’s the governor now, with the people he can work with in office. It doesn’t matter how small the margin. This is democracy. I was surprised myself. But we have a lot of people within the party in position of power, who I am afraid- if they are supporting Fayose and his plan, some of them don’t know it yet- are supporting a double agent, who had voiced out several times his support for Bola Tinubu, a  man who wants to be president in APC. So, what happens? This is to me very clear. What happens when PDP announces its own presidential candidate? He already has a man who he is working with. So, APC evidently through Fayose and probably some of his supporters, has penetrated the PDP to a great extent and so our officers who are in office now and many of them who voted are actually working for APC.

How can you address that?

There is something going on that is very sensitive. It’s a little complicated and that is this argument for the Yoruba president. It’s affecting us a lot and you will see it later on. It would get even magnified when we get close to our convention.

I have seen people in Yorubaland whom I thought would never desert the PDP. They are telling me now that look, we don’t care about party, we want a Yoruba president. We are leaving for wherever we can get it, but as it is now, APC is the one that is charging for it.

So, you see our problem. It is the problem Governor Makinde and Abuja have to face. They didn’t create the problem; the problem had been there. But we must just tell the truth. Irrespective of the process, deal with everybody fairly and I think that we will eventually emerge strong and victorious in PDP.

You are foreseeing the kind of problem the PDP might have come 2023. How do you want to address the problem now that you already identify it?

Well, I think what we should do is to just tell the truth, face the facts as they come. Let people know that this is not about ethnicity, it should not be. We have Buhari who is an ethnocentrist, supporting his people all the time. What has he done for the people now except to dig them deeper and deeper into trouble? It is important to face facts, at least support efficiency and commitment, not ethnicity. If we keep on promoting this agenda of PDP, which means restructuring Nigeria for a better country, a more secure country, a more productive and progressive country, I think we will eventually emerge. All of these to me are just superficial problems. They are temporary because at the end of it, people like Tinubu will be exposed. APC has not zoned the presidency to the South. If they zone it to the South, let us see what is going to happen. If they are going to have their convention, let’s see what happens.

When they come to it, we would ask them what do you want to do for this country? It’s not a question of a Yoruba man or an Igbo man. Igbo too are now talking about Igbo presidency. Nobody is talking about issues and that’s why PDP will come out victorious, because PDP will come to save this nation. If we restructure this country, decentralise powers, decentralise working organs in government, decentralise the economy so that every state can have access to its mineral resources instead of being lodged in the Exclusive Legislative List as it is now, then you will have a richer country, you will have a more secure country. Part of restructuring is also security restructuring, decentralisation of security apparatus, which means there would be state police and other levels of security. That would empower the states to be able to secure people’s lives and property more than ever. This is what PDP is campaigning for.

Talking about national politics now, where is Nigeria currently now. Is there any hope?

Currently, if you judge the situation, there are really three main critical areas which are responsibilities of any government. One is economy. Everybody knows that the economy is in a shambles. The naira I think yesterday was selling almost at about N480 to about $1. During the days of President Goodluck Jonathan, which was about six years ago, it was about N190 to $1. That is an indication of what the economy is. Of course, I don’t know of any shortcut to save the economy except that the policies that drive the economy must be positive policies. And you know governance is also part of it.

If there is insecurity in the land, foreign investments will dwindle, the stock market will be weak, the economy would not move, it will just keep on going down. And then the banking policy is not productive. So, this government is doing everything wrong and, therefore, the economy continues to weaken every day. The economy could be stronger if we do what other economies have done which means we decentralise the economy by having fiscal restructuring in place.

Think about it, how can we hope to survive economically depending on one product, oil? Ninety-five to 98 per cent of our income comes from export of oil. So, when the price comes down worldwide, we crash, and only one product. Whereas if we decentralise the economy, and allow states to control their mineral resources, we have states that have bauxite; we have states that have copper; we have states that have phosphate. The bitumen deposit in Ondo-Oyo axis is the third largest in the world. With that product, the whole of South-West becomes an El Dorado. The East geo-political zone, in Enugu area, has the 9th largest deposit of natural gas in the world. You have oil coming out of Abia. You have all these things in place, but we are not utilising them.

The 1999 Constitution has locked everything into the Exclusive List for the Federal Government. So, all these changes will be brought about by the PDP, I know this. I have read books written by Alhaji Atiku Abubakar where he said he is going to decentralise the economy. He is a businessman; he understands that, that’s the only way we can go.

A small state, South Carolina in America, maybe 10million people, is producing just wine, and selling it to China and making billions of dollars. It is not difficult. But if you put the people in place who do not understand, who do not want to do anything, we are going nowhere.

How can you explain that the GDP of Nigeria, which overtook the GDP of South Africa for the first time in history in 2014 is now at 50 years low? We are not producing. How can you produce when there is no security? Imagine, apart from foreign investments, how would farmers go to farms? How would anybody go to work in various parts of the country where there is lockdown?

But recently the president changed the Service Chiefs and appointed a new IGP. Does that speak to the issue of insecurity in the country?

President Buhari is the worst thing that has happened to Nigeria in its history. What does it mean? First and foremost, the Service Chiefs were there for too long, long enough to do damage. It is a little too late, too late. What did he do when he removed those Service Chiefs? All of them again were given ambassadorial appointments to represent Nigeria outside the country. That was what he did to people who had failed the nation. Did he really remove them or he just moved them aside?

While we talk about the Inspector-General of Police, which is the main source of security, it is not so much about the Army, the Navy or the Air Force. Security is for the police. He has done nothing about the police, changing an Inspector-General, a Fulani man, and putting another Fulani man doesn’t mean anything, what does this man bring to the table, that’s the truth.

Number two, it is not just the Inspector-General of Police, it is the policy of the police. Do you realise what we have in the police? Nigeria has about 387,000 policemen and women in the whole country. The ratio of police to the citizens in Nigeria is 580 to one policeman.

The president about a few weeks ago returned to the country after his medical trip abroad. He has about two more years to spend in office. What advice do you give to him to make him effect positive change within the remaining time?

The only advice that I would give the president is to resign from office. He is not well and he does not have the capacity to rule this country. He has had this opportunity, four years of his first tenure and now we are going into another second year. Therefore, he has shown that he does not know what he is doing and that he would only lead us more into problems.

If he doesn’t resign, let him just wait till his tenure ends and leaves office. Let us just have a fair and credible election for somebody else to come into office, somebody else that Nigerians listen to his policies, buy into his ideas, not because he comes from their tribe but because he has plans to improve the quality of lives and to make Nigeria a better place.

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