In spite of proclamation by some governors on the platform of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) and groups canvassing for a second term ticket for President Muhammadu Buhari, National Publicity Secretary of the party, Mallam Bolaji Abdullahi says the national leadership of the party will give all party members equal opportunity to contest for any post. He speaks with Senior Deputy Editor, TAIWO AMODU, in Abuja on this and other sundry issues.
The party had its National Executive Committee (NEC) meeting on Tuesday. How will you describe its outcome?
It was a very good meeting that took place in an atmosphere of friendship and brotherhood. All the predictions of anarchy and collapse didn’t happen; we have always maintained that some of these issues were exaggerated. So, we weren’t surprised that the meeting went the way it went and nothing untoward happened and we left the place happier and more committed to the cause of the party and ready to present a more united front.
The plot to remove the national chairman, Chief John Odigie-Oyegun, turned out to be an anti-climax as the NEC meeting passed a vote of confidence in his leadership. What was the masterstroke that the APC National Working Committee (NWC) pulled?
No, there was no masterstroke because it wasn’t on the agenda; it wasn’t on the card. Nobody was talking about removal of the party chairman, I don’t know what information you have, but there was nowhere anybody sat down to say, “Oh, let us remove the chairman”. Of course, people will be free to say what they want to say; people who are ambitious will also be stoking it, hoping that they will benefit from it.
Nobody has seriously considered the idea of removing the chairman. The tenure of this current executive of the party will come to an end first half of next year. Why destabilise the system by bringing in a new person now? There wasn’t any time it was contemplated. If some people have the idea and think that it is something they could do, it was a different thing. But there was nowhere it was moved or contemplated that such thing would happen yesterday (Tuesday).
There are people who are disenchanted with Odigie-Oyegun’s style of administration of the party, including former Vice President Atiku Abubakar and Senator Bola Tinubu. There is the same disapproval coming from Senate President Bukola Saraki. Is the NWC now willing to go back to the drawing board and accommodate aggrieved stakeholders?
You see, it is normal for people to express their dissatisfaction with something, but it doesn’t mean they want to get rid of it. People may have reasons to disagree with certain things, not necessarily that they are opposed to the person and want to get rid of the person. These leaders of our party that you mentioned may have been dissatisfied with certain things that happened at one point or the other or certain things that didn’t happen, but it doesn’t mean that they want to go all the way to say “get rid of this person”. This is because every one of these individuals that you mentioned is capable of looking at the larger picture and the implications for the polity, for the system when certain actions are taken. So, they aren’t going to use their personal predilection or dissatisfaction to cause certain actions to happen when they know that it may be injurious to the overall interest of the party or the polity.
So, I don’t think we should use the disagreement, or dissatisfaction that these leaders, at one point or the other, have expressed to come to the conclusion that they are interested in removing Chief Odigie-Oyegun from his position as chairman of the party. So, if this is the evidence that people rely on to conclude that Chief Oyegun was on his way out of the party, I think it has been blown out of proportion.
President Muhammadu Buhari, at the meeting, talked about expanding the Federal Executive Council (FEC) and also constituting boards of federal agencies. Nigerians are worried that a government that is preaching fiscal discipline and reducing cost of governance wants to do this on the altar of mere political expediency. What is your take and is the move to spread party patronage by reconstituting boards of parastatals not coming two late?
I don’t think you are exactly correct in your interpretation of what the president has said. When the president said he wants to extend his cabinet, it must mean that he has consideration of bringing in more people that are competent to help him steer the affairs of the country in a particular direction; he has said he wants to bring in fresh ideas. So, at that level you have to weigh the consideration for better performance of the government, with consideration for cost.
It was the same president that said, “Look, I am going to have minimal, small cabinet”. And having tried that for two and half years, he may have realised, in his wisdom, that may be the price he is paying for having this smaller cabinet are in terms of capability to do all that he needs to do isn’t worth whatever he is able to save by having a smaller cabinet. In any case, how much cost will appointing more ministers bring to the government when the days when ministers buy cars and all that is gone? So, if the president in his wisdom feels that he needs to appoint more ministers to make his government more efficient, then I don’t see any problem with that.
But it will certainly increase the cost of running government?
Well, if it increases the cost of running government, then you also have to look at the benefit that it can bring to the system. Look, it is about cost-benefit analysis. Sometimes when you are saving money, you may be deceiving yourself because you are also paying other prices elsewhere. So, I don’t think it is about patronage. I believe that the president is convinced that this is the direction he needs to go to make his work even better.
On the issue of board appointments, yes, there is no doubt about it, party members and party loyalists have been restless about this particular issue. They made that very clear yesterday (Tuesday) at the meeting that they wanted this thing to be done very soon. Of course, they are entitled to it; they fought for the party so they have the right to expect to be rewarded in a particular way. So it is better late than never. I don’t think it is late in the day, but the most important thing is to bring every party member that has something to offer on board to do that now that we still have time.
Talking about bringing every party member on board, the Comptroller General of Customs, Colonel Hamid Ali (rtd), last Friday, alleged that members of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) who defected to the APC were the one undermining the vision of President Buhari. He further argued that they have hijacked his administration. As a former member of that erstwhile ruling party, what is your reaction?
I don’t know the context in which Colonel Ali said what he has been quoted to have said and I don’t know if he was referring to former members of PDP in APC at the moment, or he was referring to people who are still in PDP and who are playing certain part in this government. I don’t know which of the two he was referring to. But I don’t think he will be referring to former members of PDP who are in APC. I am one of them and if there is anything, we have brought value to the system, to the party and to the government. It will be uncharitable for him to have said that, if that’s what he said. But I don’t think that’s what he said. If what I read is correct, I think what he is saying is that there are people who aren’t in our party who are members of PDP who are occupying positions in this government. So, if you want to interpret that to mean he is referring to members of the new PDP, then it is possible to interpret it that way and then I will say that will be an unfortunate thing for him to say.
But for us at the party level, we don’t share his view that the government isn’t functioning; we don’t share his view that the government hasn’t performed. At the NEC meeting on Tuesday, the governor of Borno State, Kashim Shettima, was very effusive, expressing gratitude to the
president on the establishment of the North-East Development Commission. We know what it was with Boko Haram before this administration came on board. Now, we know what it is.
A couple of months, ago this country was neck-deep in recession; now we know where we are today. Today, you saw a report this morning that we have gone several steps up in doing business ranking by the World Bank and our Europe Bond has been oversubscribed. That means that the government is getting something right. Yesterday (Tuesday), we received briefing from the Minister of Agriculture, Chief Audu Ogbeh, where he was saying that by 2018, all things being equal, Nigeria will not need to import a single grain of rice and he was talking about other progress that has been made in that sector.
So, I think it will be wrong for anybody to say that the government hasn’t achieved or hasn’t made progresss, even to the extent of blaming some people. I think Hamid Ali, for whatever it is, was merely expressing the frustration of some of his group members who expect some reward and hasn’t been able to get that reward. We don’t share his view; we believe that the president has done very well, despite all the challenges and it was on that basis that the APC NEC passed a vote of confidence on the president yesterday (Monday).
Many Nigerians will give kudos to this government in its fight against insurgency and in trying to move the economy away from its mono-cultural status. But they are scandalised about certain revelations of financial sleaze under this administration which makes a mockery of its anti-corruption crusade namely, the Kachikwu-Baru, the Mainagate and the Babachir Lawal scandal. As the APC spokesperson, aren’t you worried?
But you see, like I said a couple of days ago, it is only Mr President, in his position as Commander-in-Chief of the Nigerian Armed Forces, that has access to all information. None of us has that access. So, if he is taking a particular action, in a particular way, we must have confidence that there is something that he probably knows that the rest of us don’t know. We should always give him that benefit of the doubt.
On the issue of Maina, it is explicit and you could see the decisive action the president took on it and like we said as a party, we were embarrassed that it happened the way it has happened. But we must not forget one thing: while we were talking about the reinstatement of Maina and the surreptitious way he was smuggled back into the system, which we said was embarrassing and whoever has hand in it be severely reprimanded or punished, we must not forget that there was an original sin, an original offence that created the background for this issue of reinstatement in the first place. That original offence was that this individual called Maina has been accused of making away with billions of naira of pensioners’ money. When did that happen? It happened under the PDP government. That kind of thing couldn’t have happened under APC. We must not forget that. We must not forget that this same Maina was being treated like a fat and untouchable fat cat under that PDP government. He was going around in a convoy of security.
But how come he secured reinstatement under a government that professes zero-tolerance for corruption?
Look, if you will be kind to listen to me and allow me to finish my argument, then you can ask another question. You will recall that this same Maina was declared wanted by the National Assembly; you will recall that former Senate President David Mark actually asked former President Goodluck Jonathan to choose between the National Assembly and Maina. So, we must stop pretending as if this Maina story started today. The question we should be asking in addition to asking how he managed to smuggle himself back into government is, ‘how was it possible for him to commit the kind of crime that he was alleged to have committed?’ So, we must ask all the questions if we want to be fair. There is no doubt that his coming back into the system the way he did was wrong and an embarrassment to us and we believe that whoever is responsible for it should be punished. But we must not forget that the crime that rendered him illegitimate to be in government was committed under PDP and it was only under PDP that that kind of crime was possible.
On the issue of Babachir Lawal, the former Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF), people asked, why did it take so long? The president took the action he took at the point that he must have been convinced that these people were actually guilty of the allegations against them and we are happy that he has taken that action and we are happy with the replacement that he has announced. All these point at one thing: that the president does take action whenever he has evidence beyond doubt that someone has betrayed his Oath of Office.
There are so many troubled spots within the party and aggrieved members are anxious to see the APC NWC take action. The party is heavily polarised in Kogi, Bauchi and Kano states. What is being done to actually calm frayed nerves in these states?
Well, the issue came up at the NEC meeting concerning some of these areas where we have issues. As I speak with you, we still have people in Kogi trying to resolve the issues. You see, we must understand one thing: wherever you have a big political party, a national party in a country
like Nigeria, everybody cannot walk in the same direction. There will be disagreement; there will be fight over positions, over power and interest. That is natural to politics and it isn’t peculiar to Nigeria. So, what is happening, while I am not saying it is good, is normal in a political contest. It is like that everywhere. That is number one.
Number two: you see the task of building a political party doesn’t happen in two years or four years. It takes a very long time to build a political party that will be disciplined; that everyone believes in its certain fundamental values and are operating, based on those values alone. It takes years of painstaking construction, of building an ideology, of institutionalising this ethos.
If we have a party that is three years old and we are already concluding that it has failed, I don’t think we understand what party democracy is all about when we say that. PDP has been in existence for 19 years now and was in power for 16 years and I know they (the party leadership) know the efforts that went into the building of that party. Just one electoral defeat and you can see what happened to PDP. So what that means is that even 16 years may not be enough to build a strong and formidable political party. Everybody is trying to pick the pieces now; the PDP is trying to pick the pieces from where it left off and we are trying to build our party as well. Some of these issues will continue to happen, but if we are committed to party democracy, we have to understand that building a strong, formidable political party takes a long time.
In the First Republic, it didn’t take forever to build a Unity Party of Nigeria (UPN) that was a disciplined and organised party, but you will agree with me that that was a time when we had strong men as leaders of those parties. But the time for a strong man, political leader is gone! There was a period when you had Chief Obafemi Awolowo who provided the rallying anchor for the defunct Action Group and the defunct UPN and Nnamdi Azikiwe as head of the defunct Nigerian Peoples Party (NPP) and Aminu Kano, leading the defunct Peoples’ Redemption Party (PRP). At this time and moment in our history, we don’t have strong men like that anymore and I don’t believe we need strong men like that anymore. At this time, if we must run a system that is participatory, that’s all inclusive, that gives right to every single member of that party, we should expect that there will be disagreement, there will be conflict and there will sometimes even be chaos. But in spite of that, we must continue to work hard to build a political party. So, when people say there is crisis here and there, meaning that APC will not survive, I laugh.
Former Vice President Atiku Abubakar was absent at the APC National Caucus and NEC meetings. Did he send his apologies? He is a strong member of your party; aren’t you bothered about his aloofness?
I don’t have information about whether or not he gave reason for not coming, but I think we should be bothered. He is an important member of our party; he is one of the leaders of our party and I believe that, at our own level as NWC, efforts should be made to reach out to him. That is what we have always canvassed; that when any leader of our party has expressed disaffection or has given indication that things are wrong, we should approach them to find out how those issues could be addressed.
I don’t think we want to dismiss someone like Alhaji Atiku Abubakar and say he doesn’t matter or he isn’t important. He is definitely very important by any standard and has a massive network as a politician. No serious political party will say such an important personality doesn’t matter. I think by his absence, if it means that he is protesting certain things, I think now that the meeting is over, we must make efforts to reach out to him and find out how the relationship can be mended.
What do you make of the statement recently attributed to the governor of Kaduna State, Mallam Nasir el-Rufai, that there are Buharists in APC? Nigerians see it as an indication of cleavages within the ruling party. Are there camps within APC?
Yes, there will always be camps in a political party; there will always be cleavages in a party; there will always be tendencies. The ultimate is that we work as members of one political family. I am from Ilorin, you are from Oyo and maybe somebody from Nasarawa. Some of these bring tendencies because there are orientations. I am Moslem, you are a Moslem; we have Christians, we have northerners, we have southerners. These are tendencies and at the end of the day, we will all be united as Nigerians. It is the same thing. When you have a big political family like APC, there will be cleavages; there will be groupings. But in spite of this, we all rallied at national caucus and we all rallied yesterday at the NEC meeting and we are all one big united family. So, we can never have a political party where everybody is moving in the same direction. It is only in the military that you can have everybody moving in the same direction and taking instruction from the garrison commandant.
Some of the governors have expressed the feeling that President Buhari be given a second term ticket; that it should even be automatic. Is that the general mood in the party?
You see, like I keep saying, number one, President Buhari hasn’t said he wants a second term. Number two, I don’t think we should give the impression that the party (APC) needs to be persuaded to move in that direction because when you are saying that the president should be given a second term, then who are you talking to? If it is presumed that every member of the party agrees that that is what should happen, who are you persuading that the president should be given automatic ticket? What I am saying is that when Mr President comes out to say he will contest in 2019 that is when this kind of statement will become pertinent.
I doubt if the president says he wants to contest in 2019, anybody will come and say, ‘I will contest against him’ He is respected, he is formidable and everyone knows that, but that doesn’t mean that whoever wants to contest against him doesn’t have the right under the Nigerian Constitution or the APC Constitution to challenge him. But it doesn’t mean they will, out of recognition that he has done very well, out of recognition that he is a formidable personality and out of respect for him and his office and status as a leader. But that doesn’t remove the fact that an individual who may want to contest has the right under the law to want to contest against him. But I think at this moment, all these arguments are merely academic. What will make it pertinent is when the president has come out to say, “I will contest”. If he hasn’t done that, then there is no basis for argument.
In the event that he makes his intention known, will you expect all the other aspirants to defer to him and fall in line?
That is hypothetical, I am not a prophet and I don’t know how people will behave. But what I am saying is that if the president today announces his intention to contest, I expect majority of the party people to support him.
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