Mega party: PDP open to negotiations, but… —Adeseun

Senator Ayoade Adeseun, a former member of the House of Representatives on the platform of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and immediate past Senator representing Oyo Central District, is a member of the PDP Strategy Review and Inter-Party Affairs Committee. He speaks with MOSES ALAO on the disposition of his party towards the talks about mega party and the party system structure Nigeria needs, among other issues.

FOR some time now, there have been talks about the emergence of a mega party to challenge the All Progressives Congress (APC) in 2019. As a chieftain of the PDP and member of the PDP strategy review and inter-party affairs committee, what will you say is the disposition of your party towards the much-touted mega party?

Without revealing any of the details being discussed at our committee level, I want to hazard a guess that the PDP, because of its history and the fact that it is probably the largest party in this country at this point in time, will remain as a national platform for political activities. But it is obvious to all of us that the PDP as it is today is a weak entity that requires some beefing up, because we lost so many of our vibrant, capable and strong political actors in the last few years. What we are now trying to do is to do the best we can to bring all those vibrant characters back into the fold.

We made very serious mistakes in the past but we have learnt lessons from them. The PDP is now poised to make amends and correct the errors of the past; apologise to the Nigerian citizenry and reestablish that sense of purpose towards serving the greater good of the Nigerian society. That is essentially the PDP’s position as at today. The party wants to continue to be relevant but to remain relevant and to win back the hearts of the average Nigerians, we will have to retool and that is what we are trying to do now.

The point now is what happens in the situation that the vibrant members you lost are not willing to return to the PDP and some chieftains of the APC are aggrieved while there are other heavyweight politicians considering the option of founding a party as an alternative to the APC. Will your party be willing to forming a mega party with these people if they refuse to work with your name and platform?

What is a mega party? You call a party a mega party because it involves other parties turning in their certificates to form one entity and you would recall that when APC was formed, each of the legacy parties were vibrant on their own. ACN had governors and members of the National Assembly; the ACN controlled so many states and had National Assembly members. Even APGA had a governor not to talk of CPC. But as things stand today, once you remove APC and PDP and maybe APGA, which still has a hold on a section of the country, which other party has the identity and structure of a strong party? So, if you want to form a mega party, those who will coalesce into that entity must be worthy of being called partners. What the parties bring to the table is quite important. But when you have a formidable structure like the PDP, what you do is compromise with other parties and say look, how best can we work together. The PDP is open to reforms; we can reform that which we have now and if in the cause of the discussions, if you are bringing something worthwhile to the table, then all these things will be open to negotiations. There will be give and take kind of arrangement. For instance, ACN and ANPP were two strong platforms; it was easy for them to say let us share here, let us give up here when they came together with CPC, which did not have any state governor but its presidential candidate in the 2011 election got over 10 million votes.

But right now, once you take the APC out of the question, PDP remains a particularly huge entity that is incomparable with any other formation. So, the level at which other parties can bargain will be a little different. In any case, once the others come on board and we agree, then there will be something tangible. But what I think we want to try and avoid is a senior partner/junior partner kind of arrangement. Let it be an Olympic rearrangement and reworking of forces, because ultimately, Nigeria needs a two-party structure; that will be ideal. So, if other parties can coalesce into one platform and they call it the mega party; that will be excellent.

But there are already fears that the idea of a mega party might fail going by the recent reconciliation efforts in the APC. What is your take?

From the way I am looking at things; APC is here to stay. It is true that the APC is doing everything it can to ensure that it doesn’t break apart. You can see the fence-mending that is being done all around. I can also tell you that PDP is equally determined to provide a viable and effective alternative to APC and we will be willing to negotiate and discuss other parties. The questions I cannot give answers to are those of name change and logo change and so on; such decision will be taken at a super-ordinary level. It will have to be addressed at the Board of Trustees and National Executive Committee levels. But these will also depend on what the others are bringing to the table. And the people at those levels can say ‘these people are bringing so and so to the table and they are worthwhile, so let us see what we can do.

As of today, PDP still controls 11 states; we have 46 senators and over 150 members of the House of Representatives. Which other party out there can also bring this kind of statistics to the table or something close? All I am saying is that the situation that brought about the creation of the APC doesn’t exist anymore. But if other parties have key strengths, I am sure PDP is open to negotiations.