Nigeria is sitting on precipice —Hon. Sango

Damishi Sango was a former Minister of Youth and Sport and one of the founding members of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) he is presently the Plateau State Chairman of the PDP. In this interview with ISAAC SHOBAYO, he speaks on restructuring; the coming national convention of the party, an anti-corruption crusade of the All Progressives Congress (APC) led administration among other issues. Excerpt:

How prepared is the PDP for the forthcoming local government election in Plateau State?

We are prepared, we just pray that it is not a gimmick to waste peoples time and later say they are postponing the election, you can see what happened in Kaduna State. We are fully prepared for the election. The last democratically elected local government chairmen were dissolved illegally without any cogent reason, but now that a machinery has been put in place, we expect the election to be carried out as contained in the time table. If you have been here in the past few days, this state secretariat was a beehive of activities, we are going to start the screening and conduct our primaries as scheduled.

There is an insinuation that Plateau State Independent Electoral Commission (PLASIEC) has not put up proper arrangement to convince political parties that the election will hold as scheduled, what is the position of the PDP?

We all sat with PLASIEC and they assured us that they are ready for the election, so what else can I say than to take them by their words.

Based on the guidelines recently released by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) that primaries for 2019 general elections will be conducted before the end of 2018, can you beat your chest that the PDP will return to power in 2019, based on what the party went through after its defeat in 2015?

It is not about me beating my chest; it is about the realities on ground, people are tired and they want the change to be changed because nothing has been changed, so we need to change the change. People are eagerly waiting for 2019, to them, the year is just too far away, but thank God political activities have started picking up and by next year, it will begin in full swing.

What are the indices to show that PDP is prepared to take over power from the All Progressive Congress in 2019?

The APC led government at the national level has performed abysmally, they are talking about corruption but what we are hearing is not palatable. It is worse than Jonathan’s administration; the NNPC is being messed up, the Minister of State for Petroleum and the Group Managing Director are fighting, shifting blames on corrupt practices, contracts were awarded without due process. We all know the president was out of the country when all these corrupt practices were perpetuated, but they have refused to answer the question on who authorised the contract. We are talking of N1.1 billion Dasuki gate, but this one is of dollars in billions. How long will it take the Federal Government to release the report of the investigations on the Secretary to the Federal Government. The corruption crusade is just to witch hunt. Buhari’s corruption crusade is to witch hunt the perceived enemies of the government, and people are angry. The country has never experienced division since civil war as we are experiencing in this country today and, the country is sitting on precipice, MOSOB, IPOB, Afenifere, Northern Youth, religious tension, it has never been like this, there is too much tension in the land. The government is allowing the country to slide into division, even when we had the regional arrangement; the country was not as divided as we are seeing presently. The country is still standing because God still loves this country, it is not because of anybody anywhere.

Quite a lot of people in this country are advocating for restructuring, are you of the opinion that this is imperative as a way of moving the nation forward?

I want to say that any restructuring that would tamper with the structure of this country, I don’t support it. Nigeria must remain one indivisible country but we can make reforms to address the issue of marginalisation, injustice and others. We have to address them. When there is employment opportunity, the son of a poor man should be employed, he should not be discriminated against because he has no godfather. Those who qualify should have access to the resources of this country, irrespective of where they come from. We must not discriminate against people because of religion, tribe or ethnicity; all these need to be addressed. A situation whereby somebody would have 80 per cent and be denied admission and somebody with 40 percent would be admitted to read the same course is nothing but injustice, this cannot give us the best in this country. These are the areas that we need adjustments and that is why people are not happy. For us to move forward in this country, there must be justice, equity and fair play, we must be our brother’s keepers, we must not throw away merit. There is nothing wrong in giving consideration to those that are backward but we must not sacrifice merit. That is why some people are clamouring for succession, so that they can do things in their own way. Some people are talking about restructuring to mean we should our way, I don’t support that.

What about going back to regional arrangements?

You cannot go forward and backward, the country is moving forward as, we have moved to states. If you say you want to go back to region, it means you want to weaken the centre and that was what led to the collapse of the First Republic. When the regions were stronger than the centre, the tail was wagging the dog, not the dog wagging the tail. Anybody saying, we should go back to regions is simply saying “to your tent O Israel”, it all attempts to weaken the centre which is not good for this country, those saying that are asking for the division of the country.

The PDP is known for zoning, it has further reinforced the arrangement by zoning the presidential ticket to the North, but Ekiti State governor, Ayodele Fayose recently declared his intention to run for the number one seat on the platform of PDP, is that not contrary to the arrangement on ground?  

Ekiti State governor is a vibrant young man and I like him because when PDP was facing the crisis of Modu Sheriff and Makarfi, at a point in time, Makarfi was about going under, but the man that was virtually talking, that I can call (one man riot gang), talking for the party, challenging the government for bad governance, was Fayose and of course my good friend Fani Kayode. They were the people that were talking. The Ekiti State governor is a young vibrant man with energy, but the issue of the presidency has been zoned to the North, s0 he cannot violate it. I respect him a lot, he is the leader of PDP Governors Forum, and he has a future, one day he can become a president, but for the sake of democracy, PDP and this nation, this position has been zoned and we are appealing to him.

Since it has been zoned to the North, what is the place of the North Central because most of those angling to run for the Presidency of this country on the platform of PDP are from the far North?

Don’t say that yet, let us wait and see. When all of them come out, and you don’t see anybody from the North Central, you can then ask me this question. The North will produce the president and after that it will go back to the South. If all keep to this arrangement, it will add to the stability of the country. We have different interests in this country; you have to accommodate the interests, especially between the North and the South, so whatever we are doing, we have to be very cautious.

One of the factors that rubbed the PDP the governorship in Plateau State in the last election was the issue of zoning, where is your governorship candidate coming from this time around?

After the local government election, that issue will be discussed. We will take a decision that would be reasonable and acceptable by the generality of the people. People are waiting for us, we learn from mistakes; if you are a good student of history you will learn from history. We have to look at the issue that led to the PDP losing power in 2015, losing Plateau State of all states in the country is source of concern to many Nigerians.

The chairmanship position of the PDP has been zoned to the South, what is your advice to the people towards ensuring that credible people are elected as the National Chairman of the party?

We held a meeting of the PDP Northern caucus to review this issue of zoning and reaffirmed our position that the chairmanship has been zoned to the southern part of the country, so we are waiting for them, whether they are going to do micro zoning to say we have further rezoned it. In the last convention that was aborted, they had done a micro zoning to the South West, are they still keeping to that? We want to know, we want to respect the feelings of the South. We don’t want to impose candidate on them, all what, we are after is the best, so they should give us the best, we don’t want a mediocre chairman. The party cabinet that we are going to install now is a war cabinet that will wrestle power from APC; we will also ensure that we give him a good secretary from this side.

What is your assessment of APC led administration on the Plateau?

I don’t assess people’s government, let them tell us what they have done and we make our comment based on the reality on the ground. I don’t want to talk out of nothing. In term of roads, what Jang left is what we are still seeing.

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