‘PDP does not have what it takes to make a viable national opposition’

How do you think the opposition was able to win the hearts of Nigerians and do you think the PDP would be able to serve as a virile opposition party?

Again, I applaud mainly the Jagaban of Bourdillion as they call him, Bola Tinubu. He is a man whom I have had a lot of respect for long before he went into politics and social activism in the ‘90s Senate and NADECO, even from his fledgling Chicago days as a friend of Otunba Remi Abdul. I respect his being able to weld together different existing political forces that were seen as existing parties and already held sway in certain regional enclaves in Nigeria. He welded them together and presented them as a formidable opposition and for the first time since the military took over we had a truly virile national opposition party in Nigeria. Anybody who does not give kudos to Tinubu for that does not know anything about politics. However, he did not win over Nigerians through the welding together of those enclaves or those parties, he putatively won the hearts of Nigerians by strategically positioning himself in the media both by owning, subscribing to and having controlling interest in many traditional media- radio, Television and Newspapers, while he very calculatedly and assiduously developed and encouraged the new/social media in Nigeria, helping sustain and create new blog owners dotted all over the cyberspace.

We forget that, at the end of the day, it is not just the truth that sets you free, but the truth that you know and do. He was able to tell us into what he wanted us to know. For example, Jonathan was beaten in media space outright long before the election by the APC. Nobody knew any achievement of the president and we must lay that blame squarely at the feet of his so-called image makers, they failed him woefully; they are mainly my friends but they failed to market President Jonathan’s remarkable achievements, person and potential adequately enough to Nigerians and the world. It is sad that Ifeanyi Ubah’s TAN did better marketing of GEJ in four months than all the President’s men did in four years. Tinubu and the APC managed to market themselves through the media, which as I said he owned, controlled and influenced greatly.

As to the PDP, I will not say that I am totally sorry that it has been rudely shaken awake and is currently being dismembered the way it is, because this will bring those people who are in that party to a realisation that the era of ‘business-as-usual’ is forever gone. As to being a viable national opposition, we must acknowledge that the PDP does not have the media-power, and may not, on its own, be able to pull itself back together, not with majority of its power-seeking avaristic greedy members have jumped ship already.

Unless, it can help build up the other parties like Labour Party, SDP, APGA and others, and convince them to come into alliance with it, the PDP is going to end up being a very weak member of the Nigerian political space. For us to have a virile opposition in Nigeria, a new party or the New PDP must emerge which must have leadership that is based on certain youth-resonant achievers. I would prefer to see a Donald Duke, an Adesina, a Peter Obi, an Umar Nasko an Aliyu Indabawa and an Awwal Tukur and their ilk are the type of people that PDP needs today and they should be projected as the face and future of the party.

The new PDP leadership must also begin calculatedly to acquire media entities, if they don’t have properties that are media. If they cannot control Television/Radio airtime, they don’t have Newspapers space, they cannot compete on the social media platforms, then they are already losers from the beginning. All these loud talk, from the present leadership, about ‘we are going to re-jig ourselves’, is nothing but mere talk which is cheap; it is going to take some time for the PDP to get itself together.

Does it mean the PDP is outright dead?

One good thing the PDP has going for it is that it is now being perceived as evolving a new ethos of patriotic integrity that is beginning to manifest. That integrity that was propelled by President Goodluck Jonathan’s development of the enabling environment space for free and fair elections, and amplified by the President’s very gracious concession to defeat which has been copied nearly across board by all PDP leaders. Where PDP candidates have been defeated, they have acknowledged defeat nearly immediately. Even where the party said we would contest the results, the individuals have called to congratulate those they contested with. And in a unique case of Ekiti State, even where he is now confirmed as the governor by the Supreme Court, I heard Ekiti Governor Fayose say ‘if I have offended anybody forgive me’. That is a new spirit and people must not be ignorant of these things; it is a spirit that would probably not have been born if President Jonathan had said he was going to contest the result.

I must note at this point that it is very sad that APC candidates have not shown such a spirit of patriotic sportsmanship, as they have not conceded defeat in anywhere. Is APC saying that it expected to win all 36 states, all 774 local governments? Something must be wrong with the psyche of the leaders of the APC if they are still thinking that way, if they are still thinking like ‘do-or-die’ military dictators; if they are not yet thinking like democrats; if it is a do-or-die battle for every seat; if, sadly, they have not still learnt that in a true democracy, you win some and lose some; and, if you are yet to learn that you are not the sole repository of knowledge, strategy, sophistry and even rigging.

Because if the APC is saying that they were rigged out in those states where they did not win, they are letting us think that possibly their opponents must have attempted to rig also in those states and those elections that the APC won. And if the opposition could rig so well in say Rivers, Akwa Ibom, Delta to win but could not rig well enough for Jonathan, say, to win, is APC saying therefore, that they out-rigged the PDP in certain key elections?! Do they know the implication of what they are protesting? Do they realise that after emotions are all down, Nigerians are very calm thinkers? At the moment, we are not thinking, we are emoting.

In the next three months, the same people that shouted ‘Hosanna’ will shout ‘crucify him’. Let the APC be careful so that it does not lay a foundation for its own demise, because as Karl Marx said, the very thing that makes a system successful is likely to be the same thing that can create the demise of that system.

What is your perspective on the voting pattern of the South-East and South-South? Do you agree with the notion that they played an elementary politics by putting all their eggs in PDP’s basket?

I think anybody who thinks that the voting patterns would influence the composition of government as to ethnic or religious biases, does not understand what modern nationhood is all about. General Buhari or any leader at the national or state levels cannot but be seen to fully carry along every member of their relevant electorate’s demographics (be they women, youth, elderly, disadvantaged physically, religious, ethnic etc) if they wish this nation well. They cannot say, for example, I am going to restrict governance to members of my party. General Buhari cannot for example say, I won’t have Igbo in my cabinet, he cannot say, I will punish the South-East and the South-South for not voting for me or against me. If he does that, he would have fully played into the hands of his detractors. If he does that he would have laid the foundation for the crumbling of Nigerian unity, peace and progress within less than six months of his coming to power.

But more importantly, no one regional enclave voted exclusively for anybody. Even the Yoruba’s voted across the board and same in the East and South-South. The people who voted for APC in Delta, Rivers, Akwa-Ibom, Enugu and Anambra were not in a small number but the reality is we are all coming from a nigh-primordial level. This is a level where my family comes first, my tribe next, my region follows, and then Nigeria trails in last and least. This was what for example led to the slight imbroglio of sorts that nearly took place in Lagos where the Oba of Lagos reportedly made some controversial statements. I respect the Oba a lot and I have known him for a long time. But the point remains that the Igbo or the non-indigene component cannot be waved away, they are vital to the economic progress of the state. It is only in Nigeria that we don’t realise that the small and medium scale businessman is a real backbone of the economy and most of these non-indigenes are in the small and medium scale sectors; they are important to the economy.