Dr. Cairo Ojougboh is the Deputy National Chairman of the Senator Modu Sheriff-led faction of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP. Until the crisis that enveloped the party, he was the National Vice-Chairman, South-South of the party and before then, a member of the House of Representatives. Dr. Ojougboh, a one time close confidant of Chief Tony Anenih, in this interview with newsmen in Lagos, gives his perspectives on the crisis in the party and how it can be resolved.
Excerpts:
How is your party?
Our party is very strong. The NWC set up a committee on mobilization and strategy, and the went round the entire country, and when they submitted that report, they said the party is very strong at the grassroots; that the party is well represented in every ward in the 774 local governments in this country and that the people are desirous of PDP putting its house in order so that they can strategise and get ready for election as quickly as possible. That is the state of the party.
How did your National Working Committee come about?
The National Working Committee is still in place because its tenure will expire sometime in 2017.
What will you say about the impression that Sheriff is a mole in PDP and that he is just there to cause confusion and ensure that the APC comes back in 2019?
I’ve answered this question over 50 times in the course of the last one month. The answer is very simple – Sheriff was sitting in his house when Governor Fayose and Governor Wike went to invite him to become the chairman of the party.
Governor Fayose and Governor Wike gave him three months to be in office. At the end of three months, they went to Sheriff, they said, Chairman, you have repositioned the party; look at the number of ‘Agbada’ in the PDP Wadata Plaza, you are the only person who can lead this party to the Promise Land; we, therefore, want you to continue.
Convention committe
Governors Wike and Fayose, they set up a convention committee, and they made Governor Udom Emmanuel of Akwa Ibom the chairman of the zoning committee. The zoning committee in its wisdom went to Sheriff and said, ‘sir, we are going to zone the chairmanship of the party to you, so we are zoning it to North East and to Borno especially.
The North East met, they said look, Sheriff, we have endorsed you to continue as chairman of the party at the zonal congress.
So, do you mean the whole of the North East, all the governors, the whole of the PDP people, all of them, are working for APC? That is the question. There were six governors in the zoning committee of the PDP. The six governors endorsed Sheriff and endorsed the zoning project. So you mean it is the APC?
It is not President Muhammadu Buhari and APC that sourced and zoned the PDP chairmanship to Sheriff. The coming of Sheriff is a blessing to multi-party democracy not just the PDP but also to Nigeria,because today we now know that people can ask questions and we are very happy with the teeming grassroots.
You can see the people with the illegal Caretaker Committee; they are people who like money, who will want to go and collect money from the people. But if you love PDP, you love multi-party democracy, you love one man, one vote, you are with Sheriff.
How do you feel that most state executives of the party pledge allegiance to Ahmed Markafi and not to your executive?
Have you ever heard any state governor come out to say he is not with Ali Modu Sheriff?
Yes. Some of them have said so…
Nobody!
Which governor can you now point at that is with you?
I will not because of the political nature of this argument. I don’t want to call anybody but go and meet any governor, ask him to go and condemn Sheriff. Sheriff’s daughter wedded a few days ago; did you see what happened in Borno? And let me tell you, all political majors in the whole of the North East and the country were there. There was a dinner organised for the reception, last Sunday, in Abuja. Almost all the governors were there and let me tell you what is going on in the PDP – if Sheriff and the NWC didn’t get the backing of majority of the stakeholders, we would have said look, we are not wanted, we will go. But every member, every stakeholder in the PDP, is waiting for Sheriff to win in the Court of Appeal.
Look, first of all, a lot of people are intimidated. They think that one of these governors can kill them because if you listen to that tape, you can see the extent of intimidation.
We do hope that that recording is not correct. If it is correct, then the party is going to take very serious consideration of the tape and then do what is needful of the party. Nobody is above the law, and that is why the party is supreme.
And I want to say this for the umpteenth time; there is nobody, most people in this country, 90 per cent of the populace, of members of the PDP in this country, are with Sheriff. They know that what Makarfi had done is illegal. In fact, any right thinking Nigerian knows that that Caretaker Committee is illegal and that politics has changed. If you begin to parade names and carry them, we don’t bother you. What we parade is the masses that we have returned the power to.
Dividends of democracy
Before now, no member in this country can stand up and speak, but today we have given freedom to everybody. So, you can see all of them, from state to state, all of them are talking now and then, they are now associating with the PDP.
Without it, if you look at the social media, you see everybody supporting PDP. Go and check and see for yourself and why are they supporting PDP because they know there is hope for tomorrow. The National Working Committee and Sheriff is the hope of tomorrow. The governors, who wants them? A lot of them, it is unfortunate the way they have behaved, but that is what we keep telling them.
When we elect you as a party and make you a governor, go back to your state, face the demand of governance. Give the dividends of democracy to your people so that next time, the party can win election and let the party run itself, and that is our position.
The fortunes of PDP keep dwindling especially with the recent loss of Ondo State. Do you think your party will bounce back?
Of course, some lessons were learned in Ondo and Edo states especially in Ondo. In Ondo, it was clear that the masses, the people sent a message to the PDP in Ondo that never again will any governor adopt a candidate and not allow for a free contest.
Number two lesson, never again will somebody come from another party and then you give him the entire structure of PDP; it should not happen again because as soon as Mimiko returned to the party, every member of the PDP left and they left with Oke.
Oke secured 125,000 votes in the last election, PDP secured 155,000 votes, APC scored 250,000. The votes given to Oke are all PDP votes. If Oke didn’t leave and Mimiko was able to manage his coming back into PDP as a sportsman, we won’t be where we are. So, that is the lesson learned there. And again, things have to get worse for it to get better.
Does Sheriff have presidential ambition?
I am not in his mind; he has never discussed that with me, and it is his right to have presidential ambition if he so wishes.
Constitutional amendment
But that is why we are also putting in the constitutional amendment that no chairman of the party can adopt anybody. So if has, he’s already checkmated. So he cannot adopt himself, and the NWC will not adopt him; no party organs will adopt him. That is the essence of these amendments in the constitution. So that is not a problem at all.
So do you think the PDP has the potential to upstage the APC in 2019 and maybe if you could also assess the present administration under Buhari?
APC, as I have always said, is not a party yet. There is only one party in Nigeria, and that is PDP because if you were to put APC in a basket, you can very easily pick out CPC, pick out ACN, pick out the APGA faction and pick out the PDP in the basket.
But PDP still remains one; that is what you have to see. So luckily, until APC can become homogenous, until they are able to become a party, it is not expected that they will give serious challenge to the PDP. The mistakes that made PDP lose the election are being corrected one by one.
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