2011 Presidency: North has lost out, laments Prof. Aminu

Your party, the PDP has had its primary elections in the states and at the national level. Winners and losers have emerged. What is your take on the entire affair? I am talking to you only because I am a founding member of the PDP.  We are talking of the PDP primaries, but other parties […]

Your party, the PDP has had its primary elections in the states and at the national level. Winners and losers have emerged. What is your take on the entire affair?

I am talking to you only because I am a founding member of the PDP.  We are talking of the PDP primaries, but other parties like the ACN, CPC and others also had theirs. Well, we will talk about PDP because it is the party in power and the largest party in the country. That is a fact and it also places a lot of burden on the PDP as a party, otherwise, the primary of a party should not have generated so much comments and reactions.

Shortly after the national convention of the PDP that produced President Jonathan as its candidate, we read that there were protests in some states against the governors. What do you think is responsible for that?

I have spoken on this before. There were no primary anywhere, particularly in Adamawa which I know very well. They cannot pretend that they had primaries because they are complicated choice of the governor. The governors did select the people, and because the PDP constitution talks about primary, they will go and organize what I call a charade and they will say they have conducted primary. There could be places where property things were done but most of them, especially in Adamawa, it was most absurd, I protested and even addressed the press and many people wrote petitions and all these fell completely on deaf ears and the governor had his way. So what happened in the state was just to satisfy or seem to satisfy the party constitution which is completely irrelevant. I don’t think anyone can conveniently say there was primary, particularly in Adamawa PDP. If that is what happened in most of the states, then it is unfortunate. The only important thing is that if you do the kind of primary we have had in the PDP, then people should stop pretending that we are going to have a free and fair elections. People spent a lot of time and money over INEC and they think that whatever they do with INEC will determine a free and fair election. That is ridiculous. The real havoc is done at the level of pre-primary and primary elections. This will not attract world attention because people believe that it is a party affairs. If it is party matter, does that mean things should not be done properly? Would you go and elect people and deny the party members the right to elect who they want? Because it is a party primary, does that allow victimization of people, destroying electoral materials and using police to stifle opponents? Because it is a party matter, does that give the governor the right to do whatever he likes and pretend that the convention and the general elections are free and fair? The whole thing is absurd and unless the PDP realises this, it will continue to have problems. What will destroy the PDP is not the lack of free and fair at the convention and the general election because members remain members till that level. But what would destroy the party is when the members see manifest roguish behavior at the level of the pre-primary and primary elections where members are not allowed to have a free and fair election. That is why people leave. They don’t leave the party because party loses general election or some members lose election at the convention. They do matter, but what matters most is when people maltreat their fellow members and decide to impose this and that and then give power to whom they want and get rid of whom they don’t like. You can see that that is what is happening and people are leaving. It is not because Goodluck Jonathan won, but because of what happened at the level of the governorship and national assembly primary elections. And it happened also when chairman Nwodo came. This misbehaviour will definitely affect the party and nobody should go to Wadata plaza to go and pretend that things have been done alright. Nothing has been done well or right and that is what harms the PDP.

So, my advice to the PDP, and I know that after all these they will organize reconciliation committees to go round. What are you going to tell people, the people who suffered the greatest injustice, who were not allowed to choose their governor, not allowed to choose their senators or House of Representative members? Then, governors will compile a bogus list and come to the national secretariat of the PDP and then the national working committee will accept it and begin to send delegation. What are you going to tell the people that will make sense to them?

You were at the PDP national convention. Some people claim the governors manipulated the votes for Goodluck Jonathan. What is your view on this?

They did. Basically, I sympathise with President Goodluck Jonathan as a person, but I don’t think anybody can pretend that the governors did not manipulate the primary. That is exactly what I am saying, that the whole lot of atrocities that happened during the pre-primary and the primary were committed by the governors. At the convention, the whole arrangements and voting process were fine. We queued up, we voted and the counting and the result were done live in the air, but what of what happened in the states before they came to Abuja? What of what happened two successive nights before the election?

With this kind of practice that is generating concern and anger everywhere; don’t you think it will hamper the chances of the PDP in the April elections?

It may mar its chances. When you have a big party like the PDP which is in power and it aspires to remain in government, the onus is on it to behave well. Now, everything is given to the governors. I refer to it as indirect rule system. The people in Abuja are satisfied, entrusting everything in the hands of the governors, including finances-and they would not call the governors to order even in the face of glaring misbehaviour. What they do is akin to what happened during the British colonial rule where the Governor and the Resident Office allowed the local chiefs and emirs to terrorise everybody, and all they demanded was loyalty to the crown, and if you are loyal to the crown, then you are good regardless of whatever you do to your own people. That is what is happening here. There is no difference between what is happening in the party now and the colonial system. It is not impossible for them to change; I am quite convinced that if they want to change, they can change because they have done one or two things correctly. There is no way you can say this attitude is good for the image of the party either now or in future. It is a big party and in power, enjoying the support of the federal government now and that is why it is doing these things and can get away.

Shortly after the national convention of the party and the primaries, the national chairman of the party was forced to resign. What do you think accounted for that?

It is the same thing we are talking about. If you find out what Nwodo did, nobody will tell you that he embezzled money or he broke the law but what you may find is; has Nwodo been loyal or disloyal to this or that. Has he been obedient and all what not. So, this is how people perceive what he has done in relation to their interest. That is what is happening, and I don’t think somebody would arrest Nwodo and take him to court for breaking the law. He had broken the law before and they knew that but they didn’t mind. They spoke only when the thing came close to skin. This is the problem with our politicians and the PDP. People are just after their interest. That is very sad. I am not saying other parties are not doing it, or saying PDP is the worst, but if the PDP is behaving like this and other parties are doing likewise, would you be surprised if people find that civilians are not able to convey democracy to our people and the society?

 

Massive defections in the PDP at the moment is as a result of some of what you have said and the inability of the party to do the right thing..(cuts in)

This is what I had said earlier, that defection does not occur after the general elections or when a candidate loses an election. Defection occurs after the primaries. This is as a result of atrocities people commit during pre-primary and primary, and these atrocities are not committed at the Eagle square or in Abuja. The atrocities are committed in the states by the governors. The party has handed over everything to the governors, and then, the governors decided to act in concert. I heard something which shocked me. I heard that the governors are now like a cult. If you touch one, you touch all. The moment you try to call any of them to order, they would pounce on you. And since PDP operates like the law of indirect rule where the centre depends on the states for political action, then, whatever they say is what they will do.

Let me take you back to the issue of zoning. Do you see the emergence of President Jonathan as the PDP Presidential candidate as the demise of the zoning principle in the PDP?

No, it doesn’t end zoning in the PDP. I think what they have done was to put zoning in one pocket to do what they have done before returning to it. They cannot throw zoning away. They only put it aside for the sake of President Jonathan, and they cannot say they have done away with it. What are they going to do with the people of the South-east who are already waiting for 2015 to take their turn? If there say no zoning, that means the Igbos would pull out of the party. So, they adopted another intellectually funny position in relations to zoning. We believe in zoning but not this time. (Laughs) It was an interesting political gymnastics to serve certain purposes.

As it were, after the April election, do we see the senate president, David Mark and speaker, Dimeji Bankole retaining their seat as part of the gymnastics?

I don’t know and I have not seen it done from 1999, but nothing surprises me in this country anymore. I also cannot tell you that I see Jonathan standing elections in 2015 if he so wishes regardless of what the people from the east will say and he will be able to marshal a lot of support for that.

Now that zoning is intellectually set aside and the Igbos will take their turn in 2015, the South west did eight years; the North did just two and a half years. Can we say the north has lost out?

I hear prominent Northerners saying the north has lost out, others are saying it has not. Not just prominent people, the governors. Take a look at my own zone, Adamawa, Gombe, Bauchi and Taraba. Take Jigawa, take Katsina where Yar’adua came from. These governors were the ones spearheading and I learnt that even Kwara governor who was among the people closing ranks in the consensus are now supporting. Not to talk of Plateau, Benue, Nasarawa and Kogi states. So, the northern leaders are saying it has lost out, what could anybody do about it? You have to remember that there are a lot of personal interests in this issue. Remember there were one or two governors facing EFCC at a point. It was successfully used in 2007, so if it was used in 2007 and it worked why not use it this time? Some people were accused of financial misdeeds and they faced the EFCC, why would they not toe the line?

With these developments, what do you think will be the voting pattern in April, do we expect protest votes?

The April elections will be more polarized than the convention, but I don’t know who will win or lose. With new parties and new candidates coming up, voting will be more polarized.

You pulled out of the senatorial contest in Adamawa when you felt uncomfortable with the turn of events in the local PDP. Can you let us into your future plans?

Me, I am not going to do anything. I remember one of my friends who was retiring as a Supreme Court Judge in the 70s said “people are wondering what I will be doing in retirement, I will do nothing”. So, as for me I will do nothing now. Even the judges retire at 70 and even my colleagues in the academia now retire at 70, so what will I be doing after over 70 years. I will do nothing.

Are you not thinking of bringing up people to continue from where you stopped?

I have been bringing up people since my days at the NUC, as Vice Chancellor and as minister and so on and I don’t need to look at local or national politics to do that. I can beat my chest in saying that.

What is your prediction of the April governorship election in Adamawa?

The general feeling in Adamawa at the moment is that they need a change and I identify with that.