2015: Why Jonathan is afraid of Buhari Presidency – Oyegun

Chief John Odigie-Oyegun is the National Chairman of the All Progressives Congress (APC). In this interview, the Edo-born politician unearths the fears of the ruling party over the use of card readers, the attempts to undermine the electoral process and the party’s chances in the South-South and the South-East geo-political zones among other burning issues […]

Chief John Odigie-Oyegun is the National Chairman of the All Progressives Congress (APC). In this interview, the Edo-born politician unearths the fears of the ruling party over the use of card readers, the attempts to undermine the electoral process and the party’s chances in the South-South and the South-East geo-political zones among other burning issues in the polity.

Let’s start from your personal experience. There was an attack on your residence on January 12, 2015. What actually happened? Was it theft or armed robbery?
Yes, it is possible it was theft. I didn’t enter into their minds. It could have been more serious. It could be thievery. But if they were thieves, what were they looking for? Why didn’t they take anything of substance? Why didn’t they go to other rooms in the house? My safe deposit was in one of the other rooms.
These are the questions that make one wonders. However, the police have made some efforts.
What have they done so far?
Well, they are investigating. They kept my steward, including one of the policemen. The policemen in the house were two. But I went out with one, so they arrested the other who was at home.
But, I didn’t want him to die there. If in two weeks you cannot get something out of them; you didn’t even come here to take fingerprints or attempt to take fingerprints, then there’s no hope of finding out anything. 
Our own investigation depends on probably beating a confession out of them. After two weeks, if the police couldn’t get anything, I thought I didn’t want somebody’s child to die in service in my house, so I sought his release.
But this house is supposed to be well protected. How did the thief enter?
It looks very secure. We went round. You cannot come in without coming through the third party premises unless you come from the frontage of the house. And I’m supposed to have security. So, we have all sorts of theories. Are they ordinary thieves? Could they be part of something much sinister?
I haven’t even got any report from the police – what they have found or what they haven’t found.  But I thank God that I wasn’t at home when the incident took place.
As a former permanent secretary, you are seen as a good administrator, but now that you are the chairman of a national political party how are you coping?
Thank God that I am good at something. The basic thing the civil service teaches you is that the solution to most problems is the one that addresses the common good and the common good needs compromise. You now pitch solutions at that zone where most people benefit.
It is the same thing in politics, there are different interests and in our case different parties came together. That alone was about four or different strands that have to be wielded together. So you must work out compromises that everybody can live with which means nobody has everything that you want but everybody has a bit of something that enables you to continue to feel relevant and useful.
Is there any example of any compromise you have been able to achieve?
It is an everyday thing; it is not a matter of examples. Let’s take a typical example, a crude one. If all the intelligent people in this country, the most intelligent – are from my town, Benin City.
Are you going to select all of them and say these are the best brains we have so let them take over and run the country? The fact that you can’t do that is already a compromise; every other person in the country must feel that sense of belonging; everybody must have something home. That is the reality of life.
In most cases we hear about governors dictating to the chairmen of the parties what they want. How do you deal with that?
 Well, I must say quite, honestly, that it is a difficult situation. I am not talking now as national chairman of the APC but as somebody who has turned that problem round in his head for a long time and is yet to find a satisfactory solution. You see we, almost all parties in this country, have this fiction of the chairman who is the head of the party.
That is true; I am today the APC chairman and tomorrow by God’s grace we will elect Buhari and by May 29 install him as President. He is the Number One citizen and I am head of the party and I will pronounce on party matters. Ideally my words should be final but you cannot but listen to the man who is the Number One citizen; it is how you manage to balance that rather tricky situation. But one day we will find an answer to that situation.
How do you rate the preparations for 2015 elections against previous experience?
It is a critical election for democracy in this country. It is the first real possibility of a democratic change of government. If it happens, it will do inestimable good for the polity. Why? This is so because the people of the country will be voting on issues and will realize that, for the first time, their votes can hire a government and that their votes can fire a government, which is the basic tenet of democracy. People will finally realize the power that they have. That is the reason why it is a landmark election.
It is the first in which two political parties that have evolved independently, not by any government fiat like the defunct National Republican Convention (NRC) and the Social Democratic Party (SDP), are relatively of equal strength. For the first time, too, the people have a genuine choice. If they are satisfied with the experience of the last six years, then it is fine. But if they are not, they have an equally more credible alternative that they can elect.
So, from all these points of views, it is a landmark election. That is the reason why people like me are mad at what is happening now, because they are polluting the waters. They are creating an atmosphere for people to doubt the final outcome because the government is behaving like opposition. They are creating in the minds of people that they are desperate to affect and influence the outcome of the election.
Do you have confidence that this election will take place as the National Chairman of the APC?
I think they are trying virtually everything, but they are all not working. We cannot be sure where they will land. What have they not tried? They are in court. They have taken on the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) as an institution. They have taken on Professor Attahiru Jega as a person. They have brought in the security forces to ensure the shift of the elections to give the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) a little bit more time to see if they can catch up or perfect whatever they are trying to perfect and so on and so forth. So, they throw everything, all the spanners they can into the works.
Now, they are still hammering on the Permanent Voter’s Cards (PVCs). The only person who will not want a PVC is the person who wants to just say “Ah! at this stage, let’s just go and sit down. For example, 1.5 million people are registered. We want to be able to print papers to say 1.499 million voted.” With the card readers and the PVCs, you cannot do that.
The PDP has been complaining over the plan to use the card readers; they’re saying it’s not everybody that has got the PVCs, so millions of voters would be disenfranchised. Why is the APC not complaining the way the PDP is doing? Aren’t your supporters going to be disenfranchised?
It’s a matter of interpretation. The total body language of the PDP is that they cannot live with a free, fair, transparent and credible election. That is clear in everything they are doing. We are also aware that it is easier to fake an election when you use the Temporary Voter’s Cards (TVCs). We appreciate the technology in the card readers. For example, before now in the riverine areas, if 100,000 people registered, the 100,000 will vote. Now, we are going to use card readers. It is only those who truly turn out to vote who will be recorded on the card readers. I don’t know if you get the picture of what I’m saying. Have you ever been to the creeks? You cannot send somebody from Sokoto and put him in a canoe in those creeks.
So, usually, we know elections don’t take place. The kind of rubbish that used to happen there will not now happen. We know where the rigging used to come from. We know the states – Rivers, Delta, Akwa Ibom. Bayelsa has only 400,000 or 500,000 voting population.
Those are the areas where 99 per cent of people vote. The only other area is the South-East because the opposition is weak. When our agents go there, they are threatened, terrified and driven away. So, people just sit down and write figures. All that now is impossible.
So, why won’t we support the INEC that is trying to improve dramatically the credibility of the election? We have the impression, we may be wrong, that this may be Jega’s plan. What he is trying to do is to go into history for conducting the most credible, transparent and fair elections ever held in this country. So, why won’t we support him?
All that he is doing is to ensure that we have a level playing field. We are not asking for favour. We didn’t appoint him. So, we cannot twist him. We cannot put pressure on him. But we can see that he is making every effort to provide a level playing field. We didn’t appoint any of his commissioners; national or resident commissioner. So, we cannot influence them. But we are observing. We are seeing and studying what is going on. We are appreciating his efforts in providing that level playing field. So, why won’t we support him?
Your opponents said with the postponement of the elections, you have lost the steam. How has the shift affected the APC?
Well, their rhythms are different from ours. The pre-postponement campaigns were so dramatic and effective. We see this with our eyes. We see that people have taken over this very quiet revolution. They have taken over. They profess that word “change”. They are in fact the ones telling us that change must be. We, who originated it, are now their pupils. We know most of the voters have made up their minds. That is not an issue any way. That is a side issue. The postponement of the elections affects us because it means a lot more money to be spent.
That is part of the intention of those who concocted the postponement. So, we are spending a lot more money than we ought not to have spent. We take a lot of break which they have translated to mean loss of steam. Let them watch us from next week Wednesday, they will be seeing what people mean by the last lap or dash to the finished line.
That is what we are going to give. I know what it means to move money around during the period of postponement. They have concocted all sorts of stories about our candidates. They have concocted all sorts of stories about some of top leaders in the party. But as they do that, they forget that the crudity of what they are doing is dawning on Nigerians. It is bringing home to Nigerians the desperation with which they are fighting- a government is struggling to hang on to office. The people merely say if they are this desperate, something is wrong.
They are even making converts for the APC now because of their crudity and desperation. So, at the end of the day, we are the ones who have benefitted. You can imagine a young man like Governor Ayo Fayose continuously hammering on the issue of the age of our candidate and the possibility of death. I look at him. Why should any human being be wishing evil of that type on any other human being? Our life belongs to God.
He doesn’t have control over it. It’s not a function of age. Children die at 10. Young people die at 10, 15. People die at 50. So, we don’t even know who will go first between him, the accuser, Fayose and the man he is calling an old man. He went to the extent of saying that the President was jogging, doubting whether retired Major General Muhammadu Buhari can do it. He forgets that Buhari is a trained first-class soldier. If you watch our campaign, we struggle to keep pace with him. The young ones struggle to keep pace with him. So, we have benefitted.
The President has virtually relocated to the South-West region. The Afenifere and traditional rulers have declared support for him. Governor Godswill Akpabio of Akwa Ibom also said the PDP would win in the region. Do you still consider the South-West your stronghold?
Who is the Afenifere? Who is endorsing who? Okay, it goes with cost, whether in dollars or naira. But it has to be dollars because if you carry N10 million, everybody will know. It will be bulky. If you distribute money, the people go back and tell their leaders, whether it is traditional rulers, to say that look at the money he has given us. We tell them that if he calls you again, go and get more.
Is there any time for them to distribute this money to those who will actually go and vote. Are these traditional rulers holding rallies? How many have they truly been able to convert? That is the question. So, a lot of money is changing hands. A lot of money is being distributed. But how do you assess the effect?
From analysis, South-West is like the battle ground. It is like the swing states. Do you think you have a firm grip of the South-West?
Our link is with the voters and even the traditional institution. But a President cannot call you and say that you won’t go. You go and listen to him. He gives you money to seek your support. You pray for him and say if it is God’s wish that you will be President, amen. That is good. You take the money and they go away. How does that win you an election?
Do you have the support of these traditional rulers because we don’t see the APC presidential candidate going to the palaces of traditional rulers and doing fanfares, including prayers the way they do it for Jonathan?
Jonathan needs it. But we do reach the traditional rulers; get that very clear. But we reach them in a way that honours them and respects the institution. We do not want to drag them into politics. In the South-West, for example, look at what your son has done, has it ever been better? Pray for them and give them all the support they need to continue the good work they have been doing. We respect the institution. We don’t want to drag them down, like a lot of pastors are being dragged in the most indecent and crude way into the worst of politics. So, that is our style.
We don’t want to demean anybody and we respect our traditional institution. We know they will do what is right for their people. We know that in this country today, the APC governors are the pacesetters. The pacesetting started from the South-West. Our traditional rulers are men of wisdom, tradition, and vision. They will not turn their back on their own people and on their children who are performing so wonderfully. That is the way we look at it. That is the way we interpret it. We don’t ask them to become card-carrying members. No.
You have consistently boasted that you are going to win the election. What is the source of your confidence?
The people are the source of our confidence. You watch our rallies. There has never been anything like those rallies. If you compare our rallies with that of the PDP, they are so gorgeously dressed that you know that a lot of money has gone round, making Aso Ebi and the rest of it. They look very elitist. But when you look at our rallies, they are the ordinary young men and women, the unemployed, those who are looking for something better for themselves and their children.
You can see this by having a panoramic view of our rallies. The kind of crowd that comes out when we drive into towns is incredible. Look at the one in Ibadan and the last one in Maiduguri. My heart was in my hands the whole time we were in Maiduguri. We have to even quickly wind up the rally because we do not want anything that can cause a stampede because the pressure was very much in Maiduguri. These are the people who vote.
These are the people who are deprived. These are the people who want change. These are the people who want a new Nigeria that they can relate to, that will take care of them and that will rekindle their patriotism. This is our strength.
But the PDP said you always mobilized people from other states. For example, if you are going to Maiduguri, you mobilize people from Gombe. Do you believe that it is the reason why you always have such a massive crowd?
If you mobilise one million people, the whole of the North will come to a standstill. You have to consider the number of buses you need to carry people even if it is 200,000 people. By the time we get even anywhere near our venue, you can hardly move in the streets.
These are not rented crowds. If we can hire a crowd and bring them to the stadium, after they wait for one or two hours, they will start going back home. When we went to Jigawa, I think we got there about midnight.  When we went to Zamfara, I think we went by road. From the check points we saw different villages without light.
People were still out with lanterns because they have been told Buhari would be passing through their villages. It is an incredible outpouring of desire for change. It’s an incredible outpouring of love for the candidate Buhari. It’s difficult to describe unless you were there. If we are boasting, yes, we are boasting. Our strength is this long-suffering Nigerians who now want change. I want it now. I want it badly.
People who have been observing political trends will agree with you that you have large crowds in the North. Why is the scenario in the South different, especially in the South-South and the South-East, where you have not had the breakthrough?
Different geographical areas have different levels of peculiarities and difficulties. In the North, there is a lot more frenzy expression of love for candidate, party and the idea of change. In the South-East, there is the issue of education. People are not so emotional in expressing themselves. They are a lot more cerebral.  They listen to you. They listen to your argument.
They want to hear your argument. But in the North, they just want to see you. Is it true? Are you people here? Are you truly the angels or apostles of change? They are happy. But in our own areas, they will ask you their need. You don’t get that kind of reception. But the crowds that are there are quite large too. But it is not as it is in the North.
How do you convince the South-East and South-South to vote for General Muhammadu Buhari?
The future lies with the progressive forces. Unfortunately, yes, we have a little bit more challenge in the South-South and the South-East. It is so in the South-South principally because ‘one common denominator is that the man is from the South. He is our son. Let him carry on.’ That is one stumbling block that we have. In the South-East, to some extent, there is the issue of religion.
That is a very strong Christian zone in the country, either Anglican or Catholic denomination, being the largest denomination. Then, there is the history of civil war….These things must exist. But these are breaking down. The Igbo man is now thinking of his future. The Igbo man too wants to be President. The Igbo man is now looking at both parties and saying, which is the better vehicle that will get us there quicker. Which of these parties is likely to answer our needs?
The Igbo man is now questioning: what have we got in these years of very dedicated support not just for Jonathan but for the PDP? They have seen the lack of development. They have seen the worst roads that they have in the whole nation. They are beginning to question this and we are benefitting from all this processes.
This campaign has been greeted with violence. Report of killings comes from Rivers State. The National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) has released a report on this. What has your party been doing to stop this trend?
Well, it is very sad. The reality is that we are the ones, the APC, who are largely at the receiving end of the desperate PDP and their goons. The Rivers you mentioned is an APC state. Most of the other places are APC states. We stand to lose if we encourage violence. Though we are on the throes of a major victory, everything is being done by the PDP to tempt us to lose patience and retaliate. Our message to our followers is: you are there already.
We are clearly the party to beat. So, there is no point for retaliation; prevent it if you can; run away from it if you can. But don’t engage in any violence. You have not seen anybody in the APC who stands and say the kind of thing that the First Lady said. “If you hear anybody shouting change, stone the person”. Have you not heard her insulting a man of the age of General Buhari? Those are very provocative.
But we keep telling our people, we will soon be there. Don’t react. We are doing the best we can. The international community is doing the best it can. A lot of well-meaning Nigerians; the Kukah group which includes His Eminence, the Sultan of Sokoto Alhaji Muhammadu Sa’ad Abubakar, John Cardinal Onaiyekan, a former Head of State retired Gen. Abdulsalami Abubakar and some other worthy Nigerians, are doing their own bid.
Ibrahim Agboola Gambari, the former Under-Secretary-General of the United Nations (USG) is also doing his bid. A lot of people are tirelessly doing their bid. We met them. We attended meetings at the highest level. We give them assurances. As far as we are concerned, we will preach against violence. We will not preach hate. We will not preach violence. The kind of video that was released on GMB by AIT and that released on Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu are very provocative.
If we were violent, and Tinubu sparked off in Lagos and said get them, we will be in a different world. If we say the kind of things that the First Lady said, it will be a very different situation altogether. If GMB stands up in Kano and preaches violence, we will be in a very different situation. So, we are a party of peace. Because of all these, we are the party to beat. We don’t want to be distracted.
Why did you decide to report Patience Jonathan to the International Criminal Court (ICC) instead of dragging her before a Nigerian court for breaching the Electoral Act?
Well, I just think it is safer. The least one says about that the better. We want a situation whereby those who handle issues like that will be neutral as is humanly possible. Don’t forget that somebody has made a statement before that if the President does not win, then there will be war. It is not if he is cheated. It is not if whatever else happens.
No. If he does not win even in a free and fair contest, there will be war. So, what happened? Nothing. Is it the wife of the head of state that you will drag to somewhere? We don’t believe in wasting our time.
Don’t you think that the PDP would say that President Jonathan’s convoy was stoned in Katsina, so which is worse?
They have internal conflicts in their party. So, they think of discrediting themselves. This can be the product of the PDP. If it could happen in Bauchi State, why not in Katsina State? Of course, it was in an effort to discredit our candidates. Look at what happened in Okrika, where the First Lady claims to come from.
That wasn’t funny. Live ammunition was used on an APC rally. The internal problems in the PDP are prone to violence. It has been so well demonstrated during the run-up to this election. Nobody should even have a thought about violence because we are running away from it. We know we are going to win the election.

To be continued next week