APC should open doors to grassroots politicians’

                              

                                                                Onyeabor  

   

Chief Rex Onyeabor is a former National Secretary of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and currently a member of the Board of Trustees of the party. In this interview with Tony Akowe, he speaks on the ongoing reforms within the PDP, and what APC should do to take complete control of the government and lots more. Excerpts

You were once the National Secretary of the PDP which has lost power at the centre. The party is presently undergoing reforms and there are controversies about the zoning of offices. Do you think the party is on the right track?

I am a foundation member of the PDP and when we set out to form the party, the chief promoters were people like Adamu Ciroma, Alex Ekwueme, Abubakar Rimi, Solomon Lar, Jerry Gana, among others. We were just coming after them and we toured the whole country. The whole idea was to build a political party that will be all inclusive, with all levels of people participating. We wanted the party to be so strong that the Army will not be able to intervene because it will be a mass movement. If you know the history of Tagayyika, now called Tanzania, when Julius Nyerere came to power, the Army suddenly decided that they want to take over power without going into election. They ceased power through a military coup and Nigeria send troupes there to help bring under control the uprising there. After that, Nyerere decided that the Army and the people will be one and the same people. If you want power, you join politics, and by so doing, the Army became party members. Since that day, there has been no coup in that country. The idea of the PDP was that of Adamu Ciroma who suggested that we form a populist party which will be on ground at the grassroots and be so strong that the Army cannot afford to over throw it. That is part of the mission and vision of the PDP and we set out to do that. In spite of everything, the PDP is still a populous party and is still on the ground. People started doing things that is not in our mission and vision. Impunity and all manner of vices became the order of the day, godfatherism took the place of election, internal democracy mechanism was thrown overboard, people selected whoever they want and we knew that it was only a matter of time before the whole thing will crumble. PDP has not crumbled, but the misbehavior was of such that we lost the last election and the leadership was being warned that this thing they are doing can put us in trouble. They said no, instead of winning by 11 million, we can win by 3 million and instead of winning by 3 million, they lost by 3 million. That shows that you cannot be nonchalant, but consistent and moving forward. With that background, everybody now knows what got the PDP into where they are today. It will be nice to reform PDP, but we are still looking for that leadership; the type of Ciroma, Ekwueme, Solomon Lar. Maybe eventually, it will evolve, but right now, PDP has a long road to go.

The PDP and many Nigerians believe that President Muhammadu Buhari has not done much for the country since assuming office. Do you share this opinion?

I cannot join the group that say he has not done much. Certainly, everything is very difficult. Nigeria is a very complex country to rule and expectations are very high. He cannot be expected to do magic. We were there for 16 years. It takes people and time to develop that kind of acumen to produce on time, have people on ground, civil servants and everybody working in the same direction to ensure that things are done timely and in an efficient manner. This is the situation and I think the man is trying his best and it is only a matter of time. But there is something I need to say at this time. There is the need for the APC to develop a grassroots followership because they have not done that yet. There is some kind of scare within the APC. They should open their doors and admit people who will help them to build the party. The people they use to win a very marginal election and get a small majority, if they want to stay with them alone, PDP will catch up with them. But if they open their doors and bring in the people, there are people willing to develop the party, a real genuine grassroots party within the APC. But people who have power in the APC are not in a hurry to bring in those people. I look around and I don’t see these people. They need to mobilise.

What do you have to say about the allegation by your party men that the fight against corruption is selective?

Well, anybody can have his own view on these things. If somebody is standing on your feet, you will think you are the only one. You don’t know who else he wants to stand on his feet; you don’t know who else he wants to checkmate. So, those people who have been hit by this anti-corruption campaign will ask why only me? That is the attitude of human beings and I believe that in the fullness of time, the anti- corruption crusade will spread and become all inclusive. I don’t believe that people are being targeted selectively. Statistically speaking, maybe more people are in PDP. But with time, I believe it will reach people in APC who are also corrupt.

There is this notion that if election is conducted 100 times, the South-East will still vote for the PDP because of the sentimental attachment they have and the belief that it is the party for the zone?

I don’t think the PDP is a south eastern party. It is not an Igbo party. But under Jonathan, he convinced a lot of people in the South-East to vote for him and they did. If you want to talk of a party that is founded mostly in the east, it is APGA and not PDP and the Igbos did not gain too much from the PDP to say this is our party. Further to that, the South-South voted for the PDP. So, would you say that it is the party of the South-South people? More than 40 percent of the people from the South-West voted for the PDP. If the PDP had won, the South-West people will say it is our party because that is the way it is. The only people I know that voted against the PDP were North-East and North-West. Even the votes in the middle belt were shared between PDP and APC. There were places where the APC produced the governor because they had a popular candidate and the person produced by the PDP was not acceptable to the people, but PDP went ahead to win majority of the House of Assembly seats like in Plateau and Benue and to a large extent, Nasarawa State. So, if you look at it one on one, in terms of popular bites, it is still more of PDP. So, you can’t say that PDP is the party of the middle belt. Sometimes, people were quite selective in voting for individuals instead of party.

Do you have plans to join the APC?

A man my age and experience cannot make his plans public.