Kola Ologbondiyan is the National Publicity Secretary of the Peoples Democratic Party. For 23 minutes in Abuja, he spoke with SAM AKPE and AYO ESAN on the future of PDP, “the failure of All Progressives Congress”; and how the re-branding of the PDP has prepared it for the 2019 general elections. Excerpts:
How does it feel to be out of power especially when you sit back and see what APC is doing in government?
We just ask ourselves, how did this party get into power? And if you see the apology our National Chairman, Prince Uche Secondus gave, it was because we felt essentially by our own action or inaction, we had allowed people who have no business being in government at all to come and take over the reins of governance and to come and misrule Nigerians. They have brought us, Nigerians, to our knees completely. I just feel sorry both for ourselves and for Nigerians that we did allow this to happen to us as a people. That is how we feel anytime we see what they called governance.
Is it possible for government to spend money without taking it through the constitutionally required appropriation process? This is what they do on daily basis and it is a deliberate attempt by President Muhammadu Buhari to set aside the Constitution and rule through the way he wants, through totalitarianism
We’ve just had Democracy Day, and some people are saying that the APC government is everything but democratic, because the party said it came to stop impunity but it is actually practising impunity too. Do you share their view?
That is very correct. APC came into office hinging its campaign promises on three issues. They claimed they were coming to fight corruption, today, the perception of the people is that APC and its government are abysmally corrupt. They promised to improve on the economy. Today they have made the economy worse than it was in 2015. And they also promised to fight insecurity. And you know what has happened. They have introduced blood-letting and daily killings into our lives. They have not been able contain the Book Haram group, and as we speak, the nation is in absolute mess. That is why the PDP believe we need to reform, to rebrand and re-market our party to Nigerians so that we would be able to rescue the soul of our nation from the misrule and incompetence of the ruling APC.
The APC cannot even conduct ordinary ward congresses; they haven’t been able to do that .The freedom that we took for granted under the PDP saying ‘oh, this can’t happen in Nigeria,’ they are happening before our eyes. People are being framed up simply because they hold divergent views and opinions from what APC government believes in. Today, Bukola Saraki is in the eye of a storm over alleged sponsorship of armed robbers; Shehu Sani has to write a statement on murder allegation; Dino Melaye is accused of gun-running. And you just wonder, is it the same Nigeria that we were in 2015 or is one in a dream? The situation is terrible; it is horrible. We are not even talking about starvation and hunger, and the unthinkable impunity that this government has brought to bear on our nation.
Some people believe that things are this bad because the PDP did not present itself as an opposition party when APC took over the government; that PDP just kept quiet instead of speaking out when things started getting bad. What happened?
The silence was not deliberate. It wasn’t deliberate because as you would recall, after we lost power at the centre as a party, we went into a crisis. And the Supreme Court, in its wisdom, rescued our party from that crisis. APC engineered the crisis. They were funding it because their sole desire was to ensure that there was no opposition to APC and they wanted to rule perpetually. So apart from the president going out to de-market our country in the perception of other countries, and de-market all the people of this nation and declare himself as the absolute incorruptible person, they were also destroying our democratic ethos and principles by engineering internal party crisis in the PDP. You have been privileged to cover the National Assembly and precisely to cover the Senate, could you have believed under the PDP government that some set of thugs and miscreants will walk into the hallowed chamber of the Senate, pick up the mace and run away without arrest? Could you have thought of that possibility? Could you have believed that a senator could be framed up and hand-cuffed? Would you have thought of that? Could you have contemplated the manner of human right abuses that are pervading our nation today? Who in this country would have thought of that?
So it is not enough to say PDP was silent. It wasn’t a deliberate silence. It was a silence created by instigated crisis by the party in government whose major desire is to ensure that PDP does not function as an opposition party.
We have constituted a committee- Contact and Integration Committee-headed by former governor of Cross Rivers State, Liyel Imoke, to engage, discuss, work, and relate with as many groups and with as many individuals that are desirous to oust this incompetent government from office and also want to work with the PDP
You started by talking about re-branding PDP, what went wrong with the original brand?
It was about perception. APC came into governance and immediately started its negative campaign against the PDP. It deliberately forced on the PDP a derogatory garb of a party of corruption. At the same time, even members of the PDP who they alleged to have been corrupt who crossed over to their party became saints. So, because this derogatory garb has been put on our party for a period of time, the party believes we must consciously take ourselves out of that garb. And how do we do that? It is to reform; it is to change our ways; it is to bring in new, younger men and women to set new narratives that would help the cause of the party. That is why we thought of re-branding.
How prepared is PDP to return to power in 2019?
The PDP is very prepared to return to power. You look at the number of Nigerians who gravitated towards APC in 2014 and who have discovered that they made a fatal error by supporting a soulless mob, not a party. APC is a movement that has no plan whatsoever on how to govern the people. And naturally, such people don’t have anything to do with the APC any longer. That is why the re-branded PDP has opened its doors to Nigerians either as individuals, groups, communities, associations, or political parties; Nigerians who are sick and tired of Buhari’s government and who look forward to a fresh hope in the recreation of the nation and believe that they can work with the PDP. Our doors are open to them. And from the way Nigerians are rallying round PDP today, it is clear that it is just a matter of time for PDP to bounce back.
Some political parties are coming up; all of them are condemning APC and some of them share the same ideology with PDP. What are your merger plans ahead of 2019?
I don’t know whether to call it merger plan but I do know that our party, as I said earlier on, is a democratic party. And because we are open, we have constituted a committee- Contact and Integration Committee-headed by former governor of Cross Rivers State, Liyel Imoke, to engage, discuss, work, and relate with as many groups and with as many individuals that are desirous to oust this incompetent government from office and also want to work with the PDP. It is now left for those groups who want to work with the PDP to, in the course of discussion, raise issues and standards and indices upon which they want to work with us. Until that Committee makes a return or submits its report to the PDP National Working Committee, we cannot predict the shape of the working relationship.
Do you think you would have enough time to re-brand and achieve a merger with other parties, looking at the 2019 general elections’ time-table as released by INEC?
The rebranding started since December 10, 2017 and as you must have noted, many Nigerians who are rallying with us today, have seen our effort in Osun State at the congresses. They have also taken cognisance of what we did at the Ekiti governorship primary and they have seen that the re-branded PDP has no place for impunity; the re-branded PDP no longer has space for the orchestrated corruption, and it is a party that will provide a level playing field for all Nigerians who are desirous of joining hands with us to move Nigeria forward. So, it is about perception issue, and the way we correct the negativity is to do things correctly. We are already doing things correctly, and Nigerians are seeing that we are doing things correctly.
One of your former leaders, Professor Tunde Adeniran, in an interview recently said that because of those of them that left PDP last December, the soul of PDP is gone and that the PDP is dead.
With due respect to Professor Tunde Adeniran who the party still regards as one of our leaders, it would be wrong to say that the soul of the party is gone or is dead. The soul of the PDP remains alive in Wadata Plaza and lives in the 36 states of the federation and Abuja. We are still hoping and we are full of expectation that very soon, people in the calibre of Prof. Tunde Adeniran who left the party will come back and we will work together.
What is your party telling Nigerians?
We are telling Nigerians that they should put their trust in the PDP once again. And the party promises to do only those things that will make our nation great again.
Former President Olusegun Obasanjo in 2014 stood up against the then President Goodluck Jonathan and went over to the APC; although not as a member. Now the same Obasanjo has said Buhari should not contest again, that he has disappointed Nigerians. What do you make of that?
What I make of that is assessment. As we live, our lives are predicated on hope of a better tomorrow. So if you brought up a candidate, and the candidate has failed in all the parameters, are you going to reinforce failure? No, you don’t have to reinforce failure. You need to let him know that he has failed and as such, you can no longer continue to market him. As far as I am concerned, I am in line with Obasanjo; and the PDP considers his position as vindication of the party in respect of governance. However, where we disagreed with Obasanjo as a party is his position that both APC and PDP must be wiped off. We are not going to run our democracy that way. Parties must be allowed to survive.
You covered the Senate as a journalist; what do you make of a situation where the Senate would summon the Inspector General of Police and he refuses to show up?
It is absolutely an abuse of process because I had a privilege of reporting the Senate. The Senate and the House of Representatives are endowed with the constitutional privileges to invite any Nigerian from whom they require information. Our party has been calling on Nigerians to pay attention because there is a conscious effort by the APC and its federal government to set aside the 1999 Constitution as amended and rule by the thumb. And that is why we have been drawing the attention of Nigerians to the fact that APC is driving our nation into anarchy. What do you make of spending hundreds of millions of dollars in the name of fighting insecurity without appropriation? Is it possible for government to spend money without taking it through the constitutionally required appropriation process? This is what they do on daily basis and it is a deliberate attempt by President Muhammadu Buhari to set aside the Constitution and rule through the way he wants, through totalitarianism; and that is unacceptable to the PDP.
Is it possible to assume, as some people are saying, that APC has demystified Buhari who many Nigerians, hitherto, held in high esteem as Mr. Integrity?
I wouldn’t know whether it is APC that has demystified him or the president has demystified himself. The expectations of Nigerians were high, very high when he came into office; higher than what Mr. President has demonstrated in office in three years. It is rather unfortunate. If he was not elected President in 2015, Nigerians would have formed all kinds of opinions and said, ‘Oh, he has a magic wand but they didn’t allow him to do it. But here is an opportunity: perform let us see; he couldn’t do it. The unfortunate thing is that, in his presidency, incompetence and incapability are the trademarks.
Where does the problem lie; in the leadership or his appointees?
The buck stops at the leader’s table. If the leader has not demonstrated the capacity or if the body language of the leader invokes a sort of incompetence, the followers will naturally queue up in that direction. But if the followers or the appointees as you called them know that there are basic standards that are acceptable to their leader, they will follow his steps.
