Home | Columnist | Atiku’s Political Future Still Bright

Atiku’s Political Future Still Bright

By Staff 05/04/2012 22:43:00

Font size:

Garba Shehu, spokesman of Atiku Abubakar, former vice-president, speaks to Tobs Agbaegbu, senior associate editor, and Haruna Salami, senior staff writer, on the implication of the emergence of Bamanga Tukur as the national chairman of the People’s Democratic Party, PDP, for the 2015 presidential ambition of his boss, and the political intrigues that played out at the party’s recent national convention. Excerpts:

Newswatch: What is the reaction of the Atiku camp to the outcome of the PDP convention given the fact that the man who emerged as chairman actually accused the former vice-president of being behind what happened to him at the zonal congress where he failed? Did you people expect what happened?

Shehu: Let me say that the Turaki of Adamawa, Atiku Abubakar, has since sent a message of congratulations to the new leaders of the party who emerged at the last convention and his message to them was that it was a breezy contest for many of them. Some party members had felt alienated or injured in their names, emotions, reputations, in the way those who contested were wronged and he said to them that they should move to the field and consider as their major priority the feeling of the body of the party. So, he has welcomed them and has indicated his willingness to work with them.

Of course, he did even indicate before the convention that he was willing to work with whoever emerged as leaders of the party. At that time, he did say that he was not going to back any single candidate in the belief that whoever emerged, he would work with that person.

Now, you raised the question of Atiku opposing the emergence of Bamanga Tukur and was responsible for his failure to get support from their North-East zone. If Atiku had played a partisan role in all of that, he would not have given an earlier commitment not to back any candidate. By not backing any candidate, he was not opposing the emergence of any candidate either. I think the new party national chairman himself probably wasn’t responsible for uttering that statement that attacked Atiku for his failure in the North-East because I am aware that conversations between the two camps had flowed and the indications clearly were that Atiku was not even present at the congress; he was outside the country when the congress took place.

From the other side, what we are hearing is that people are saying we have been told, we have heard, third party narratives, which is to say that there probably might have been communication problem. If the North-East had sat down to resolve not to support the candidacy of Bamaga Tukur and they settled for some other person, so who was behind the result of the congresses of the South-South where Uche Secondus was denied support and in his place Dr. Sam Jaja was chosen. This thing played out in many of the zones.

In the North-West, we heard that the vice-president had his own difficulties until events turned out to favour him at the end. In the South-West, things came out not as the zone itself thought. So, whose hand was there in all of these?

So, it is wrong to single out one person and say he was the architect of the misfortune of one man. Be that as it may, elections have come and gone. In any election there will be winners and losers. The thing to do in any democratic situation is for people to look ahead, not dwell on the past. That is our sense of what has happened.

Newswatch: Yes, but it is important to know where he stood before that time. Did he support Bamanga Tukur?

Shehu: Atiku chose to be ambivalent; he was not pro or anti anybody in the belief, as I said, that anyone who emerged as the leader of the party, he would work with that person and that has continued to be his position.

Newswatch: Your clarification is noted, but you are aware that the interpretation, rightly or wrongly from a cross section of Nigerians is that the emergence of Bamanga Tukur will likely impact negatively on the former vice-president’s political ambition. First and foremost, has he indicated interest in 2015?

Shehu: We have never had difficulties coming to terms with the party chairman coming from the same state with Turaki Adamawa. Let me tell you, Atiku has a more elevated view of all these things. When he voiced that opinion in the past to suggest that as much as possible PDP should produce the chairman from a state other than a PDP controlled state, his worry has been that wherever you had a party chairman coming from the state that PDP controls, they frequently fought one another, because you have two power centres and they have tended to conflict.

You can easily remember what happened in Enugu State between Okwesilieze Nwodo and Sullivan Chime. Were it not that the matter was resolved in a very mature way, it would have destroyed the party in Enugu and the situation as I speak now still remains tense in Enugu proceeding from that conflict between the former national chairman and the governor. But with the clear understanding of the constitution, I would say that the constitution has placed no obstacle on the part of Atiku should he raise his hand to say he wants to be president in 2015.

It has happened in the past when Ahmadu Ali was the PDP chairman that led the late Yar’Adua to the convention. If you recall that at that time, people were saying that the party chairman and the president were both coming from the same region, but the PDP always had a way of resolving some of these conflicts. As soon as Ahmadu Ali delivered Yar’Adua as president, he stepped down as party chairman. That was why Vincent Ogbulafor came in.

Assuming that Atiku throws his hat into the ring by 2015 and by providence Bamanga Tukur happens to be the chairman of the party, so what? If the president happens to be Atiku in 2015, and he will be, the party will convene and decide to take the chairman not even to neighbouring Taraba or Borno states, no; in fact, the entire North will lose the party chairmanship position because that is the tradition of the PDP.

If the PDP president comes from the North, the national chairman will come from the South and if he comes from the South, the party chairman will come from the North. So the North will relinquish the chairmanship position to the South. That is what will happen. So, we have no discomfort whatsoever by Bamanga Tukur’s being chairman.

Newswatch: Atiku is known to be a political tactician. Is he not thinking of 2015?

Shehu: He is thinking of 2015. I’m not denying that. What is wrong with that? It’s a legitimate aspiration. He is entitled to aspire to the highest office in the land. Is he going to mount the soapbox now for electioneering? There will be time for that, but to sit down in your own room and strategise with friends and rebuild relationships, by all means this is lawful and it will continue.

Newswatch: Did you see the hand of Mr. President in the emergence of the new executive as is widely believed in political circles?

Shehu: Well, if everybody has seen it, who are we to say we have not seen it? If every Nigerian says he has seen it, who are we to say we have not seen it?

Newswatch: Incidentally, the president advised PDP members not to allow the politics of 2015 to cause disaffection within the party. Do you think he was sincere in that advice?

Shehu: It is left for Nigerians to decide whether they think he said the right thing, but the president is entitled to make speeches, he is entitled to be listened to, he is entitled to rule as he is the president of this country. So, we don’t deny him his right to pontificate.

Newswatch: If the Atiku camp agrees with many other Nigerians that Mr. President’s hand was in the emergence of the new PDP executive, do you think this will augur well for the party?

Shehu: I think even the new party chairman, Bamanga Tukur, did make rhetorical expressions which were pleasing to the ear; he said he was committed to reforms and inclusion of all members. I think these are perennial problems of the PDP – problems of nepotism, favouratism, bias and sycophancy. The new leadership is saying it wants to change all that. If they change that, what it then means is that the delegate chosen from Borgu, Zuru, Ikot Abasi, Nnewi, Lagos or wherever when they converge here they will vote according to their own consciences.

What they are saying is that they want to reinstate internal democracy in the PDP. Of course, that will be good for the country. If there is internal democracy in the PDP that means the party itself can impact a legacy of democracy on the entire country because you cannot give what you don’t have.

Newswatch: There are also insinuations that the president may renege on his promise not to go for a second term. Some politicians are doing some calculations on that. Has that come to reckoning in your calculations for 2015?

Shehu: We have been reading from support groups, particularly from his tribe’s people and his home region, saying he will run in 2015. Who are we to say he cannot run when the convention of his own political party, the PDP, said the thing was to be rotated to the North in 2011, he went against that and he won against the entire clamour against his running? So, we’ll wait and see him reneging on that and people will react appropriately.

Newswatch: How do you see the political future of the former vice-president?

Shehu: It’s bright, excellent. Atiku’s future is as bright as the future of democracy in this country because the two are intertwined. Atiku is inherently a democrat and he helps in situations that are properly democratic. I think we have suffered difficulties with the political system because we have dealt with a version of democracy that has been corrupted.

With all of the things that are happening, the president has been saying it, even at the level of rhetoric, it’s good that the president of the country is saying that we should go and do one – man - one vote and that he loves democracy; it’s nice.

Newswatch: If the president eventually decides to run for a second term in 2015, that means there will be no vacancy in Aso Rock. Doesn’t that worry you in your camp?

Shehu: If the president says he is running, that doesn’t mean there is no vacancy unless he declares a dictatorship, suspends the constitution and sacks the judiciary and the legislature, which will be when there will be no vacancy. I assure you for any determined politician, that will not pose much problem and I know Atiku is robustly, aggressively prepared as a politician to face all situations. We are not ruling in anything, we are not ruling out anything.