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National Chairman, Peoples Democratic Party, Dr. Ahmadu Ali, visited Minna, Niger State, recently where he spoke with journalists. Our correspondent, Francis Falola was there.
National Chairman, Peoples Democratic Party, Dr. Ahmadu Ali, visited Minna, Niger State, recently where he spoke with journalists. Our correspondent, Francis Falola was there. Excerpts:
What are your plans in reforming and ensuring discipline in the party?
Our party is preparing for the next round of elections and we are also doing everything possible to ensure that the Nigerian nation, the Nigerian polity, remains vibrant and that people are enjoying the dividends of democracy. In this regard, I will like to say that we have just received our second independence. The first was in 1960 from the colonial masters, the second is from the debt that we are owning the Paris Club and all those international organisations that our President, Chief Olusegun Obasanjo, has just, through his indefatigable efforts, managed to get the Paris Club to sign off this debt. The reform of the party is an ongoing thing. My concept of reforming an organisation is what we have just done. We have re-examined our constitution; we have amended and improved it. We have also re-examined our manifestoes; we have added value to it. We have re-defined our policy agenda and these are the composite things that make up a party reform. These we have already forwarded to the National Executive Committee of the party which has endorsed it and we are waiting for the convention of the party to ratify it.
You talked about crises within the party.
PDP is the largest party in Africa, which we all know and PDP has been the most successful party that has successfully held onto governance of Nigeria for the past six years, uninterrupted. It has transited from one civilian regime to another successfully and also preparing to hand over again to another civilian regime in 2007. Definitely, management of success is always a problem. It is easier to manage failure and as you know that success has many fathers, everybody claims to be the one that brought about the success. This has led to wranglings within the rank and file of the party and I have been very busy, doing everything within my power to settle these small differences within the party. And as you will notice in spite of all these differences, no one is threatening to leave the party. They are determined to remain in the party but have their suggestions as to how we can improve the party at all levels. These are the things that are being interpreted as crises and frictions within the party. I believe they are being managed properly. During my tenure, I have told everybody that discipline will be my watchword and I will assert it at all levels of the party. We expect that if you want to belong to this party or you want to belong to an organisation, you should be ready to obey the rules and regulations of that organisation. Otherwise, you should be out of it.
Lately, there is this a rumour making the rounds that President Olusegun Obasanjo might be going for the third term in office. What is the position of the party on this?
The party has no position on this and since you say it is a rumour, it remains in the rumour mills and on the pages of newspapers. We are not aware of that. We are preparing for our convention and after our convention, those who stand, as the candidates of the party will be voted for. So, I am not aware of that and it still remains a rumour.
Do you think Obasanjo is eligible to contest for the presidency in 2007 like any other potential candidates?
That is a very good question. The Nigerian Constitution allows for two terms and does not actually allow you to continue after two terms. I think this is patterned around the American Constitution and you will see that after two terms uninterrupted, when another person comes in and finishes his term, then you are eligible to contest, if you are still viable. But by custom and by the culture of their political setting in America, no American president that had done two terms has come back and we are yet to produce our own culture and our own method of approaching such a problem. You and I need to wait until we reach that bridge to cross it.
There was this report that in November, you may emerge as the national chairman of the party. Can we then conclude that the presidency may not leave the South?
I don't know about that. We are a party that believes in zoning and, therefore, when we come to the point that we have to do an election convention, if during that time we believe we have to re-zone all the posts, we will do so.
Recently, we gathered that the national convention of PDP was postponed. What informed the decision to postpone the convention?
As a matter of fact, the party has not announced any date for the convention. The press and the media in the country have announced their own dates for themselves. Most of the media have gone round carrying particular dates for the congresses and convention. What those media did was to take the date for the 2001 congresses and convention guidelines and just change the date to 2005 and propagate it. There has been no statement from the national secretariat of the party about any date for a convention. At the moment, we are engaged in an important exercise of registering our party members. The party cards we all carried at the moment today expired in the year 2004. So, we are going to embark on the registration of all members of the party from the ward level to the national level. When we have concluded the registration, then we can now look for the guidelines and pick a suitable date for the congresses and convention.
What is the position of the party on the six-year single term being clamoured for in some quarters?
The party has at no time discussed such an item. It surfaced at the floor of the national conferece. That is all I know about it. I cannot talk about whether the nation is going to adopt it or not since I am not a member of the National Assembly. But as a politician, I think whether you take four or five or six-year single term, it is immaterial. It all depends on what the nation wants at this particular time.
What informed the recent tsunami rally held by your party in Lagos?
‘Tsunami' means a ‘big wave'. We took a huge political wave onto the shore of Lagos and pounded the shore so much that the government there is beginning to cave in.
What is the state of things now with the Anambra crisis where the governor of the state and a few prominent members of the party have been expelled? Can the expulsion be said to be still in force?
The people affected still remain expelled from the party. It is only the party's convention that can revert that decision.
Speaking on the conferece of which you were a member, how would you assess the outcome of the national constitutional conference? Was it a failure or success?
The chairman of the conference has made it quite clear that the conference recorded a 99.9 per cent success. Nothing can be more successful than that. In a meeting of that nature, that we should reach a consensus on about 185 points out of about 187 points, for God's sake, what would you call that? That is a success. People are losing the essence of the conference, which is to gather all men and women of goodwill. Men, who are custodians of the conscience of their people, to a jaw-jaw conference, rather than a war-war conference. We want to confine the imaginary wars to the pages of newspapers, as we believe in peace. So, the President in his wisdom decided to consult his electorate and the electorate of the President is the whole of the Nigerian nation and he is constitutionally entitled and empowered to do that consultation in whatever form or shape or method that he wishes. The methods he had chosen was to ask for nomination from all these states of the federation; all the industries; the entire non-governmental organisations and so on, to come and discuss the nation and all its problems. And having done that as a great democrat, he went further to hand over the whole documents, unadulterated without any bill to the National Assembly because anything in that report that is actionable by legislation will be dealt with by the National Assembly. And anything that is actionable by executive action will be so done by the executive arm of government. Nothing can be more democratic than that and that is the consultation of the President who had got the power to appeal to the electorate on a nationwide basis and collect their ideas.
One of the principles of NEEDS is to ensure that there is food security in the nation. The National Assembly was said to have stated that a certain percentage of the nation's earnings should be devoted to the development of agriculture. Are you in support of this?
It is so important that the assessment of NEEDS, which is an all-encompassing programme, is so detailed that I cannot give you a complete assessment since I am not the Director General of NEEDS. But I can tell you that if the National Assembly did say that a certain percentage of our money or income should be devoted to agriculture, they are very right. I have been saying it the umpteenth time that the World Bank, the European Union, and all our friends outside this nation and outside Africa that keep telling us not to subsidise agriculture are pulling us down. They want us to die of starvation because they all, in their individual countries, subsidise agriculture heavily. So, telling us not to subsidise agriculture is a prescription for hunger and we reject that in totality. So, I will pray the National Assembly and implore them to ensure that a certain percentage of our earnings is devoted to subsidising agriculture in a very big way. I endorse that.
The EFCC is said to be investigating your predecessor and some members of the National Working Committee of your party. How do you see this development in respect with the unity of the party?
That has no effect on the unity of the party. If at all, it is happening because I am not aware. EFCC has not told me anything and the people concerned have not mentioned anything to me. So, I am not aware. But if it is happening, it has nothing to do with the unity of the party because the party is out to cleanse itself. And we can only show by examples and not by precept alone. We have done that already by ensuring that the National Working Committee is reinvigorated. We now have a new- improved National Working Committee of the party.
People believe you are acting out the President's scripts. Do you see yourself as an Obasanjo boy?
I am too old to be a boy of anybody. I am 69 already and for anybody to refer to me as a boy of anybody is wrong. That is out of the question. If you say I am carrying out Obasanjo's scripts and Obasanjo is carrying out the scripts that the nation has mapped out for him, then yes why not, if not. We are all doing everything towards the success of this nation and Obasanjo's action so far have met with tremendous success and applause all over the world.
The PUNCH, Wednesday, August 03, 2005