Two- time former governor of old Bendel State, Dr Samuel Ogbemudia, says the government of President Muhammadu Buhari will face several problems but expresses optimism that the new Nigerian leader has all it takes to move the nation forward. In this interview, Ogbemudia blames former President Goodluck Jonathan for his failure to secure second term, saying he allowed a cabal to hold himself hostage. He admonishes the PDP to which he belongs to re-strategize, warning that the party may go collapse if members fail to put their house in order particularly with a determined APC now ruling at the federal level. He speaks on other issues including why Governor Adams Oshiomhole of Edo State must pick his successor. Excerpts:
First of all, we have to look at the set up of the party. Today, the PDP is headed by a Board of Trustees which advises the National Working Committee or the executive. So if in the process they lost an election, it is straight forward for the people in charge to take responsibility and, therefore, give way to a new executive that will rebuild the party. I understand that the former president set up a team to campaign for him and for the party; so the fault is not that of the executive or the NWC but the person who took the decision that an organisation outside the party structure should be in charge of the campaign should be held responsible, and not the National Chairman. The National Chairman is a straight forward man; a man of great intellect and who understands the issues at stake. My view is that the PDP should now set up a committee to find out what went wrong and how to rebuild the party because they are still the best organised party in the country; they need to work hard in order to win the next election if they have the appetite.
Do you think there is still hope for the PDP to take over power in four years’ time as some of the leaders are saying?
First and foremost, you must look at the PDP when it first won presidential election; it went berserk and, as a result, mismanaged victory. And having mismanaged victory, the outcome is defeat, so if they want to win future elections against a determined party like the APC, they must work twice as hard as they have done in the past.
Some people are attributing the failure of the PDP to the hate campaigns it indulged in. Do you agree?
People will say things, but what individuals find on the ground may be different. No doubt there was a campaign of hatred, campaign of dislike, religious campaign, but all that put together may not have affected the PDP chances if they had put their house right but they didn’t. Quite a good number of the people that make up APC today were in PDP and each time a person left, they said ‘let him go, we can do without him’. Now they have found that they couldn’t do without them; it is part and parcel of a sensible re-organisation. The party should sit down and find out what went wrong. They have to do that, and it is not a job of two days; they must sit down; talk to everybody that is worth talking to in order to ascertain and identify what went wrong, a lot of things went wrong.
What are the things that went wrong, being a leader from the South-South that supported President Jonathan?
It will be unfair on Jonathan if I say I am disappointed at his activities. PDP is made up of responsible people but these are people who do not welcome any type of challenge, any type of argument and any type of interference; once they took a decision, they didn’t want anyone else to find out what led to that decision; so nobody should challenge them. Because of that, they held Jonathan hostage. I know there were some advisers, before they met Jonathan, they will first meet and say ‘this is what we are going to tell him, you bring it out, you will uphold it and all the rest of us will support it and majority will carry the vote’, so Jonathan will have no option but to go ahead and they succeeded in a number of cases.
Nigerians believed that Jonathan lost because of the way he handled the issues of insecurity, the economy and corruption. How do you assess his activities in these areas?
Nigerian politics has not developed to the stage where people recognise economy, unemployment and the like as election issues. We are at the stage where we look at the individual, where he comes from, what he can do for us and then support or don’t support him. But a few intellectuals may have looked at the economy and say ‘it is good’, ‘it is not too good’, They might have complained of unemployment but they were like the lone voice in the wilderness. Majority of the people wanted a South-South President, so they went for him.
So will you say Jonathan was weak in handling the issues?
No, it is the responsibility of the leader to have strong following. What makes a leader is the quality of the followership. There are many followers who will do things without being told if they know what is in the interest of the party.
Advice to Buhari
You will excuse me if I say anything in favour of Buhari because there is Espirit de corps between us. We want it written by historians many years to come that the coming of the general saved the nation from total collapse. To achieve that, all hands must be on deck, the hands of the old generals, the retired ones and those in office. But having said that, I know Buhari when he was commissioned into the Nigerian Army in the rank of 2nd Lieutenant. I also know that he served under a number of senior officers and, every year, they wrote confidential report in respect of each officer, including me. The officer writing the report about other people also indicate what he looks like. So every one of the superior officers concluded that Buhari was a competent hand. But that was many years ago. Can we say that the energy of 1966 is still very much present? It may not but what is absolutely available is the lesson learnt
from those intervening years. I know that Buhari has been reading what the public wants, has made promises and his advisers are also talking to him. So he is taking notes and what he will come out it will be with a bombshell. I also know that Buhari will not want to fail because the expectation is so high that he will not want people to say they are disappointed.
We talked about fuel scarcity and other things, those are minor things. The most important thing to do with human beings in Nigeria is security. If a man cannot sleep with his two eyes closed, then he is unsafe and, if he is unsafe, then he cannot do anything. When God created man, he decided that he needed some important things. First and foremost, food; second, mobility; and third, shelter; every other thing comes later. Unemployment is something Buhari is going to inherit. The reason for the unemployment is straight forward. The Federal Government, in its wisdom, created over 60 universities, more than a hundred secondary schools, but no proportionate industry to absorb these people when they finish their training. That is where our problem comes from. When the British were here before 1960, they set up schools to train clerks and interpreters. Not much has changed in the curriculum, so what do you do? A manufacturer who produces goods without regard for the requirement of the customer will always have his store full of unsold goods and that is where we are. The answer is that we have to go back to the drawing board and review our human resources planning.
How many doctors do we need in 10 years, how many accountants do we need in the next 15 years. And then get the universities, the training institutions to produce these people.
If you want 10 doctors and you take 10 and two fails, then you have not achieved anything, so you take 20. If five fails, you still have 15 to meet your 10. So we need to have people who are best in organizing the economy of the country.
But you must admit one thing now, that the APC, as we know it today, has not run a Federal Government, before this is their first time. Therefore, like all first timers, like all new brooms, they must sweep well. Otherwise the song four years hence will be different.
Buhari’s certificate saga and the army
When I joined the army, the army took my certificate. There were two reasons they did that. Some people got trained by the army and, when they came back, they could no longer go along with the salaries that the army was paying, they will disappear. Because of that, the army will keep your certificate. When I was retiring, the army gave me back my certificate and that was what I was looking for to show you. (Searching his cupboard for the certificate). So I was surprised they said Buhari has no certificate. But even if he has no certificate, there is examination in the army. The time we started the exam, they called it Royal West African Frontier Force entrance examination and you were not allowed to take it unless you present your certificate or your school wrote that you had taken the exam and they believed you will pass. And if the result comes and you fail, they will send you out. However, there were some military people if, in the process they
send you to school, they call it remedial courses, so if you did not have school certificate by the time you finish the three years course, you are better than the school certificate holder. So I believe Buhari’s case was a situation where people tried to call a dog a bad name in order to hang it. But that notwithstanding, Buhari has been elected, what Nigerians want is development, what Nigerians want is good governance, what Nigerians want is a man who will give credit to their representation.
Agitation to cut cost of governance
In any society, the first and fore most thing is self. The civil servant at an inquiry on the future of the civil service influences the report of the committee. The parliament, having regards to the future of the parliament, also influences what they will do for themselves in the future. So when they sat down to compute all those heavy duty salaries, they will be doing only one thing, fulfilling the long time belief of self first, then service to the nation second. That is why we should be pleading with Buhari: There should be a body to look into whether parliament should be full-time or part-time and if it should be part-time, how much they should be paid for every sitting? Same thing for fuel scarcity, we have now found that a few people have milked Nigeria dry, so what do you do? You cannot say that the milk you drank few days ago, give it back to us. All you do is to prevent future ones form doing same. My view is that they should take petroleum supply into an organization that is banned from strike like the military.
The military cannot go on strike; the police can’t; immigration can’t. They should put petroleum in a sector whereby the law forbids any one there from going on strike and, that is the job of government working closely with the parliament because if we were fighting a war and the opponents got our marketers together, they will cripple the army, they will cripple the air force and the navy, so we have nothing to fight with.
Reforming the electoral laws
What is the purpose of electoral laws? To have a good election that is acceptable internationally? If you produce a law that did not meet it; amend it. That is why the parliament is there. But the problem here in Nigeria is not with the law; it is with the execution. If a government, in its effort to remain in power perpetually, decides to use extra method to remain in office, then you cannot blame the law. The law is not our problem, it is those who implement it that is our problem..
Anenih’s resignation and PDP’s future in Edo
Anything that will be done by the PDP must be central to the reactivation of the party. But if you don’t say anything and you go begging people to come back, come back for what? We have not heard yet how PDP intends to reorganize itself; it is normal that any party that loses election is usually in disarray but with good leaders, effective leadership, we will soon be back on track because PDP offers the best and most effective alternative government today. We in Edo want to help to see that the state is developed and, because of that, I am going to proclaim Edo Mass Movement to look at the future irrespective of party and we will support the party that gives us indication that it wants Edo to succeed.
You have been blamed that you left the management of the party in Edo to Chief Anenih alone.
Those saying that have my sympathy, arising from ignorance. In 1999, the PDP won the election to Edo Government House, the leaders, we were three: Myself, Chief Anenih and Chief Igbinedion. Two of us, myself and Igbinedion, decided to stay at home and help the governor to ensure he succeeded. Anenih, a very brilliant and unassuming politician, was sent to Abuja to represent the state. And he did. But as time went on, things fell apart and the center could not hold and that was it.
Anenih is not the cause of our problem, anybody who says he can fight election in Edo without Anenih may not be telling you the truth. Everyone has his own job, my job was to stay at home and support the governor which I did to the best of my ability. Anenih was to stay in Abuja to draw the attention of the Federal Government to the activities of the governor of the state so that they can help him and he excelled.
If both of you worked together, how come the party was factionalized then? You led a faction while Anenih led the other.
I don’t know that but what I know is that Prof.Osunbor lost the election in the court of law. He is a professor of law; so he cannot complain that he did not get justice because he knew what to do.
The factionalization of the party was based on a different criteria. The party at the headquarters in Abuja was expected to intervene before things went out of hand, but, for reasons known best to them, they decided to leave things as they were.
But I now know that the reason was that they were not much interested in Edo because when we lost the election, the National Chairman of the PDP then was asked how he felt, he said they were not supposed to control every state in Nigeria; so losing Edo was not a serious matter. Before the court judgment, I telephoned Osunbor from London to say I heard that the Federal Government had traded out Edo and Ondo, and I asked him to go and see the president; and from his table phone me so that I could speak to him (president). He came back and told me that the president asked him what will he benefit if he traded Edo out. So he believed that the president was not doing what they accused him of. But later what I told him came to pass.
All these are now history and they are essential development in the scene of democracy. So what we should be looking forward to is not the man feeding the horse, it is the man sitting on top of it. So we look at the future, where are we going to? If the PDP wants to pack up, then they must tell us. People have asked me if I am still in PDP. I said yes and I will remain. Many months back, PDP people accused me of belonging to APC, and that in the day time at Abuja I was in PDP and in the night in Benin I was APC. Now, yesterday, I heard that the APC people are saying ‘Ogbemudia is a PDP man, leave him alone’. At least I have been vindicated.
Some accused you of showing no concern when federal appointments meant for Edo were given to people from Edo Central. Did it not bother you?
The people who are complaining are themselves accomplices. It is not a matter of one man sitting down and deciding on a situation, it is a matter of a group of people saying how do we punish this man and they work out a programme, that programme is executed and the result is known. What we should be talking about is the future. The future now is straight forward because the Federal Government is APC and the state government is APC, therefore the state government will be the one to decide who gets what having regard to their knowledge of the various people and their contributions to development. If they don’t get it, people will shout, but the major issue is that they should be allowed to execute their programmes. I believe the APC will perform because we have tremendous confidence in Buhari’s ability to lead Nigeria.
Oshiomhole’s successor
Governor Oshiomhole is the finest thing that this state has had the pleasure to have in recent years; therefore before he leaves, we will ensure, or fight or recommend somebody who will carry on where he stops so that development will be a continuous process. No matter what you think about Oshiomhole, he has performed more than his predecessors.
So what do you do with such a man? Put him in the hall of fame so that he can continuously guide the new man to act properly. Oshiomhole is expected to be the one to decide who he will support and if he does not want his legacy to be destroyed, he will make sure he gets somebody who will carry on from where he stopped.
Nobody can say he does not trust Oshiomhole, he has been there for six years and the difference is clear.
There are Nigerians who are not happy with change but the change has come, we cannot continue to fight, we have to support the incoming government of Buhari to perform.
I trust Buhari to remedy Jonathan’s mistakes – Ogbemudia
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