Follow Us on Google
From Ndubuisi Orji, Abuja
Ahead of the 2019 general election, a former Peoples Democratic Party( PDP) governorship aspirant, Chief Kodilichukwu Okelekwe, in this interview said the party will have a smooth sail to the Presidential Villa, once it gets it right in the choice of its presidential candidate. Okelekwe, who is aspiring to be the chairman of the Anambra State chapter of the opposition party, also told Daily Sun that the 2019 presidential contest will be a walkover for the PDP, once it picks the right person.
In spite of the fact that Anambra is a PDP state, the party has found difficult to win the governorship election there since 2003, what is actually the problem?
What is happening in PDP Anambra State, I really lack the right adjective to describe it. Here is a state that is predominantly PDP and yet, we have not been able to win the governorship election since 2003 because of internal crisis and bickering; that is just the only issue. If we can get over our internal crisis and bickering, no other party can smell the governorship of Anambra State. In fact, the PDP given the right circumstance, given the right leadership can rule Anambra State in perpetuity, because Anambra is PDP and PDP is Anambra State. Our challenge is how to get over our differences and work together as a family.
The Anambra PDP was scheduled to hold a Congress recently, things did not go right. What went wrong?
Yes, we scheduled to have a congress. I was supposed to be a participant in that congress. I declared interest to run for the chairmanship of the party in Anambra State. I consulted widely; reached out far and wide to all the critical stakeholders, because my interest is to make sure that we unite as one happy family, where all our different interests will be aggregated into a common goal, which is to restore PDP back to power in the state.
Unfortunately, some forces were bent on imposing a particular leadership on the party and that stalled the congress. That was why the congress didn’t hold; but surprisingly, we heard that a letter was written recognising somebody as state chairman in an election that didn’t take place. I am sure that letter must have been forged, because there was no election. One of the reasons the state congress did not hold was that the State Congress Electoral Panel that came from Abuja to conduct the election did not come with the authentic delegates list. Because of this, all the critical stakeholders, including the entire members of the National Assembly did not show up at the venue of the congress.
Even the members of the Electoral Panel, led by Prof. Osita Ogbu, were not present at the purported congress. Again, the out gone members of the National Caretaker Committee agreed that there was no election, that was why there were no special delegates from Anambra at the PDP convention. Only about 21statutory delegates voted at the convention, because the congress did not hold.
Recently, the national vice chairman, South-East zone, Chief Austin Umahi addressed a press conference at the national secretariat in Abuja, where he set the record straight that there was no congress in Anambra state and that the party will take its time to put things right in the state. Anambra State is very strategic, once we get things right there, it will be a pointer of greater things to come.
You are offering yourself for the chairmanship of Anambra PDP, what are you bringing to the table?
I am offering myself for the chairmanship of the party in the state because of the state of affairs of the party. I believe I can do something to turn around the fortunes of the party for good; that was why I decided to offer myself for the chairmanship position, not for any personal gain but to turn things around, to show that things can be done differently. So, that we can begin to win again and that was why in my consultations with people- all the critical stakeholders, they all endorsed me for three basic reasons: one, integrity; I have integrity. Two, without sounding immodest, I am comfortable and because I am comfortable, nobody can use money to tempt me to do something that is not in the interest of the party. Nobody can use money to push me around; nobody can use money to intimidate me. Thirdly, in all the factional crisis in PDP in Anambra, I have remained neutral. I am friends with everybody in PDP and so, it was easy for me to get all the critical stakeholders to endorse my candidature for state chairmanship of the party.
But like I said before, some forces that were bent on foisting a particular leadership on the party in Anambra weren’t comfortable with that. They were bent on having their way even at the detriment of the development and growth of the party. In my meetings with stakeholders, I presented a four point agenda to all the critical stakeholders of the party. And I said my number one on that agenda is to unite the party in Anambra, because without unity, we cannot achieve anything, unifying the different factions of the party, so that we can work as a family is the first thing on my agenda.
Secondly, is to integrate the party into the various communities in Anambra, and how do we do that; to do that we need to rebrand and strategically reposition the party. I have a clear thought out ideas on how to integrate the party into the various communities in Anambra State; but for strategic reasons I will not discuss them on the pages of newspaper, otherwise other parties will copy it. But that is my joker to make sure PDP wins the state and National Assembly elections in 2019. That is my joker also to ensure that PDP returns to Government House, Agu-Awka in 2022. And of course in making sure that whoever PDP fields in 2019 as presidential candidate wins convincingly in Anambra State.
After the last convention, your new national chairman, Prince Uche Secondus, said he has a one point agenda to return PDP to Aso Rock. Do you think this is achievable?
Yes, it is very achievable. If you look at the antecedents of the national chairman, Prince Uche Secondus, he was two-time chairman of PDP in Rivers State, former National Organising Secretary, former Deputy National Chairman, former acting national chairman and ultimately national chairman. Nobody is better equipped to return PDP to power than Prince Uche Secondus. He personifies PDP. He is an embodiment of PDP. He breathes PDP. He thinks PDP. So, it is achievable.
The election of Uche Secondus as PDP national chairman can simply be described as putting a square peg in a square hole. He will return PDP to Aso Rock in 2019. I have no doubt about that because he has the experience, exposure. He came into the office prepared. He is not going to waste a day learning on the job, he knows PDP like his palm.
The APC says Nigerians should not trust the PDP with power again, how do you react to that?
The facts speak for themselves. For 16 years we were in power, when we handed over power on the 29th of May 2015, what was the exchange rate of the dollar?, It was about 180 naira per dollar, today what is it? At a point it went to 500 naira per dollar and then came down to about 365 naira to a dollar, which is where it is now. When PDP was in power a litre of petrol was sold for N85, even when a barrel was being sold for about $100 in the international market yet the PDP government was able to keep the price of petrol at N85 per litre. Today, although the price of oil has gone down drastically, fuel is being sold at N145. The price of fuel ought to be a reflection of the international price of petrol, but instead the reverse is the case. While oil is falling in the international market, the pump price of petrol in Nigeria is rising. The All Progressive Congress (APC) promised that they will be creating three million jobs per annum and the reverse is the case. We are losing more than that number they promised to be creating per annum. This one is not my word. It is the figure from the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS). Where do you start?
Our people have a saying that ‘it is good to carry firewood and also carry water so that you can determine which one is heavier’, Nigerians have tested PDP and they are now testing APC. They now know which one is heavier and I can tell you that come 2019 Nigerians will overwhelmingly return PDP to power. My advice to PDP is that we must make sure that we elect the right person as our presidential candidate. The election is ours to lose. Once we pick the right presidential candidate, Nigerians will overwhelmingly return PDP to power. We can see that APC was not ready for governance. They were more interested in taking power but they have no blue print for governance. It is just a marriage of strange bed fellows, who were united by one objective which is their hatred for PDP and the quest to push PDP out of power; having done that they ran out of ideas; because they were never prepared in the first place for governance. Governance is a serious business and PDP have done it before. We have the experience and we can do it again. That does not mean that there were no mistakes in the past. As is the case with anything human, we are not infallible; infallibility belongs to God.
But on the whole, PDP has done much better than APC has done. For instance, under PDP, Nigeria became the biggest economy in Africa. Today, what’s happening? I don’t even know where we are. The use of mobile phones in Nigeria is a PDP achievement. I like to speak with facts, not propaganda. I like to point to empirical evidence. The facts on ground will speak for PDP and my only advice to our leaders is to make sure that the right presidential candidate is picked for 2019. I have no doubt in my mind that once that is done, the rest as they say would be history.
