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From Romanus Ugwu, Abuja
Deputy National Organising Secretary of All Progressives Congress (APC), Hon Nze Chidi Duru, is a man who has paid the price in politics as former House of Representatives member and now a member of the ruling party’s national office.
Speaking to Daily Sun in an exclusive interview, Duru discussed several issues, including the crisis rocking the party, the magic wand APC deployed to win the 2023 presidential election, the humongous task and expectations from President-elect, Bola Ahmed Tinubu, and way forward for the crippling insecurity in the country.
What are the challenges APC encountered in the conduct of primaries for the Imo, Kogi and Bayelsa governorship election and how confident of victory are you for the November 11 poll?
The party expects to do very well in the three offseason elections. Imo and Kogi are already captive states. They already belong to the APC. Our wish and desire is to retain those states for APC.
With particular respect to Bayelsa, already widely known is that APC won last election, but for the pronouncement of the Supreme Court few hours to the inauguration of our candidate and Governor-elect, his victory was overturned. It is our expectation as a party to repeat the same feat of winning the state and never for the Supreme Court to pronounce otherwise.
In the conduct of the exercise, the process leading to the party primaries, we made sure that we took into account all the issues that led to the Supreme Court pronouncing that the governor-elect did not qualify to be sworn-in. We are very confident of our candidates. He has been a one-time governor of the state and had very varied experience ever since.
He has been a Minister, and very well connected in and out of the state. We think that with his persona, his experiences, contact and connection the party will be able to win Bayelsa.
How easy was it managing the primary elections especially the heavyweights that contested it? Secondly, how much of due diligence did the party take to check the recurrence of Bayelsa experience in screening of the candidates?
We took every measure and more importantly, we adhere strictly to the guidelines of the party on the basis we conducted the exercise in the three states. In Imo state, it was a one aspirant election, the governor offered himself for a re-election without any party member purchasing nomination form to compete or challenge him. The only aspirant that came outside of time did not qualify to be considered to go through the next step of screening.
In Kogi, which was more involving to the extent that 18 aspirants purchased forms, returned them and these are by all standard people of mean standing and capacity. It was managed successfully. When we went through the screening process, out of the 18 that purchased the form, one did not turn up because in his own words, for the interests of the party.
He said he will allow other aspirants to contest while he focuses his energy and contacts in the overall good of the party at the national level having been elected as a member of House of Representatives. That was a major sacrifice. 17 aspirants went into the process without bias. The party took a decision to go for direct mode of primary as was proposed in the case of Imo and Bayelsa.
The party produced the candidates for the three states comprising, Governor Hope Uzodinma, Imo, Ahmed Ododo, Kogi, and Timipre Sylva for Bayelsa states. To answer your question, we took every measure, on grounds of politics, law, and public policy to ensure that our candidates will go into November 11, 2023 election with full confidence and conviction that if we win the election, there will not be any legal challenge that will vitiate our success at the polls.
How true is the claim that APC’s roof is collapsing even as you painted a picture that the party’s family is peaceful?
I spoke on how we organized the primaries. However, in party politics, divergence of views is expected. Otherwise it will no longer be politics. APC is not different from any political party and within the APC, there are many tendencies and the fact that we were able to manage the tendencies and bring them on board to have a shared vision of going into election as a united force and emerged victorious in the election, can only speak of APC as an organized institution and a party that respects the individual opinions of the tendencies that make it up.
If you go back to history on the formation of the party, you will find there were two or three dominant groupings that form APC – the ACN, the CPC, the ANPP, the nPDP and faction of APGA with those who join based on their own individual conviction.
There have been narrowing and tinning down of the blocs within APC to the extent of seeing APC as a body of groupings fused together under one umbrella.
It is not unlikely, and every political party will always have that differences and divergence of view. That is what makes it a political party. Nigerians should know that APC is a political party subject to the whims and caprices of the fact of the tendencies within the party that makes it up, but as a whole, APC works together for the benefit of members.
Are you aware that a member of the NWC is at daggers-drawn with the headship of the party, comprising the chairman and the Secretary?
As a member of NWC, I am aware and I hope the question relates to what is already in the public space, Salihu Lukman’s writings in the media and to members of the NWC. Again, he represents a tendency and a very strong one within the power bloc of the party, and he is entitled to his view and we cannot shut him up. He is a very strong member of the party, and he has expressed his views.
Can you confirm whether his claims are a true reflection of what is happening within the party?
The party has not sat as a body to look into the issues. But I am aware that members of the party that mean well have constituted a committee to look into his claims. They deemed it important to hear, understand ourselves and establish what the issues are. The committee headed by the Deputy National Chairman (North), Kyari will facilitate meetings among those that made themselves available.
The report of the committee was yet to be submitted to the NWC, and if the committee does so, the national leadership will look into it objectively and ensure that decisions taken will be in the overall interest of the party.
What is your assessment of the APC-led Federal Government in the last eight years?
It is a mixed bag. Mr. President has done exceedingly well, to the best of his ability, in discharging his obligation to the citizens of the country. There have been many challenges, around the economy, security; the polity which more than ever before has tended to exacerbate the issues that confront us both as a country and our standing in the comity of nations.
Have these issues been well addressed? These are matters that would be left for the jury to look into and discuss. There have been also other wins and that is that Nigeria is still together as a country. On the security question that have confronted us over the years, they appear to have been tackled in some areas, yet we are still having some challenges across board in the country.
We believe and hope to witness a transition from one government to another one. So it is something to celebrate. For me, the challenge rests with the incoming government to ensure that the economic challenges we are facing as a people is tackled squarely, frontally and deliberately attended to.
We cannot be in a country where the value of Naira to the rest of the currencies of the world means nothing. You are working very hard, but when compared to the currencies of the other world, Nigerians have become poorer. Over the period, inflation has eaten our successes in Nigeria.
This is the number one challenge the incoming government would face and I am happy that one of the articles of faith Tinubu manifesto highlighted is to address the issue of differences between the official foreign market price of the dollar to the parallel market in Nigeria to the point that there will be a convergence around N300 and then in another two year to N200. That will be a major shift in the economy in headlining, signposting where the country is headed to.
The second one will be to bring in our best and brightest minds to address the issues of security in Nigeria. So, whatever we do, if we don’t address the issue of security in Nigeria, it pales into insignificance. People who like to invest, local or foreign are not confident to invest in Nigeria.
So, the challenges still exist in parts of the North and in the South East. You have areas that have been taken over by those considered to be unknown gunmen, where the institutions of government, the army and the police, are facing challenges daily and taken down by civilians that disrespect the institutions holding us together as people calls for concern.
It has also become an issue in some parts of the South West and in major parts of the North; of the marauding herdsmen. That needs to be tackled; even if it means bringing back our best and brightest out of service to tackle this squarely, Nigeria will be on a rebound.
The opportunities that exist in the country would be available to be tapped by both nationals and foreigners. We will be able to deal effectively with the issue of the divide that this country never witnessed before.
At no time in the history of this country have people felt very unsure of the unity and their membership as Nigerians, whether you are from the South East, South West or not. There is always that debate, that inclusiveness of people feeling that they had been excluded from governance.
One of the first things this government should address is to develop a philosophy Nigerians can gravitate around as a spirit, a holding philosophy that says we are first and foremost Nigerians and everybody must have that belief that Nigeria is there to protect them.
There must be that assurance that you are not excluded from Nigeria but included like what happens when we play during football tournaments. All Nigerians rally round supporting our team, urging them on to win the match and that is the kind of spirit the incoming government should try to inculcate.
They should of course bring the huge population together. The strength of our country rests on the shoulders of the youth population. The demography shows that they are greater in number. They have also shown that they are very enterprising, very innovative, and entrepreneurial. Nigerians are breaking barriers, bounds and if we can all cultivate these and bring them into a national polity, it will be a win for Nigeria.
You spoke more of challenges in your appraisal; will it be right to gavel it that you gave your party a vote of confidence or vote of no confidence?
It will be right to say that the APC government had confronted a lot of challenges. It will also be right to say that we expect more from the government that is coming in to address these challenges in a very deliberate fashion in a determined manner, to take us away from the swamp that is holding us down and addressing the economic challenges, their political challenges and social challenges.
And then the issues around security that is also paramount. More importantly to create and forge national optimism in the mind-set of Nigerians to believe that we are first and foremost Nigerians and that the government will be an inclusive, not exclusive one.
The incoming administration will be government that unites us on the common purpose to believe that given our God-given ability, talent, geography and position that Nigeria is meant to be one of the top 10 economies in the world. That will be the challenge the government as incumbent should be able to address.
How much of impact has APC made in Anambra, your state?
It was not unexpected that APC has not done well in Anambra State in the last election for a number of reasons. But, the involvement of Peter Obi in the current exercise, offering himself to run as a presidential candidate of the Labour Party complicated it. His emergence greatly affected the performance of APC in Anambra State.
It was not unexpected. The last time in 2019 being the vice presidential candidate of PDP, though APC did slightly better this time around, it was also a factor that in a way also affected and impacted our performance in the state. APC in Anambra State is under the rulership of APGA, which historically has been in power in the last 16 years.
Ordinarily, it would have been a contest between APC and APGA but with Peter Obi’s involvement in 2019 as vice president and now as the number one candidate of a political party that he took from scratch and built into a formidable national consensus, it would have been difficult, if not impossible, for any political party to do well in Anambra State. APGA, the state party, did not fare any better with that. So, it wasn’t unexpected.
Did you see the impact Obi made in the 2023 election coming?
It will be wrong to say that we did not expect or see it coming. It was a misreading of political environment to be recorded that his involvement will not gain traction. I say this at the back of the EndSARS revolution we
witnessed few years ago.
They were basically waiting for an opportunity to come together, aggregate under an umbrella to support what they expect of their leaders on what it takes to govern Nigeria. Also it matched the general discontent in the country where people are already becoming anti-establishment, people who have very high hopes have been disappointed with what is going on in their society.
People will go to school and finish without job for years. There are issues around security, economic challenges confronting everybody, the haves and the have-not are complaining. The moment that move was made outside the formal establishment, it reconfigured the political environment and geography of Nigeria.
Then, you have these groupings with disaffection that felt things need to be done differently and that Nigeria needs to be governed differently, where their major need should be provided with a level playing field in Nigeria where people can at least guarantee two to three square meals a day. They grouped around him and then he gave voice to their expectation, feeling and the sentiment. That was the upsurge in the LP to his credit.
He did relatively very well. And that also became a challenge to the two major political parties in Nigeria that they need to go back to the drawing board. Where we did well, we will continue to do so and where we did not do well, we will continue to improve on those areas.
The reality again is that the demographics have shifted, and the landscape has also changed. And before you know it, the next four years will be with us. And we need to address most of these issues in a very holistic, transparent manner to give voice to the people.
What really worked in APC’s favour to win the presidential election?
It was a combination of factors. One of it is the fact that APC is already grounded in a number of states with good number of state governors, number of legislators and government appointees. It was easy more than any other political party to galvanise the structures of the party in states we have commanding height. Activating the structures of the party was at the clip of hands. We have to look at the fact of the incumbency at the national level. It shows that it is important to be in power than to be in opposition.
Are you saying that money does not play any role in the election?
It is all about the structure, about governance and about the presence of the party in all the nooks and crannies of Nigeria. And then is of course, about the fact that people that have benefited from the party, either as a member, people in power as governors, elected officers of the party or people who have had one appointed or people with expectations, were able to freely on their own deploy resources to guarantee the success of the party, at the level from top to bottom.
But, we should also bear in mind that even at that, it was at that time the Naira redesigning took place. APC was one political party that took up the gauntlet to express reservation and concern with the redesign. In fact, people did say that the redesign was targeted at the party from conducting and winning the presidential election.
The Supreme Court did not pronounce on this until after the presidential election. So, if there was anything around the deployment of resources, or using resources to win the election, APC shouted the most whereas other political parties, some did not speak on it, others conducted themselves in a manner to say or show that they were in support of the redesign.
