From Idu Jude, Abuja
Hon. Abraham Ajiya, a chieftain of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), has said time and again that the North-central states of Nigeria have remained victims of political maneuvering since the inception of the party, which the review of the party’s constitution would put in proper perspective.
Hon. Ajiya, in this interview said that his ambition to become the North-central National Vice Chairman of the party,l is an inquest into the norm of inconclusive tenures of former PDP chairman from the zone.
Tell us what formed your confidence to contest the zonal chairmanship of the PDP?
Yes, the reason for my intentions is first, to help bring back the political party to its original status. The way it was before and after 2009. Having been a member of PDP since its formation. I have watched and I have seen that the party remains the viable political party in this nation. If you go to all states of the federation, including Abuja, you find PDP on the ground. These few days, I have gone out to visit states for consultation, and I have been able to see that the party is factionalized in virtually all the states. And I have seen that the party has been balkanized and everyone in different states and everyone claims chief at different levels. Unfortunately, no one is willing to reconcile the factions. The situation here is that when one party is given what he or she wants, he does not care whether others get theirs or not. I have been to a state where a sitting Senator has no say in the party executive and most of them are already in court. I feel this is not what we should be talking about because the parties are mature enough to know what is right for the party. So, what I see there is that a person who can reconcile the warring parties is lacking in PDP, and I have offered myself as a mediator and a person who can look people directly in the eyes and tell them the truth.
Again, if I should go by what people are saying, I could have just collected some huge amounts offered to me to step down and walk away, but I think the state of this nation and where we are now, somebody needs to correct a lot of things and I have offered myself to do the job. Again we have a state in the North-central where the party narrowly missed the governorship seat because of internal party crises. I feel that should not be the case because sometimes if you are running a race, attention should be on scoring a goal so that all the players can celebrate together. For example, if Atiku Abubakar, Peter Obi, and Nyesom Wike had agreed to stick together to wrest power from APC, it could have been easy. But because everyone has separate ambitions, it then becomes very difficult to reconcile. Today, if I had the opportunity to meet with them, I could have asked if they are fairing better being outside governance. But I can tell you that being in government is better and the possible way to effect positive changes. That is the kind of leadership I am bringing on board.
You sound very aggrieved as a North-central member of the party, what are your reasons?
Well, like I said earlier, my interest is to get closer to where my suggestions affect changes in the party. One of the reasons is that no one fights from the outside. Again, the North-central states have been short-changed politically within the party leadership since the party’s inception. So, we have had no national party chairman’s tenure concluded successfully, since 2009. For example, we had the tenure of Chief Audu Ogbe shortlived; again, it was the tenure of Barnabas Gamade, again Iyorchia Ayu. All these times, it was a political calculation to take power from the North-central because the party constitution left a vacuum as it did not specify the number of months the acting chairman would stay in office before the NEC called for another election.
So, in all these, you have seen that North-central has always been a child of circumstance. So, whenever it is our turn to produce the chairman of the party, one unscrupulous element will be sponsored with a paltry N1 million to issue a letter vote of no confidence, but they fail to understand that those who sponsor them mean no good for the zone as a whole. Just imagine when someone receives N1 million to take away the entire right of the North-central and it has happened about three to four times. So, we need to correct the anomaly.
Looking at the position you are taking a shot at, one would say you have seen much in the party. Do you think Abraham Ajiya has done many consultations?
Yes, I am convinced I have done many consultations among my people, the FCT people, and beyond. I have approached people I think I can meet. In politics, you cannot force people to like you, but at my level, I have done what I feel is necessary. We have had both open and micro consultations. We are in it because the position is better managed by someone capable, not someone who is kept there by another. There is something people like me about and that is the fact that it takes someone who has the guts to come out and fight an establishment. And I am here to say that irrespective of what the establishment is thinking, that out of nothing comes out something. If you can remember, where the good book stated, can anything good come out of Nazareth? It is just a perception because already many people ask, can Ajiya do this? But I said yes, I can; for me to have even come out to buy the nomination form means I have seen something in myself and have developed this self-confidence. You see, nobody takes you anywhere if you hope and depend on them; I can assure you that you can become absolutely nobody in this world. So I am an inspection to those who have waited, and no one has beckoned to them. And nobody is beckoning to me because I know myself better than any other, all the names you are calling. Some of them were doing Diplomas in polytechnics while I was already in my University degree, so how suddenly would I have to meet them for me to become somebody while seeking their blessings? But I can confidently tell you that the difference between them and me is money. Perhaps they have accumulated much and I have nothing. But does that reduce me, does that reduce the quality in me? Has it reduced my capabilities as a man and a politician? Has that reduced my prospects as a man to perform? No, it doesn’t, so that is why I am here. The race will be contested; it is either we win, or we lose. Whatever the outcome, we take it home.
Taking an example from the lack of alliance that brought the PDP down in the 2023 election, can you sacrifice your ambition should someone from FCT come out with equal ambition?
Well, I do not know what you mean by the alliance; well, maybe if anyone seeks an alliance to work with me, that could be fine. They can come on board and work with me. But if it is for me to step down for anybody, I don’t see it happening. If you are thinking of the alliance of asking me to step down, no, that is not an alliance, and let me put it like the Peter Obi, Wike, and Atiku scenario, which I think is something different. If I was a party Chairman of North-central, it wouldn’t have gotten to this level. Because sometimes positions and dispositions in a party are not well spelt out, that is where these problems come from.
Again, you should understand that there is a problem in the party, which is the winner-takes all syndrome. Take, for instance, if I were the flag bearer of the party today, as the party chairman, I would call a meeting of all the aggrieved people, and we would talk to find a solution. I can tell you that there are more issues in the party, such as the death of merits. People are no longer chosen according to what they can offer to the society. What happens is godfatherism. A situation where people are voted based on who recommended them. Today, it means anyone who does not have a godfather to introduce him is a nobody. That is why we have a great number of people who have underperformed, and they are kept there because of certain factors.
But I would like us to go into the contest, win or lose, I would have made a point. And talking of Peter Obi’s scenario, you can see that he is a force to reckon with today, but he was almost a write off before the 2023 elections. At that time, it was as if people saw him as a person from the East who could not be the president, but that is no longer the issue.
Today, he has become a very beautiful bride for them to court. And I can tell you that if these three can come together in 2023, PDP will win.
However, I am not there yet. Otherwise, I should be the only one to bring lasting reconciliation to the PDP, and that will only begin to take effect when I win the election as the national vice chairman of North-central. And if I were there, I would stop all the balkanization.
Do you think that mere internal crisis destabilized PDP or do you think there are external forces?
Yes, there are internal, that is, a power struggle within the party, then external because there is a problem with this zoning thing. In our conscience, we have agreed that there would be rotational leadership. That is the presidency moving from two tenures to the South and two tenures to the North. The fact is that they don’t want a formidable force to challenge the president, who is from the South, in 2027. They believe the power should remain with the current president or to the South or whatever. But that is why the permutations are bringing former President Goodluck Jonathan from the South to come and spend his four remaining years with PDP so that it can come back to the North. This is one of the factors that are bringing all kinds of problems in PDP. I can also tell you that within the party there are people with all kinds of philosophies on how leadership should be applied. Here we are, and I feel all their pains. I think I can talk to my brothers in the North, about whether we should choose the way of bringing former President Goodluck Jonathan back or we want to take over this power wholeheartedly from the APC. But I am not there yet, so I cannot comment much before they throw stones at me.
Take a deep look at the PDP as a party. Do you think that Nigerians still reckon with the likes of Atiku, Wike, and Tambuwal, or does the party need a new generation of members to give them the victory they deserve?
This question is very broad, I would like to limit myself to the position I want to occupy. I have a very sound objective of what I want to do with my leadership of the PDP North-central. Looking at the North-central today, there are six states. Let me include Abuja, making it seven, including Federal Capital Territory (FCT), but only one PDP governor and that is the governor of Plateau State. The remaining five go to the ruling APC. Maybe that is too much for us to start talking about now because the major things I have in mind and why I am here, are because I have looked at the state of affairs in these states and I suppose come 2027, the PDP can take over Nasarawa State, same goes to Benue State, but for Niger State, we need a lot of reconciliation work to do, but we can take the state back. I cannot say so much about Kwara and Kogi states, and as I told you earlier, I will be travelling to Kwara in continuation of my consultations. If I have the opportunity to sit with the party leadership, I should be able to come up with a winning formula. So, I am going to talk about the 2027 presidential election as an opinion for now. Above all, I want them to give me the opportunity of the vice chairman of PDP North-central, and they will see what I will do. This is because I am only going to be a member of NEC, representing the geographical zone. As you are seeing now, I will concentrate more on the North-central because I will do apart from reclaiming these troubled states, I will ensure that the party chairmanship comes back to the Central. You can recall the charade they made in recalling Iyorchia Ayu, using one boy from his ward and local government, giving one flimsy excuse of not being financially up-to-date, and then throwing him out. Let me ask, does that add up? Does the boy know actually what damage that did to the political struggle of the North-central? Does he know what venue, state and North-central, in general, have lost since then? So, as a party chairman, you can’t do that, and whatever they give him to carry out the job must have finished by now. This reminds me of the biblical Judas Iscariot, who sold his master Jesus, thinking he was going to buy lots of estates, unfortunately, he didn’t even live to enjoy the money. During that time, the whole world was thrown into confusion and mourning because of Jesus, and the same thing is happening now. That nonsense should stop. Thirdly, I am going to work assiduously to change the constitution of the PDP, where the North-central is used as a stepping stone to favour other regions. Usually, they would ask the North-central to produce the national chairman of the party, and the moment we produce the chairman, they will fabricate crises and sponsor someone to file a petition against him and as such they will throw him out and the position will be handed over to the deputy national chairman, North, which never comes back again. No, the Constitution should not be like that. I suppose that once a national chairman is removed, anybody there in on active capacity should just be there for just a month or two weeks and give way for a fresh election to be conducted for another chairman from the same zone to continue because the tenure of the outgone chairman has not expired. In this regard, we should know that tenureship is meant for the zone, not for an individual. Just look at the whole mess. I ask, who drafted the Constitution in the first place? I ask myself, what are they thinking? Because this thing has happened to Chief Audu Ogbe, it has happened to Gamade, and now Iyorchia Ayu. Even in the opposition parties it happened to Abdulahi Adamu of APC, who was removed, and it was taken to the far North instead of going to another person from the North-central. To show you that it is a calculated thing and we are losing in the North-central and we are watching such happen day in and out. Of course, I am going to have a lot of meetings, so the party needs somebody who has guts, and I have it. Let me tell you the plain truth: if I had listened to what people said to discourage me, I wouldn’t have bought the nomination form in the first place. A lot of them do not like me and honestly speaking, I don’t know how many votes I am going to get from the FCT. But here we are not just talking about FCT but the entire North-central. So I said, give to Caesar what belongs to him, and I am here to claim it back. And the idea from day one has been that if they fail to give us back the position of PDP national chairman meant for the North-central, the party is going to have sleepless nights. At the NEC meeting, I won’t reveal to you what else will turn up, but a lot is going to happen.
Tell us how the PDP is fairing in the FCT and the relationship you have with area council chairmen and leadership of the party?
Well, what I can say is that the FCT area councils are being administered by two parties presently. After the elections, three are being controlled by the ruling APC, while the remaining three are being controlled by PDP. But unfortunately, if you had listened to Mr. President, Tinubu some days ago, the Honourable minister of FCT, Barrister Nyesom Wike, has been mandated to ensure that the entire six area councils fall under the control of the ruling APC. He warned that if he failed to perform there would be problems. Straight to him, there was an axe lying under the tree. And, because we know that our minister is a nice man. I am not that too close to him, but I have seen him from afar. He meant well for his people and the nation, and he is only seeking justice. As I said earlier, people to reconcile aggrieved party members or our party leadership is lacking. Because no matter what happens we must look for a way out. If I were a member of NEC, I would have asked them to mandate me within a time frame to be able to talk to all these parties’ actors.
I believe that there must be a reason why they think the way they think. I think reconciling Wike, Atiku and Peter Obi is not a rocket science. It is all about stating what you want and working around it to achieve success. Because no one goes into politics just because of the fun of it. There must be benefits you seek, and that is your interests, which must be protected. In order words, you must have a clear vision of what you intend to do or achieve, and presently, we can’t afford to lose these gladiators if the party must be saved. Now, coming back to the area councils, we have to watch and see how things play out subsequently, and maybe we have to hold another interview to that effect after April because a lot of things are happening, and I cannot hypothetically analyze them here. Let’s see how they go.
Aside from party politics, and as a Gbagyi man, do you think the culture of your people can be sustained for the next century by going in line with administrative programmes?
Well, we know that anywhere there is a nation’s capital, the natives always have similar problems because we are talking about a whole group of people coming to converge here as a result of changing residents resulting in an influx of a lot of people and don’t forget that the FCT does not have the status of a state as clearly stated in the constitution and the FCT is already mapped out on paper. So any minister coming in is to implement what is already mapped out by the military. Take, for instance, the demolishing that took place in Gishiri recently. There were a lot of roads that were supposed to pass through there, and the minister had one or two options and it is either not do the road at all or leave it entirely. Now, if the road is going to pass there, you are going to compensate those people in line with the compensation law. I don’t know if there will be a need for the preservation of ancestral homes again. But other villages fall under the same category and have nothing to preserve. To me, the only way ancestral homes are preserved is to integrate such villages by making the Indigenous people allocated to such lands because if you look at Garki village; if they remove them now, it means they want the land to be allocated to other people who are not Indigenous. So why not reallocate the land to them? Meanwhile, the people you want to remove are Nigerians and especially indigenous people, so why not allocate it to them and apply the policy of integration? I think that is where we are trying to focus on our ideas, but I also believe that the current minister is not against the indigenous people because he is also from the minority tribes. And he knows the implications of trying to drive the minorities out of their ancestral homes. I think he has been magnanimous to a certain extent, and what we plead in my way, if there is road construction, let people be compensated, and if there is a place for allocation, let people be integrated. I think that will be a major take away in this meeting.
Are you convinced that FCT should be considered a PDP state?
Yes, I am sure that FCT is a PDP state in the quote. I said this because there are lots of factors brought about the current state of affairs, where we have the Senator and the Rep. member from the Labour Party and one reason is that the leadership of PDP, before the general elections underestimated the feelings of the people and the capabilities of the Labour Party and the undigenous and the entire FCT residents wanted to send a clear message that they were not happy to the APC government. And the people were ready for the Labour Party because that was the alternate party. Here, I am not ready to condemn a candidate, but when such a person becomes a chronic failure, people begin to wonder, why is this person always failing at every interval? So, at that time, they needed fresh blood, people with fresh ideas, and that was why people voted massively for the Labour Party during the last elections.
So, I can tell you that it was not the best campaign carried out by the Labour Party. But it was the people campaigning for the Labour Party. It was the job done by the wounded people of FCT. But I can tell you that the Labour Party itself has become estranged, and presently, we don’t know whether it has become another part of APC directly or indirectly. Generally speaking, the Labour Party did the exploit because of Mr. Peter Obi, and I think also that if he had given the ticket, Nigeria wouldn’t have fallen to the level we are. But now the coast is clear for PDP to sit down and talk.
How is the PDP taking the presidential directive to the FCT minister, who is a PDP member, to ensure that FCT is taken over by APC?
Wike is a minister under the president, so he takes directives from his principal. And if his principal says this is what he wants, don’t make me suggest here that Wike is into anti-party activities when I am not within the corridor of PDP national executives. If I am there, I will make my suggestions. And let me stress here that one can only correct something if you are given the opportunity. I might be here ranting, and the people who are supposed to correct these things are there, and maybe they don’t even like me. So, I might be saying something here that might not be what the party leadership wants. Because, what I expected the party leadership, is to make a bold statement, but nobody is saying anything, and that is why the problem is. Like I said, I am not within that rank. Also, I said that he is presently working for his principal and was also cleared to work for him. Mind you, someone has to save his job, and if the party leadership says fine, but left for me, I can’t even be within that rank to be able to speak. Let them give me the opportunity first and we shall take it from there.