From TAIWO AMODU, Abuja
The forum of thirty – six states governors in the country, the Nigeria Governors' Forum (NGF) has been embroiled in crisis, following the controversial election believed to have been won by Rivers State Governor, Rotimi Amaechi.
The defeat of the anointed candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and by extension, the Presidency for the NGF chairmanship, Governor Jonah Jang, has led to insinuation that the Presidency has lost out in the battle to control the strategic Forum, less than two years to the 2015 general election.
But contrary to the claim, a chieftain of the PDP and the national director of organisation of the Peoples' Democratic Movement, Prince Tonye Princewill, in this interview with Daily Sun, submitted that President Goodluck Jonathan, not the governors, would be the ultimate beneficiary of the impasse, trailing the outcome of the NGF controversial election.
Excerpts:
We are less than two years to a major contest. What are the preparations on ground for the PDM to ensure that it is part of the process in 2015?
Well, I am not the official; spokesperson for the PDM but I think, as far as I am concerned, as much as we are interested in 2015, we are also looking beyond 2015.
Our job really is to ensure that we get as many people interested in politics; the more, the merrier and that's why we greeted the emergence of APC or the potential emergence of APC because we don't know what is going on now.
We greeted the emergence of APC as a welcome development because the more politically aware Nigerian masses are, the better for everybody. Any true democrat should be happy with competition, any true democrat should be happy with transparency: One man, one vote. So, our job is basically to keep the masses aware, educate the political class, as to what they need to be doing and also sensitise them on what the people are asking for, which means we are close to the people and if we keep doing this we expect that 2015 election is going to be a lot free and fair. The outcome of that can only be positive for PDM.
The PDM as a group appears to be the oldest movement among all the parties currently in the country. Curiously, the membership cuts across the major political parties – the PDP, ACN and others – but more in these two parties.
Do you consider yourself strong enough to transform, to a political party and how do you aggregate all these interests?
Let me answer you this way: I was speaking with a very senior politician recently and he said, "Mr. Tonye, in politics, you don't need to worry about every single day or every single week, not to talk of every single month.
You just watch the way things go''. The important thing, is just be constant and true in your own direction and everything else will fall into place. So, our job isn't to worry and over complicate the issues. It is a very simple job we have to do now which is, educate the political class, give them the kind of awareness they deserve and hopefully, as time goes on, everything will fall into place.
To say that I can predict the future, I will be lying to you , but I do suspect that as time goes on the picture is getting more clearer and the role, the specific role that PDM will play is getting more clearer but I have no doubt that it will play a role.
For me, my concern isn't so much the day – to day, week-to-week, or month -to -month changes but the long term picture. Still talking about the envisaged role PDM will play.
There are people who are very cynical about its relevance; they submit that PDP had since moved beyond PDM and the movement isn't no longer in the mainstream PDP. What is your take on this?
Well, I don't know why they say that.
Aside from myself and the management committee members, I have the privilege of working with senior stakeholders of PDM, including the elders.
You cannot say that an organization that has somebody like Chief Tony Anenih, working with it is insignificant; you cannot say that an organization that has somebody like Atiku Abubakar working with it is insignificant. And the list goes on.
But I am afraid anybody who is misrepresenting, misunderstanding or also underestimating what PDM is capable of doing is really making a big mistake. But you have asked me, what I think; it is the fact that as we speak now, it is the only national organization apart from PDP that is existing in every ward, every local government area and every state in the federation.
But beyond that, let us remember that it preceded PDP and a lot of old, experienced hands are there; they are people in the House of Representatives, the Senate, also people who were in the past Senate, House of Representatives, who are members of PDM.
There are also governors, former governors who have a role to play and they are playing a role in PDM. So, it isn't a very loud organisation, in fact, it is somewhat secretive and that probably goes with the fact that you haven't heard very much, strong PDM over the past few months but I can assure you that it doesn't mean that they have moved any length – they have been working, consistently and tirelessly through this period. So, it is important to recognise the history but also to get a firm picture of its future and to say that PDP had moved past PDM is so much like saying that a man has run past his shadow.
I doubt that it is possible, even though the impossible can still happen in politics and sometimes does, I suspect that PDP will not run past PDM.
The particular week that your state governor, Rotimi Amaechi, was suspended from PDP, former vice-president, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, came out strongly to appeal to founding members of the party to intervene and save PDP from imminent self-destruct.
What is PDM doing along this line of a clarion call from a member of your Movement?
I think, to say we are involved is an understatement; we are involved, seriously of course, at the elders level. I know that Atiku Abubakar and Chief Anenih have both been involved in resolving this issue and talking about the management committee level.
I cannot think of any management committee member that isn't involved. So, PDM is involved, no doubt. Of course, we have various emissaries, who are handling issues on behalf of both parties and so, it is something that we have been involved with.
Have we made some progress?
I think the answer to that is, yes but there is still a lot of work to be done and some of these issues precedes this administration and resolving them will not be something that will happen overnight but to answer your question, yes, we are involved.
You are a prominent politician from Rivers State and a stakeholder in the polity, nationally. There is this problem between your governor, Rotimi Amaechi, and his party and by extension, the President, who also happens to come from your region.
What is your message to the feuding parties?
Well, my consistent message from day one is that there is a need for all parties to find some common ground because there is nothing to gain from fighting. I feel that both sides have a point but unfortunately, what we are talking about isn't about who has what point but what it means is that some issues are better resolved behind closed doors than on the pages of newspapers. But I hasten to add that, in this particular instance, there is no saint. So, I am not one of those people out there, crying that one person is the victim and the other person isn't.
No. I think both of them are victims and if we don't resolve this quickly, what you find is that there will be more victims and, of course, we want to prevent that from happening. So, we aren't taking sides; our job is to appeal to both sides to sheathe the swords but, of course, like I said, it is a lot more complicated.
People make reference to the governor and they make reference to the president but the attacks that were reported to have come from the president, the president himself may not have initiated it or knew about it.
In such cases, I think there are other players in the picture around.
If you look at the conflict between Governor Amaechi and the president, do you think the party has actually played a nobler role of reconciliation expected of it?
The expectation is that if the party is supreme, it should be able to intervene rather than taking sides. Well, I think we have to recognise that, first of all, it isn't good to start pointing fingers because when you point fingers, you can imagine that as I point my finger at you, you can see the rest of the fingers are pointing back at me.
So, this isn't the time to point fingers. But could anybody have done better? I think every party in this crisis should have played a better role but that isn't something you can have without the benefit of hindsight. There was a lot of reactions and now we have to get more proactive. I think that if you look at the parties, many people seem to make the point that the governors had a lot of power over the party and maybe what you are seeing is a little bit of reaction to that.
Also, you can see that the Presidency traditionally has a lot of power over the federation itself and the federating units. May be what you saw within the NGF was a little backlash of that and of course, you saw that the NGF recently was exhibiting a lot of power across federal government policy issues so what the public see is a little bit of backlash of that.
So, everybody is trying to protect their space: the Presidency is trying to protect its space, the governors are trying to protect their space and the party leadership are also trying to protect their space. I think that as individuals, a lot of these people like each other and have mutual respect for each other.
But governor Amaechi being a team player would protect the governors' interest and as a team player he would probably protect the governors' interest over and above the presidential interest and when you do that especially when both of you are from the same zone, there is no doubt that there will be conflict. We all know that conflict is a function of interaction and once people interact, conflict is the likely outcome.
I am sure they will resolve it, because Nigeria is bigger than any individual. My concern is that we resolve it with minimum damage.
If you look at the outcome of the controversial election of the NGF, do you think the Presidency which was reported to have anointed a candidate actually came out a victim, or made any striking point?
Well, in my previous interviews I said governor Amaechi may win a few battle but it would be impossible for him to win the war. I still stand by that position, because even if you look at the road so far you can see that I predicted it that Amaechi will scale through and win the NGF election. That in itself may have been seen or perceived the victory, but he is the chairman of which governors' forum?
How much of a forum is the NGF? How united is that governors' forum? And if the idea of the NGF is always to present a common purpose, common ideal for governors, is that possible? So, I think that what has been achieved if it was the objective of the Presidency is that they have divided the NGF and it is no longer the united force against the Presidency that it was.
That of course has spilled over into the party, the PDP. So the control of the party by the governors has been severely dealt a fatal blow. So, from a strategic standpoint, I think that Jonathan won, but from a critical stand point, Amaechi won an election but from a strategic stand point, I think the Presidency won.
A kind of system of government, where if your ideals are noble and if you are challenged, be sincere, eventually you will win.
But I am one of those people who saw the role the governors played, the northern governors to be precise in 2011 primaries and if you ask me to go to war with the northern governors, I will tell you to go ahead, I will join you later, after all, I am not convinced that any strategy against the Presidency that is based on a couple of northern governors will see the light of the day. I am also not convinced that any strategy that is based around ACN block votes will bring any good. It doesn't convince me either.
What you have said in a nutshell is that Jonathan may have succeeded in dividing the NGF. Do you think that is a positive step, in the light of democracy?
Absolutely not. But I think that what should really be happening in the nation's democracy is that you have the national assembly, the legislature, checking the presi
Via: Sun News Online