how is your party’s presidential campaign going?
We have made a lot of progress. In the next phase of our campaign we are going to emphasise on town hall meetings by meeting face to face with the people and getting to know what is going on. In fact, that has been going on in virtually all the states of the federation. Some of our governorship candidates have carried the campaign to the markets, mechanic workshops, etc. We are dealing with the people directly.If you have to reflect on the campaigns so far, are there things you wish you would have done differently?
None at all. The only regret was that when we visited some of the states in the North, some unguided youths or, if you like, misinformed youths, threw stones at us. I believe they were not civilised enough. The All Progressives Congress and its leadership are putting together their propaganda. In fact, they have in their propaganda machine to misinform Nigeria by attacking Mr. President. Part of it was arranging the youths in part of the northern states to throw stones as if the President was not liked by Nigerians. They want to create an impression both inside and outside the country as if they are more popular than the PDP.
Was that why your party was said to have distributed billions of naira to bribe the electorate?
No, part of the propaganda is to imagine meetings that never held and make up what they discussed in meetings that never held. I am quite sure you are aware of the text messages people received about the $20bn purportedly distributed. Also Governor Rotimi Amaechi of Rivers State accused the leadership of the church in Nigeria that they received N6bn from the Presidency. Those are part of the misinformation of the public and this is evil. I regard it as satanic verse.
But the Governor of Bauchi State, Isa Yuguda, said those who stoned the President in Bauchi were PDP members. How then do you reconcile that with your position?
The governor and the minister of FCT have their own problems. But the statement I made was that some part of the North, not all. Not Bauchi alone. What happened in Bauchi was unfortunate, but I think that the two or three major office holders there are trying to blame each other. But obviously what I saw on that day because I was there, was not a question of PDP. Our people were at the stadium, we went to the emir’s palace to pay a courtesy call. As we came out of the emir’s palace, they started throwing stones. But as it were, there is blame game between them, indicating that they are not united. But that is left for them (governor and FCT minister) to sort out.
Was the PDP ready for the postponed election of February 14?
We were ready for the February 14 election. But before that date, the Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission, Prof. Attahiru Jega, called all the political parties. I represented our party at the meeting and 16 political parties accused Jega directly that INEC was not ready for the election. It wasn’t just about the issue of insecurity. On page 11 of his memo to the Council of State, Jega said if INEC has a little time they will perfect their preparations. And as you can see from that time he had that discussion with us and now, some millions of PVCs have been distrusted and people have received them. But we were ready then and we are ready now for the elections.
The Court of Appeal said that the military should not be deployed for elections. What is the position of the PDP on the use of military for the elections?
Honesty speaking, the issue of security should be handled by the experts, they are professionals. But I believe that it is not the first time the country has deployed military to safeguard, but not to conduct elections because if you see what happened in Ekiti State, military was put at strategic positions in case there would be uprising or violence. And that is what it is supposed to be. Paris was bombed recently and the leaders of EU, came into Paris to give solidarity to the French government and they flew in from all parts of the world. On that particular day, the French Government deployed 10,000 soldiers to safeguard the city of Paris. The soldiers were not walking with the leaders of Europe, but they were in strategic places to keep the city safe.
Perhaps the audio file of how your party used the military to allegedly rigged the Ekiti Governorship election informed the APC fear?
Whatever they cooked up as audio was not on the day of election. And we believed that Femi Fani-Kayode has said it was cooked up by the APC.
There is the notion that if the PDP had put its house in order, the elections would not have been this tough. There is this allegation that the leadership of your party is arrogant, you allowed governors to defect, and also allowed a former president to leave. What really happened?
Obviously, human enterprise is the most difficult. When a child is old enough to marry and he feels he is independent he goes out to marry. He separates himself from the original family. So most of the governors felt they could do it on their own. There is no way you can control them. There were a lot of peace talks and meetings.
So, the PDP is intact; there is no problem. For those who left there was no way to stop them. It was not deliberately done on our part. In the case of former President Obasanjo, I believe that he can best be described by his children, Iyabo and Gbenga. He is their father; so if you can have that kind of father you will know the kind of trouble that the PDP has gone through.
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