Shehu Abubakar
Prince Benjamin Benedict Apugo, a member of the Board of Trustees (BOT) of the ruling Peoples’ Democratic Party (PDP), he said the party has been taken over by strangers at the national level. He said unless the party is reformed and major changes effected, the PDP may not win elections in 2011 because the era of rigging is over. Excerpts:
Where do you stand in the ongoing wrangling in your party?
There is a group that call itself the reform group that is advocating that the people should be carried along in the party policies and programs so that the ordinary man on the street will have a sense of belonging. The time of rigging has come and gone. The leadership of the PDP, whoever they may be, should be able to go out and tell Nigerians what they have been able to do for them in this number of years they have been in existence. And that leadership must be clean. The leadership should not have any skeleton in its cupboard. The problem we have faced particularly people like us who are founders of this party is that we were all forgotten. Those in the party secretariat today that are leaders are all strangers to the party starting from the National Chairman, Secretary and what have you. They all came from the All Nigeria Peoples Party (ANPP). They do not know what we suffered to form this party and who is why they do not have respect for people like us. They have come to make money and go but we make sure that we keep something behind. That is the dignity of man. I have seen the fight going on in the party (PDP). If the Reform Group succeeds, it will bring more credibility to the party.
Do you think if the crises in the PDP continues beyond this year, the party can win the 2011 elections?
No, no way! PDP cannot win any election now with the spate of crisis in the party. Even in Abia here where the national chairman of the party, Vincent Ogbulafor and I come from, the national chairman cannot win a polling booth. We have to tell ourselves the truth. Who is talking about PDP here in Abia State today? If what we are doing now to restore normalcy in Abia State is applied to other states nationwide, I strongly believe that the PDP will bounce back.
What is your advice to the leadership of your party on the activities of the Reform Group?
They should listen to them. Yes, I support the actions of the Reforms Group. The Reform Group is 100 percent correct in what they are saying. I support the group because what they are saying is not against anybody. They are not saying remove this man or that man. What they are saying is that things should be done in the proper way. The governors are not the owners of PDP. Most of the governors were beggars before the PDP was formed, and they ran under the platform of the PDP. Today, they are millionaires. Because some of them looted the state treasury they want now to take the party away from us who suffered to form the party.
What the people are saying is that governors should concentrate on the governance of their respective states. They should forget the party. The party belongs to party members and not only the governors. There is no way a governor should select who goes to the state House of Assembly. He will select who will be councillor. He will select who will be a Senator and will sit there and return himself back to office. This is what the Reforms Group is trying to stop.
You are from the same state with the national chairman of your party, PDP. But a different party is governing your state today, why?
You see, the PDP failed in Abia State in 2007 because of protest votes. The man who contested the governorship election under the PDP in person of Onyema Ugochukwu was working for Obasanjo and so Obasanjo imposed him on the state. When we formed the PDP, Obasanjo was in prison. He was not around when I formed the PDP in Abia state. Obasanjo imposed him on us. Ugochkwu was the NDDC chairman; he did not even come to my place because of our local politics. I am an Ibeku prince and he is from Ohuhu. The politics has been in existence for a very long time. He thought he could win without me. That was why he lost. Be that as it may, the PDP definitely will win Abia State in 2011. Nobody will challenge the PDP in this state. There is nothing like PPA here in Abia State. Everybody here is PDP. I repeat PPA has failed woefully in Abia state.
As a founding member of the party, what is the PDP’s initial position on the zoning arrangement and the power shift agreement?
I do not want power to shift to the South in 2011. The presidency should remain in the North until 2015. That was the zoning arrangement agreed upon by founders of the PDP in 1998. The Northerners still have 4 years to complete their 8 year reign. Anything contrary could spell doom for the nation. It could cause chaos, which could eventually truncate the nation’s democracy. In-fact, if it is in a country where we respect agreements, even though it was done in the PDP, we ought not to talk of voting in the entire country. We should have just told the Northerners to go and do primaries and give us a presidential candidate. We in the South have no business bringing out a presidential candidate from the South in 2011.
But former President Olusegun Obasanjo says Nigerians from anywhere can aspire to contest the Presidency because there was no zoning arrangement in the party.
Obasanjo would not have known that there was a zoning formula because he was in the prison at that time. The abandonment of zoning arrangements will ruin the image and integrity of people like us who were present at the time it was taken. I was unhappy when I heard that and because people who are supposed to speak against it have kept quiet because they are looking for favours. I am not looking for favour. Throughout Obasanjo regime, Yar’adua and even Jonathan, I have not got any favours from them. I am a realist. I tell you my mind. Whether Obasanjo gives tacit support to Jonathan or not, what I am saying is that the North still has four years to complete its eight-year term at the presidency.
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