Excerpts:
Nigerians see the creation of the PDP Governors Forum, as an attempt to weaken the Nigeria Governors Forum. What is your reaction to this? Secondly, what is the duration of your tenure?
I thank you for the opportunity given me and my brother, Governor Seriake Dickson of Bayelsa State. Your question relates to the idea of forming the PDP Governors Forum. I think it has always been there, it was just amorphous, it wasn’t regularised and now the National Working Committee has deemed it fit to formalise it. It has always been there; we have always known ourselves as PDP governors because within the NGF, we have some strata. We have the South-east Governors Forum; we have the Northern Governors Forum and we even have APGA Governors Forum; all those sub-structures of the Nigeria Governors Forum.
It will not weaken the NGF; they only help in terms of exchange of ideas and they shorten time at the nd of the day because sometimes some of these strata meet before they come in for the main NGF and when one person speaks, it means that they have discussed the issues fully. That was why we thought as a party and as governors, who came through the vehicle of the PDP.
The way we are now, it is important that we also have a forum through which we can also exchange ideas, interact and if it is something that we feel should be national, that isn’t something we should internalise, that is something that will affect the generality of the country, we can take it to the main NGF and then we can expound it and then allow it to be deliberated upon by other governors.
So, it isn’t going to weaken the Forum. Rather, it is going to strengthen the Forum, because the PDP will be going to the NGF henceforth as a block, and as a major block that controls more than two thirds of this country not two thirds of government houses alone, but in terms of their population of supporting Nigerians.
So, it would strengthen the NGF. You need to know also that why we didn’t bother in the past about the formation of the PDP Governors Forum was because at the time we controlled almost all the states of the federation and the FCT- at time we had more that thirty governors, but sometimes because of internal wrangling here and there, our rank and file kept reducing and so today you now have pockets of opposition in states that used to belong to PDP. Take for instance, a state like Anambra.
It is 95% PDP, but the government house is occupied by another political party. So, we want to put our house in order, we believe strongly that by 2014, a state like that should be controlled by PDP, because the citizens are all PDP and so we can add that to our fold. S
o, we want to reclaim our lost glory. Should we do that, it means that yet indeed, the PDP Governors’ Forum would still be in existence but if we also control the totality in NGF, it means we can meet almost in dual capacity as PDP Governors’ Forum and also NGF, because we look forward to a time when the entire thirty six states of the federation would be PDP everywhere and I think that is what the founding fathers were yearning for and that’s what Nigerians want.
Nigerians want to see a stronger PDP and they are excited with the dividends of democracy given so far. The fourteen years that PDP has existed between 1999 and 2013, we can be sure that the achievements made by the party surpassed the achievements made by fifty years of past government in Nigeria.
There is no doubt about that and of course, because of free speech people are allowed to make all sorts of comments and sometimes we talk as if nothing is happening, but a lot is indeed happening. Also because Nigerians expect an answer in a day, it will take so long for the rot we are seeing in the country to stop. So, it isn’t something that can be fixed in a day and that’s why I keep telling people that patience is the key word.
Even in terms of road construction, you have to take cognizance of season: you know that during raining season, you cannot do so much of asphalting, you have to do a lot of drainages and all sorts of things and then you leave the asphalting to the dry season if you don’t want to spoil the road. So, even road construction is seasonal and therefore there is no way you rush it and you can finish all. You need time. So, what we need is time and I give you a story.
I said the other time the then President of Uganda, Idi Amin, went to visit the Queen of England and when he was stepping out of Buckingham Palace, he saw this beautiful grass well grown and he pushed his hands inside. It was very deep and he was very impressed. He turned to the Queen and said, can this be supplanted in Uganda, he demanded to see the horticulturist. So, the man was called and he said, how did you make the grass like this? Can you make this in Uganda? The man said, yes this can also be grown, it can be planted in Uganda. The only thing is that to get it to this level, we have to water it for two hundred years! In other words, the grass in Buckingham Palace, was watered for two hundred years.
So, the democracy that we are seeing in America that seems to have achieved so much result and development for America was watered for over three hundred years and therefore, if we look at democracy in Nigeria, I think we have done well. We have done more that even what the world expected us to do but it is just that we wanted all the problems to be solved overnight.
That’s why we don’t see the gains, but I come to address the PDP and I assure Nigerians that with this rebuilding of the PDP, through the different strata we are putting together now and the fact that we are re-energizing the entirety of the PDP—we are reconciling ourselves, we are trying to make it a much stronger party that the future will be greater for this country in terms of dividends of democracy.
On the tenure of my office, I think that will be discussed by the members and in consultations with the Peoples’ Democratic Party, [PDP] National Working Committee, [NWC]. You have said that the PDP Governors will use the new platform to go to NGF as a block. There is the issue of Sovereign Wealth Fund that has resulted in litigation against the federal government.
How is the PDP Governors’ Forum going to address that? Well, that kind of matter cannot be commented upon, because it is already in court. It has become subjudice. I want you to react to a statement credited to General Muhammadu Buhari, that the PDP doesn’t need merger or alliance because it is already in alliance with INEC, the police, the judiciary, NNPC and the pension fund Well, I believe strongly that General Buhari was misquoted because there is no such alliance in existence.
So, for me, I believe the General was misquoted, having been a head of state, he knows very well that those arms he was referring to aren’t political parties; they are arms of government and, therefore, that kind of statement, if he made such a statement, it would be riddled with confusion. It would mean that one can no longer distinguish between a political party and a government parastatal.
That’s why I said he was misquoted, because having been a head of state he knows that the Nigeria Police Force and the Nigeria Army and Nigeria Navy aren’t political parties. Even Nigeria Ports Authority, it isn’t a political party. So, when political parties are merging you cannot allow a dog to go and merge with cow; it will even be a mistake to take a small goat to merge with a lion.
You know the implication: the lion will swallow the goat. So, frankly speaking there seem to be no such merger in existence. There is nothing like that in reality and such can never be in reality. I believe the General was misquoted; he could never have said that, because those other ones aren’t political parties.
Culled: Sunnewsonline
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