‘Governors have taken over PDP’

Continued from two weeks ago
Two weeks ago, Sunday Sun published an interview with a
former governor of Plateau State, Sir Fidelis Tapgun, with a
headline PDP is dying . In this edition, we bring you the
conclusion.
With the defections and bitterness in the party, is PDP likely
to make headway at the national level, talking in terms of
the presidential poll?
I hope they do, but in Plateau State, I don’t see how PDP is
going to make any headway because the people of the state
and I mean it, are determined that Jang cannot impose
somebody on the people. The CAN is in this matter, the JNI is
in this matter, the labour unions are in this matter and the civil
society groups are in this matter. It is a Plateau matter. They
told him in very unmistakable terms that he will not be
allowed to do what he wants. But if he goes and squeezes
himself in there, hmn.
From that perspective, I want you to take a look at the
presidential election and with what you can see as the cam­
paigns progress, what is your projection?
Well, it is a very dicey situation. Really, really dicey situation;
very dicey as far as I am concerned because there is no state
you will go today that you will not find crisis in the PDP, not
one single state. And what is the cause of the crisis?
Imposition. So, it is going to be a very dicey situation.
What do you see then?
I don’t see anything; it’s just a dicey situation.
Some commentators say Nigeria is tending towards two party
state with PDP and APC being the two dominant and vibrant
parties. With one in opposition and the other ruling, what
have you observed is the impact on Nigeria and Nigerians?
The truth of the matter is that we don’t have ideologies in the
parties. PDP and the APC are all the same thing as far as I
am concerned. There is no clear-cut ideology. Otherwise, peo­
ple will not be jumping from one place to the other. If you
have an ideology, you will stick to where you belong and I
thought that was what PDP was meant to do from the start.
When we were forming this PDP from the start, it was SDP we
had in mind. And the SDP is a socialist party. That was what
we had. That was formed by the military because they liked it.
It was a socialist party. It was the people’s party and people
determine who gets what. People chose their leaders
themselves. That was the focus. After the military regime, we
said we will go back to the SDP. But some people argued that
SDP was truncated by the military. So, we sat down and this
“People’s” came in. So, we removed the S and put the P. That
is how People’s Democratic Party came into the scene. It is
just another name of the Social Democratic Party. It’s
supposed to be a very, very socialist party and it is the
people’s party. But the focus has been diluted; the aim has
been defeated by people over time, especially the governors.
The greatest headache of the PDP are the governors.
With what you have in mind, the issue of imposition, I’ll like
to have your comments on the adoption of the president as
the sole candidate of your party.
That was not an imposition. The argument there was that in
the American system we are copying, a sitting president
usually doesn’t go for primary. That’s the model and that’s
what they came up with. But you know at the end of the day,
people protested and they allowed people to buy the form
even though it was … but that’s the model. It’s not anything
new. We are copying a model which is USA. So, that is how
his emergence came about. From the party structures, it was
endorsed all through.
How come we have party stalwarts talking of imposition and
lack of internal democracy?
You see this is the point I am making. I said we are copying.
If you are copying…the American system we are copying
that’s the way it goes. You have never criticized that anyway.
Have you?
It is your party and American affair.
That’s what I am saying. That is why we said we should
model our own to suit us. When we are talking of democracy
and we copy western democracy, we should model our own to
suit our system. And that is what we tried to do at the last
National Conference. We should model something that suits
Nigeria. Others should come and copy also what we are doing
in years to come. But we are depending on western model that
we cannot practice here. We talk but we can’t put it into
practice. So, instead of us modeling something that suits
Nigeria, our culture, tradition and everything, we are copying.
From Buhari’s incursion into the Middle Belt, you hear…
It is because of this imposition. It is because of this lack of
justice, this injustice that is being perpetrated by the
governors all over the PDP states. That’s just the reason and
it doesn’t appear to the party hierarchy there in Abuja to ad­
dress this issue. They don’t want to. They look at it and just
pass by. That is why I said the PDP is dying. Honestly. If they
continue like this, the PDP will not exist.
Before now, we used to have the problems of the Niger-Delta
militants. They wanted the control of the oil. In the South-
West, it is the OPC. They are fighting to defend the Yoruba
interests. If you go to the South-East, MASSOB wants the
actualization of a sovereign state of Biafra. Now, in the
North, it is Boko Haram, a sect fighting to establish an
Islamic state. From your wealth of experience, what do you
think is happening?
I think there is no country that has developed that has never
experienced insurgency or internal crises of the nature we are
facing in this country. The Niger-Delta militants and the OPC,
these are internal things. But the Boko Haram fighters are not
Nigerians. But they recruit Nigerians. But in general, there is
no country that has developed, be it America or any other
country that has not gone through this type of crisis. But this
is something we should accommodate and learn to curb it.
Terrorism is a world-wide phenomenon. It has just happened
in France. They just killed people in France last week. So, it is
a world-wide phenomenon and it is growing world-wide.
That’s why the government is trying to curb it. That is why
international cooperation is very important to curb this thing.
You don’t equate this to the Niger-Delta or OPC problems.
There are certain things these groups want on ground.
From the look of things, are you expecting a president of
northern extraction?
From the look of things, I am expecting a president that will
be elected by Nigerians; elected in a free and fair election by
Nigerians. Anybody that emerges is the president of Nigeria.
I asked this question because the north appears not to be
finding it easy to get the allegiance of their traditional
political ally, the South-East. It is like with Buhari’s
candidacy, they have been able to awaken the old ghost and
that despite everything, it looks like the South-East political
elites are not comfortable working with the Hausa-Fulani,
their former political ally and…
(Laughs) I know where you are heading to. You know Kenny,
this politics is dynamic. It is very, very dynamic. It cannot be
static at all. When the military handed over and they started,
people…first of all people just came into this thing and they
want to try. People came in unprepared. So, people were just
trying to ensure the military go away. But over time, people
are beginning to see what was making them win elections
before.
So if this one doesn’t suit us we will go back to our roots.
That’s why this alliance is coming up now. And it is growing
and good for the country. It is good for the country because it
will make us integrate. The country will be integrated. It is
winning election that is important for you in politics. And in
winning elections, you go to friends that will make you win the
election.
What are your fears this year?
Well, I don’t have any fear. The fear is just what government
has been trying to address. People think there is going to be
crisis, violence. We don’t hope for it. We don’t want Nigeria to
go into any crisis at all. The election should be free, should be
fair so that people who lose will know they have genuinely
lost and those who win will know they have really won. The
fear is just about the election. People think there is going to
be a lot of trouble; but I don’t think so. The government is
doing a lot. INEC is also doing a lot to make sure that the
elections are free and fair and people are satisfied with the
results at the end of the day.
People ascribe these problems to those of ethnic
nationalities. Do you think Nigeria has a future if we don’t
solve this ethnic nationalism problem? They seem to be
distorting other things.
No. That’s why when you said people are making incursions
into the South-East, I told you people have traditional allies.
We in the Middle Belt have our traditional allies in the South,
the South-South and the North-East during those days. So,
as politics goes on and you look at where you are and you are
not making headways, then you begin to follow. That itself will
integrate the country. It is part of integrating the country
because at the end of the day, we need a country that is
strong, united and the people can be proud of, a country
where people will say I am not Hausa, Igbo or Yoruba, but
that I am a Nigerian. That’s what we want.
What can you now say of the alliance between the South-
South and the Middle Belt? It seems to be nose diving.
I don’t think so. The alliance between the South-South and
the Middle Belt is still on. If you ask the South-South people
they will tell you. We walked along the lines of our alliance at
the last National Conference. So, everything you see that came
out of that place is the result of the alliance between the
Middle Belt and the South; most of it, about 90 percent of it.
The alliance is still there, but like I said, the APC and the incur­
sion you talked about, yes in the former Northern Region time,
NPC had their alliance with the south. That’s how Shagari
and Ekwueme came in. This small alliances help at the end of
the day. Let me say something. In the PDP, people have not
been given space. If in 2007, I was the one asked to come and
lead Jang campaign here because I was the one on ground
and now you say I got only one vote, are you not surprised
yourself? It is just trying to make people irrelevant because
they know our worth. They know what I can do. So, everybody
is afraid. And for the fact that he was called and told this is
the man on ground. He is going to lead your campaign
otherwise, you cannot win, he knows who I am. So, if he is
not afraid of me, he will not be afraid of anybody in the world
again.
But he appears to have dealt with you.
He has not dealt with me o. He has dealt with himself. This
party, the PDP was formed in my house here in 1998. Solomon
Lar told them that Tapgun is the leader in this state, so let’s
go to his house. If you came here that time, you will not be
able to pass here.
That is why if anything comes from the party secretariat in
Abuja, my name must be there. That’s why they are angry
now. A lot of people who are there talking now don’t know
anything about PDP. Like I said, the governors have hijacked
the party. Somebody very close to them was asking me last
two weeks ago or so when I was in Abuja. He said have you
ever met the President? I said I have never met the President.
I said I only met him when we went for this Jos crisis
discussion. He was surprised, but that is the truth. And that is
the sad aspect of the whole thing. When I answered the man
that I have not seen the President, he said are you serious?
He said why would the President be talking of PDP in Plateau
State and would not look for you? And that is my
lamentation: that the PDP is just going down, down and down
with this kind of attitude. Look at what Muazu was saying the
other day at the campaign inauguration that there is so much
injustice.