The Nigerian state is currently challenged on every side. Ahead of the 2015 general election, there are alignment and re-alignment of forces. This gave birth to the All Progressives Congress (APC), a major opposition party that has become home to some politicians who had in the past called the shots in PDP. One of such political juggernauts is Audu Ogbeh, who was national chairman of the ruling party. In this interview with ZEBULON AGOMUO, Deputy Editor, Ogbeh spoke on a number of issues including the level of corruption in the country, why he left PDP and the fight against the Boko Haram insurgents. He warned that if the Federal Government did not show more commitment, the fight against the insurgents may continue for the next 10 years. Excerpts:
Sir, you were in the PDP for a very long time and you used to say that the party’s ideology was good for the country and all that; now you are in the APC saying the same thing; why did you leave PDP, what went wrong?
Only strangers in Jerusalem would ask me why I left PDP. We were in the party, we built it, but it was seized, it was hijacked by members who were not democratic in their political life, who were bullying everybody. This I protected in writing and was called a heretic by fellow party members and that I should keep quiet; that nobody should talk like that to a president. The party chairman in any country should have the courage to say when things are going wrong. We are not children. If you see danger and you keep quiet and lives are lost eventually, you stand accused before God and man. I couldn’t see the party fulfilling its mandate under a situation where democracy was being slaughtered in broad day light.
Can you remember the contents of some of the letters you wrote?
You should know as a media person, but I said the situation in Anambra was dangerous, that was when there was a plot to kill the then governor and I knew it. There was a plan to kill him before Christmas 2004, and in my position I said I couldn’t see how I would allow that to happen to a sitting governor, especially of all places, the South East. And I knew and still know that the civil war memories have not gone. The people of South East feel very sad about a number of issues, and to allow that to happen and to try to defend it later or pretend we didn’t know would be a crime I wouldn’t live to forget in my life. I gave a warning that we needed to do something swiftly. That was because in the middle of November 2004, there was an assault in Anambra, Ikenga Hotel was burnt, the Radio House was burnt, the Government House was assaulted, and policemen with their rifles were laughing. I said ‘Oh even in Chicago in the 60s such horror did not take place. We should be able to defend our society. If as a party chairman I had information on such a matter and I did nothing because you want to keep your position or make money out of it, how do you go to church on a Sunday and say you want to worship God, or you’re a Moslem, how would you claim to be a good Moslem? These matters are more serious than we make them look in this country. You should be able to sacrifice anything to do what is right. But I was told I was wrong in what I did. Some people supported me, some others said I had no right to talk to the president, and I said ‘is that the way you feel, this is the job’, and I left.
Where do you situate the problem of this country; is it the fault of leaders or that of the people themselves?
The two sides have their blames. The leadership is weak because the followership is silent. You are not slaves. President or governors, you elected the person; you employed the person, you pay his or her salary; you feed, you house him or her; that person is accountable to you. And a society that doesn’t recognise that will never be governed well.
Chief, are you saying this because you are no more in PDP?
No, am not. It is a position I maintain everywhere. As chairman, I hardly used the siren. Do your job and be accountable and respect the society. But where the society does not react or does not ask question, even if you are Angel Gabriel, you are likely to go wrong, feeling superior.
When you were in PDP, a lot of things were also going wrong and Nigerians were complaining, what was your role in giving the quality service Nigerians needed?
We kept on fighting. The ones I mentioned came to the notice of Nigerians because I wrote a letter, and I wrote hundreds of other letters. Let me give you an example. The late Dora Akunyili, before I ever met her, I wrote a letter to the president asking for life insurance for her. I sat down and said the job she was doing, she was doing very well, and it was a dangerous job, and that she might come to harm. I wrote a letter to the president and said provide this woman, her husband and children with life insurance, any one of them up to 80 years old, no matter the cause of death, protect them and do the same thing for EFCC and NDLEA. I got a reply saying the civil service rules do not allow such. And I wrote back and said, No, the job they are doing has nothing to do with civil service; a permanent secretary in the ministry of finance doesn’t run such a risk as Dora was running, trying to run NAFDAC. Not too long after that, a bullet was fired at her which went through her scarf and narrowly missed her skull. She brought the headgear to show me and my wife in the house. So, there were many things I wrote about, but none of them made a headline because I did not release the letter to the press, somebody did from the Villa because they were angry at what they called my intellectual arrogance or my intellect. If you take the position I took, it may sometimes cost you your life or your job; but take the position.
Was part of your ideology in PDP include fighting corruption? Or did government of PDP in your days actually fight corruption?
Of course, fighting corruption was an ideology. But it falls on the Executive arm and the EFCC. Am not sure that you have forgotten the kind of work Ribadu was doing then at the EFCC. In fact, it got to a point that people said he was obstructing the law because he had no right to arrest and detain people for a month without releasing them. He had to do something pretty hard and tough to discourage the kind of corruption that was going on then. Many people were exposed; many were sentenced; 419 reduced substantially, political corruption dropped. Yes, there were challenges then, because sometimes interferences came from the high places, but there was a fight against corruption. Do you compare that time and what is happening now?
What is happening now?
You are in the media, you should know. A guy stole N300 billion from the Pension Fund and up till today he is not under arrest; he was summoned by the Senate, he snubbed the Senate. There are many like that. One just died in the prison over Railway pension fund. What of the fuel subsidy matter, where are they now? There was a probe into privatization exercise submitted to the Executive, has any action been taken? The person who bought Volkswagen has turned it into a warehouse for rice, groundnut oil and others. There are too many cases.
Does it mean there’s no will power on the part of government to fight corruption?
I am not in PDP now, am not in government.
But you can make an input?
What input do you make as an opposition? If you say something you will be told you are harassing government. You complain, you criticise, you expect government to take action, but the attitude is that ‘Oh it is because he is no longer in power; he doesn’t see anything good in government. He has lost out, that’s why he is complaining. I have nothing to gain by just criticising government.
One of the major burdens of APC has to do with those people joining it from PDP. When Nigerians see them criticise government, they say ‘Oh these people who have fouled the PDP have found a nest in APC’. What do you have to say on this generalization?
Is there any party that is an assembly of saints? Have you ever met an angel in your life? People say that because they don’t understand. Some of our members have crossed over to PDP, while some from PDP have crossed over to APC. That movement will continue for a while until ideas and views are streamlined. Judgments, like that are not the issues, ask a party what it stands for, or what it will do if it gets there. When our manifesto comes out, you will see the difference, a clear difference. The question is what will APC do to resolve the problem of the country and what is PDP doing now?
How are you going to convince Nigerians that APC is going to offer something better than PDP? These are people who have followed your activities for years and now you are in another party promising a new lease of life. How would Nigerians believe you?
It is the very insistence on our ideological track that got me out of PDP. Reason it out. Probity, seriousness in work, moral commitment to justice and fair play; you don’t call that an ideology? I could have sat there and made tons of money from the third term agenda, but I turned it down; am not a lunatic, I know what money is. You don’t call that an ideology? The party and its founding fathers, the Awoniyis, the Jemibewons, the Bola Iges who were originally in PDP that’s what they stood for, and we found it going away; Bola left, Awoniyi left, and many others quitted because they found out that what they wanted to do was not happening. And they were being bullied out. Today, we want to try it elsewhere. I have survived three assassination attempts; one of them nearly took my left eye out. Fifty three bullets were fired in my house in Makurdi on December 7, 1998. When you hear commentators tell you “Oh, these are the same people,” try politics, it is not easy. Try it. It is deadly. Those who want to do the wrong for their own selfish gain will try to get you out in a slightest moment.
The National Convention of your party was held last week where Chief John Osagie-Oyegun emerged as the new national chairman. Tom Ikimi boycotted; Timipre Sylva stepped down down; critics said that the consensus option you adopted was not democratic enough. Your congresses in Edo State are raising serious dust, leading to the monumental crisis in the state’s House of Assembly. With all these, do you still assure Nigerians that APC has something better to offer to them than the PDP?
First of all, the process of building the party is still going on. We are just less than a year old; we are putting things together. The chemistry of building a party is being mixed, people are aspiring to different offices, some will win, and some will lose. The assignment before the new chairman is to try to reach out to people, especially those who feel aggrieved. We can only have one chairman. The two or three who contested, at one point or another had to know that one must win and two will lose. It happens in every party. I would have wished we went through an electoral process, everybody voting and a winner emerging, but sometimes when you go that far you cause more tension than you achieve harmony.
In Edo, some people are complaining and some have left; usually, what is happening is that there are people moving from one party to another, and they only go into politics because they target one position or another. A fellow wants to run for governorship, or wants to be a minister or senator or president, once he misses it, or sees his chances of becoming that thing are fading, he hops out to search for greener pastures elsewhere. Sometimes, you wonder why that is the only objective, because if it is only about you becoming something, achieving something, or making some money that drove you into politics, then you should have remained in your private business.
How then do we strengthen democracy in Nigeria?
It will go on for a while. I continue saying that one of the major problems we have is that we have a very small middle class. Today, you are either very rich or you have nothing. And that’s why I was speaking about economic philosophy.
We are in a country where for 28 years interest rate has stood at close to 30 percent. Even at a time in the rest of the world interest rate has remained between 4 or 5 percent. How on earth can I take a loan at 26 or 27 percent, build a factory, buy generator, buy diesel and compete with a manufacturer in China or the US or UK and still make profit? And I still have to pay my workers a living wage. I am not an economist ( I continue to apologise), but this is the common problem; where do we hope to achieve it and you ask where is the micro-credit? How do you access it? A young girl who has graduated can’t find a job, but wants to open a hair dressing salon, and probably needs a million or half a million naira, where does she get it? She has no capacity of accessing credit. So if you lock the door always like that and the younger generation gets frustrated and they can’t get a job, or create a job for themselves and then you grumble about unemployment, meanwhile, you are importing took pick, tomato paste, sliced potatoes, and you are grumbling about unemployment, youth restiveness and Boko haram, I don’t know when and where we can find the solution because it goes on and on. Of course, electricity is a challenge. I hope government is working very hard to stabilise that, but these are the issues.
If the middle class as small as it is, is not addressed, the policy system will be affected because there’s no check to the excesses of politicians because if you leave us to do as we wish we continue to do the wrong thing because we too are under pressure. The corruption will continue. If I go to a fundraising ceremony and I donate only N100,000 (hundred thousand naira) people will mock me for it, even within the church am a stingy fellow with a big name who doesn’t want to give to the church; if I give N5 million there will be hand-clapping, but I probably stole it, nobody is condemning me for that. So, it is very complicated. The society itself, having employed the politicians, must watch the politicians and ensure there are no excesses, and that can only happen if that society is strong enough. As I have always said, democracy is as strong as the GDP of that society, and a society is as strong as the income per capita.
People who are poor are scared. On election day, salt, maggi cubes, Indomie could win an election; N200 in the village, they are very poor, they have no money, so if they get that, that’s wonderful, they go and cast the vote, and for the next four years, they have no news of us. The local government system has collapsed because most of the cash is kept at the state government headquarters. It wasn’t designed so, that’s why the constitution has provision for three revenue allocations.
Who will push this corruption away from our body polity?
Somebody who is responsible has to be strong enough to say, ‘sorry I don’t want corruption in my government’. If you don’t, what can anybody else do? I have just given an example of a pension fund thief. 166 houses were recovered from this pension thief in Abuja. I hope the houses have not been returned to him. He stole N300 billion! I was a minister; Oyegun was my permanent secretary by the way. To buy a fridge in my house when my fridge broke down, I applied to the permanent secretary and the permanent secretary passed it to the director of works who wrote to me that they had no money and no fridge in the store, that I may wish to buy a fridge, and that they would inspect it and pay me when they had money. I bought the fridge and submitted the receipt and they inspected it. And when they had money they paid me – you know how much? N200 at the time! How then is it that a civil servant can go into a pension fund and walked away with N300 billion and till today he is not under arrest. What’s the secret! The guy couldn’t even appear before the Senate, he even sued the Senate for interfering and for disturbing his life. And neither the Senate, nor the government in place in Abuja, till today, has said a word about it. When he showed up at the Senate, he went in a convoy of armed mobile policemen and SSS, addressed the press and drove off.
These Chibok girls that were abducted, if you were in President Goodluck Jonathan’s shoes, what would you have done differently?
Let me tell you this, when you hear from the interviews these soldiers are giving to foreign journalists, and saying openly that they have no weapons to fight with, that they have no food, and that for three months their allowances have not been paid to them, that in one of their missions they had to stop and plucked mangoes to eat, that the guns they have are the ones Shagari bought for them; that they have no new weapons, then you ask yourself where is the budget, where is the money they’ve been budgeting going into? The first time they put N1 trillion for Defence when the late Azazi was alive. Two weeks ago, Mrs. Okonjo-Iweala announced that she had released N130 billion, almost $800 million to the military, they still say they have no weapon. The Borno State government gave them 400 Hilux buses, the SSG to Borno appeared on TV and said before their very eyes the vehicles were shared among the officers. The state government gave them (Army) N10billion. The SSG said so. It’s not hidden, yet they said they have no weapon to fight. I’ll tell you the plain truth, the suspicion of many of us is that there’s something sinister going on in the fight against Boko Haram. The soldiers say if they are well equipped there’s nothing Boko Haram can do to stand them. But as it is now, according to them the Boko Haram has more sophisticated fire arms, rocket and missile launchers that can fire from a distance at our soldiers and our soldiers can’t return. So with this situation, Boko Haram will be here for the next 10 years. Let the government make up its mind if it wants to end Boko Haram. It can do it.
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