Sunny Onuesoke, a chieftain of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) and former gubernatorial aspirant of the party in Delta State, in this interview, regrets the challenges plaguing the main opposition party, blaming it squarely on those running the PDP at the national level. INIOBONG IWOK brings the excerpts:

The PDP, your party is in a crisis right now. In fact, as a matter of fact, the proposed NEC meeting is making the issue of who is the authentic national secretary, among other teething challenges, a point of discussion. Are you worried as a PDP chieftain that the party may not actually present a strong opposition ahead of the 2027 election?

Honestly, at the national level, PDP lacks consultation. I want to repeat, at the national level, PDP doesn’t recognise the voices from the sub-regional levels. PDP thinks they can do anything at the Abuja level, and they are free to just say this. Who cares about the national secretary? Who cares about who he is? Who do they consult? Who did the National Working Committee consult? Every single Nigerian, since 2009, became a member of the PDP.

We are all voices. Who do they consult? And they are coming to the public and telling us about the issue of the secretary; who cares about the secretary they appoint? They have succeeded in messing themselves up at the national level. We have people like us who have been there for all this while. Any member of PDP who went to All Progressives Congress (APC), and you crossed paths and came back to PDP, then wanted to decide on the party, you are killing the party.

This has been the issue. At the national level, they lack consultation. They lack quality people to speak for the party because they are not PDP, some of them went to APC, then came back to PDP, and now they want to speak.

The problem basically is those set of political decampees at the national level, who are coming to prove to us that they have to decide the secretary of the party, because at the national level, after leaving PDP, going to the APC and coming back, they lack legitimacy. And I want to say something.

I don’t want to discredit the secretary of the party. I don’t know his profile that much but if the secretary of the party is somebody who has been in the PDP for quite a very long time, he has never crossed, then he should go on as the secretary of the party.

Former Vice President Atiku Abubakar has been quoted as saying that the ruling party has a hand in destroying the PDP. As a chieftain of the opposition party, do you share in that sentiment?

I’m against such a view by Atiku. Yes. Why would you say APC or the president is destroying your party? What happened to the PDP governors? What happened to the PDP leadership? How did they destroy the party? When PDP was in power, were we the people destroying the Alliance for Democracy (AD) at that time? If APC is destroying the PDP, it means we submitted ourselves to their destruction because we cannot be united and an outsider will destroy us. Nobody but we the PDP are the ones destroying ourselves.

We have to absolve the president from this and anyone telling you that Tinubu or the APC is the one destroying the PDP is not telling you the truth. How can you say that? Can you prove it that APC is the one destroying the PDP?

Like I said early, were we destroying the Alliance for Democracy when we were in power? If any party is committed and vibrant, no one will destroy it. PDP should come back and have a self-check on what is wrong. Did APC ask PDP not to criticise them now?

Did APC ask PDP not to correct their errors? When PDP was in government under Jonathan, was it not the same PDP that destroyed itself, leading to the 2015 election? If APC is destroying PDP today as they claim, it is because we allow them, and the blame should go to who allows and not who destroys. It is not the APC that caused factionalisation in PDP; if they caused it, we sold ourselves to them and we should blame ourselves and not them.

In all these, 2027 is very close; what is PDP doing to mount serious challenges for the presidency?

I have written a lot on this; until you give a voice to very committed and longterm member to chart a course for this party, we are not going anywhere. Until proper chieftains of the party with interest in repositioning the PDP are given the opportunity, we are not going anywhere in all honesty. Let’s come out of our shells, let’s come out of our silence because we have been silent for too long. PDP members at the state and national levels have been silent for too long and allow those without the party’s interest to damage things.

We have been silent for too long and it is high time we stopped being silent on the affairs of this party. Our continued silence has made people read us and say we are working for APC. Let’s be frank here, it’s not fair, brother. They know what to do if they want to do it.

Read also: PDP governors throw support behind Ude-Okoye, demand NEC on March 13

Some people have expressed fear that based on what is going on in PDP, the party may not field a presidential candidate if they continue on this trajectory. Do you think it’s possible?

Let me tell you, Onuesoke is going for the presidential ticket of the PDP. We are going to field candidates who are capable of rescuing Nigeria, like myself, I’m contemplating doing it. I have the funds to take the ticket. I won’t have to solicit for money to get the ticket. I have been making consultations with my friends, especially in the north. Yes, I am going in for the presidency. I’m going in for the presidency under the PDP. If they are so afraid of the APC, Onuesoke has embarked on national consultation. I spent almost six weeks before Christmas in the north. I met my friends. I met a lot of my friends.

I’m qualified to be the presidential candidate of the PDP and also qualified to be the president. I have consulted my friends. I just left Adamawa. I went to Kogi and several places in the north, and I can tell you that the response I have been getting is encouraging. I have even met a lot of guys in the east who are very interested.

I can tell you that a lot of people in the PDP are also very interested in the ticket. I’m going to do my declaration in Abuja soon and the committee is also going to be set up soon because I have embarked on wider consultations. My friends, a lot of them, are coming from the north, from the east and they are men with ideology, apart from huge financial strength. We need to have a paradigm shift for good in Nigeria. We’re going to paint Abuja blue with my posters. It mustn’t be about the money bags all the time.

Are you in any way worried that a big PDP chieftain like Wike is working under the APC government as some chieftains have feared?

There are members of the Labour Party at the National Assembly that have defected to the APC; so, it’s not only the PDP. Besides, what is wrong with a party member serving in the government of another party? Wike has one vote in PDP just like myself. If today Tinubu calls me to say I have something to render to my country irrespective of my party, and as long as he would give me free hand, I will go because it’s a service to the country and not to the president. That doesn’t mean I am a member of the APC. Serving under Tinubu hasn’t made Wike a member of the APC because I haven’t seen him with an APC membership card.

He’s just serving the country as a minister and there’s nothing wrong with that. It’s funny to even think that we have about 13 governors and it is a federal minister that should be painted as destroying the party. What are the governors of the PDP doing? What are the lawmakers voted under the PDP doing? What has Wike done wrong in accepting to serve as minister? Those saying this should look at their own problems and leave the minister alone. They should face it inwardly. For me, I don’t think it’s an issue.

Nasiru El Rufai said his party, APC, lacks internal democracy and that there are plans by the ruling party to destabilise the opposition, among other negative remarks. As a chieftain of the main opposition party, what is your take on what the former FCT Minister said, leaving the messenger to assess the message?

I don’t want to be too rude but El Rufai should shut up. When I say El Rufai should shut up, it’s because he lacks validation, he lacks legitimacy to speak about issues of good governance. This is the same thing he said against PDP when he left, forgetting that PDP gave him all the platforms he needed to be where he is today. Atiku brought him to PDP and made him the chairman of the Bureau of Public Enterprise. He was cruel, at last he left. He left the party and destroyed PDP. He left the party alongside people like Dino Melaye and Saraki. Yes, they left the party with five governors who walked out of Jonathan at a convention in Abuja. So, he lacks any validation, he lacks legitimacy. He is a political prostitute. So, I don’t think somebody should take El-Rufai to be serious. That’s why I say he should shut up.

He doesn’t qualify to comment on anything opposition, APC and PDP. El-Rufai is one of the Nigerians that is responsible for what we’re going through today. He and his cohorts shouldn’t say anything. He’s a political prostitute. He doesn’t even have the right to talk. He doesn’t even have the right to talk in Kaduna talk less of national issues.

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