There is now a widely held view that the opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) may have gone into slumber following some of the losses it recorded in recent elections.
In this interview, a former deputy National Chairman of the PDP, Alhaji Shuaib Oyedokun, admitted the seeming lull within the party, but assured that it would bounce back stronger.
What is your assessment of the state of the nation today?
We are in a very uneasy calm. People in power say they are doing something, the common people are complaining that they have not seen anything. They are hapless, they are helpless, they are suffering and yet they cannot complain. Any attempt to complain will meet rebuff from the government. That is what we are experiencing now. I think the focus is on fighting corruption. But as they are fighting corruption; corruption seems to be fighting back too as it has been popularly said. I believe instead of fighting corruption, they would have been managing corruption in a very preventive way. We believe there is hope and that hope is in agriculture. In fact, one measure this government has taken which I personally like; maybe because it affects my people here, is the closure of the border. I can see around me how people are planting rice now. They are registering in cooperatives to get inputs from government, if it will come. If government can support the farmers, I think the situation will be better. The price of rice will come down. It may sound naïve, but that is the aspect that interests me. That gives the tune of the state of the nation. How do we solve the prevailing hunger?
People say the government is drifting progressively towards repressive dictatorship and the PDP, according to them, is in deep slumber. Do you think your party is actually playing the role of opposition as it should do?
Those who say the PDP has gone into slumber are being naïve. They are not being realistic, they don’t even seem to know what is going on. However strong the opposition is, there is usually a holiday period for both the party in power and the party in the opposition. What are the activities that the party could adopt now? What is it they think it should be doing to show that it is strong? It can only campaign for elections and you will see that in those areas where there are isolated elections, it is not just sitting down there. They are working hard. If you see the results of few elections we had recently, you will see that they are working. Maybe what you are saying is to be showing attack on government or criticizing government. And to some extent, I think that is on. I will say that the PDP is in a short period of fallow. When you put a farm under fallow, by the time you plant your crop in another season, it yields better because it must have had some rest. The soil would have regenerated. What the PDP is doing now is managing its affairs internally, settling disputes, doing reconciliation here and there. Just two weeks ago, the BoT, which is the soul of the party really, if they had allowed it to work well, set up 12 standing committees and six ad hoc committees and they have all been meeting to strategise. That is more important than just making noise. Do we have to carry cutlasses and guns to attack this government? There is no issue that comes up that our National Publicity Secretary will not respond to.
But there is a gradual decimation of the party in some states like Bayelsa State where the APC emerged victorious in the recent governorship election?
That is a product of insensitivity when it comes to the concept and practice of internal democracy. That is the result of two elephants locking horns and it is very unfortunate. That is a peculiar case and it should not be adopted at all. Are we not gaining in other areas? You can see what those people who defected to APC from PDP, who thought they would have enough refuge there, are experiencing now. From what we are hearing now, all of them are regretting. And to stage a comeback may be very difficult. We take them like the biblical lost sheep; we have to look for them. And that is what we are doing.
Are they giving signals to stage a comeback?
Even if they don’t want to come back, APC will push them out. Just wait and see.
What is the future of multi-party democracy in Nigeria?
The future is precarious in the sense that when you say multi-party, it starts from two. What we have in Nigeria now is becoming embarrassingly dangerous. There are some parties, which never won any election, but they will be talking like big parties. The INEC and National Assembly must do something about these mushroom political parties. If you see the way ballot papers look like, you will see that they don’t look like our way of conducting elections at all. What I am saying is that the number of political parties must be pruned down. Unfortunately, those who are complaining about it now are those who advocated for it. When we had two political parties established by a former military Head of State, Gen Ibrahim Babangida (rtd), defection was very difficult then because the parties were working towards a particular ideology. Ideology has one advantage of bidding group members together. We have to go back to the National Assembly for an amendment of the constitution so that we can have a maximum of four or five political parties.
What is your view about Nigeria’s rising debt profile?
As someone in the opposition party, I will say it is very outrageous, I will say we never did it in our time. I remember Obasanjo’s regime with Okonjo Iweala as finance minister, when we got debt forgiveness, Nigeria had a relief. Now, it is getting multiplied. But the question is: when you are in a depression, can you fund projects internally? I am in opposition, but I am talking personally, I am not talking for my party. If the loan is attached to particular projects that will yield profit to pay back, there will be no regrets. But with the situation in our country, can that happen? That answers your question as to whether it is good to take it or not. Whether we like it or not, this rubber stamp National Assembly will approve another loan for the government and we will continue to watch.
What is your prediction of the outlook of the economy in the coming fiscal year?
I give it to the National Assembly; the passage of the new budget is the fastest so far. It is fastest because the budget did not undergo the scrutiny of a very strong opposition. Already, people have discovered padding in it with fictitious projects. That is the ripple effect of a situation where we are tending towards a one-party parliament. You remember when PDP was in power, we had a very strong opposition. Now, nobody is there to scrutinize the budget. However, I believe early passage of the bill will let the government plan well. They won’t have any excuse this time around. Let’s see how it plays out.
How then would you explain the seeming complacence of the PDP members in the National Assembly?
Who fetched the padding out? It was the PDP parliamentarians who discovered the padding. They have been talking; they have worked at committee level and all the rest. But this is a situation where the APC legislators are in majority. The PDP members as opposition will only have their say, the majority will have their way. That is the situation we found ourselves. They can’t do more than that.
By and large, Nigeria is tending towards a one-party state.
(Cuts in)…That is the tendency. It won’t work.
And do you think PDP can still re-launch itself back without a new realignment of forces or possibly a change of name?
When you see two rams locking horns, the one that reverses goes to gather more strength. The PDP is now re-energizing. We are coming back fully. I agree with you. We are reaching out to other people. And let me predict this, as usual in this country, APC is going to break up. It will break up into three factions. Certainly, PDP will be the beneficiary of one of the factions. I can tell you categorically that those people who are at the fringes of prison yard will think twice. Those who have gone and come back will think twice. They are coming back not only to repent, but to also play an active role in PDP.]
THE SUN, NIGERIA
