Alhaji Adamu Ahmed Abdulkadir was the National Chairman of Alliance for Democracy (AD) and was part of the agreement by the party not to field a presidential candidate in 2003 but support then President Olusegun Obasanjo of the PDP to win in the South West. The deal backfired when five of the six AD governors lost their seats. Abdulkadir explains what happened, saying any party that allowed itself to die cannot be revived in Nigeria.

How would you describe Nigeria’s democratic experience since 1999?


Democracy as the say; no matter how bad it is; is better than the best dictatorship. The journey has not been quite smooth. Any young man born 14 years back should be able to identify where he perceives pain and describe it precisely, but that is something we have not been able to achieve yet. Other than that, I think I can say we are in for good and I hope we sustain it with a lot of modifications.


You were the National Chairman of AD  which used to be a vibrant opposition party in Nigeria and you have been blamed for the fate that befell it because you rushed to accept the result of the 2003 presidential election. What is your response to this?


On that I have no regret whatsoever because if I was the National Chairman of that party and my members had grievances and they did not look for me party to address the grievances, then I cannot be blamed. From what is happening today, those who are castigating me, are they at peace with themselves? No. They are at war, because those who were accusing me at that time are now divided into two groups. They don’t even agree with their statements again. No matter how good one statement is, the other would condemn it, that is how bad it is. I accepted the result of the 2003 elections, but the journey between 2003 and 2007 has been the best when it comes to development, so I have no regret for bringing the best for the country.


But the AD would have grown bigger and probably more than what the ACN is now...


That would have been a very good development, but the question is; what killed the AD?  AD is a party for the people. No   individual owned it, but am not sure the ACN you are talking about today is the same. The ACN has an owner, but the AD has no owner. So you may ask the question, why did the AD die, was it intentional? Or was it by will?


Why did the AD die sir?


If you look at the new parties coming up today, they all have owners. So, the members are subservient to the owners and I don’t think it is democratic for an individual to select who is governor and commissioner in the states he controls, etc. That does not happen in the PDP no matter how bad things are today. Everybody knows his right in the PDP, same as the ANPP and the AD, but it is curious the AD was allowed to die.  


From what you’ve said it would look like it was the PDP that swallowed the AD…

The PDP did not swallow the AD,   but it was an alliance between the AD and PDP to work together. And it was jointly done by the leadership of AD including its governors. It was done openly and all the leaders of the AD at that time knew what was happening. As National Chairman, I could not interfere with what the governors were doing, I could only advise them, and when they wanted to do   things, I cannot tell them ‘no.’
When the alliance was done between the AD and the PDP, majority of the governors in the AD relaxed in the campaigns and strategies,   believing that all was fine, that was how they lost out. If they had been steadfast like the then governor of Lagos, who made sure he did not take any chance, the alliance would have produced the same president that they wanted from South West and the AD governors would have retained their seats.  But when things go wrong, people will always look for scapegoats and as a leader, if you are blamed for that and you feel it is something you have to take, take it.


The opposition parties are merging into one, what do you make of it?


The merger of the opposition parties is not a threat to the PDP. The only threat to the PDP is its internal wrangling. The PDP governors have structures in their states. If there are states the PDP would lose, they cannot be more than 10 percent and 10 percent of any election cannot change the equation.  The danger is what is happening in the PDP today at the national headquarters, and that must be resolved immediately.


What is your comment on the crisis in the governors’ forum?


Obviously, there are two different interests here. Even if there are only 16 governors supporting Jonathan, it’s on the high side of the 24 governors of the PDP rather than having 16 governors of the PDP not supporting Jonathan. The issue now is, the matter is left for the governors to resolve and in my opinion this is not an issue for the president. Even if there are those who are not supporting the president’s candidate as the forum’s chairman, which does not amount to saying they are not in support of Mr. President in any way. These are issues that if the governors within themselves are able to resolve, I can tell you that there are governors who are even in the opposition that at the end of the day may end up supporting Mr. President when it comes to election. But we are not talking about election yet.


It is being speculated that many of the PDP governors may defect to the PDP…


Just as the PDP can only produce one presidential candidate, so is the APC. This is different when the parties are going into the elections as ANPP, CPC, or ACN. This time the APC will produce only one presidential candidate, so let’s assume all   those you mentioned are looking for the presidential ticket, only one can succeed if the APC leader agrees. Mind you I said ‘APC leader’ not leaders. It’s not going to be a question of going to convention to produce a leader, it’s going to be a question of ‘so so person is our candidate’ and others should go away. And that is where there would be bitterness and that is where the PDP would take back what belongs to it.


But the merging parties said they have learnt their lessons…


This is what has been happening since the days of the Unity Party of Nigeria (UPN). The same thing with the AD, I know it inside out, there is no way they can go to the convention and throw the contest open for everyone to contest.


If the PDP does not feel threatened,   why is it registering a parallel APC?


I am not sure that has been traced to the PDP and nobody has any evidence. The PDP has its own problems. Just because the APC wants to come and top the ballot box does not mean they are a threat, the PDP is there all the way down and it would remain there and people would still vote for it. So, the issue of who was behind the attempt to register the other the APC cannot be the making of the PDP. If you say there are some mischievous elements within the PDP doing it as individuals, then may be, but not as a party.


As a political leader from the North, why are you not aligning with calls for power shift to the North?


I am a liberal northerner. If I am not liberal, there is no way I would have joined the AD in the first place. My philosophy is fairness, which is what needs to be looked into. The government may not be doing what is expected, the president may have been surrounded by those who are not helping him in delivering good governance, but the most important thing is, if Jonathan says ‘I am not contesting’ and the South insists on taking his second term,  then it would be reasonable for the North to challenge that. Still, the South South should not see it as a birthright just as the North should also not see it as a birthright too. Rather than issuing out threats, the leadership of the South South should seek support from the other zones including the North, but not to say that if our son is not given the ticket, then Nigeria would go to war. That is not leadership.  There is no northerner who is afraid of a war especially when you make it appear religious; then you are making it worse and if there are 100,000 youths from South South who are prepared to go war, then you will find not less than 10 million who are equally willing in the North.   So, it’s not a question of ‘you must give it to us’, it’s a  question of ‘what do we do to convince these people to allow our son have the ticket’. If the court and everybody says he is eligible to run, then what is the process that needs to be followed to allow him to do that? The northerners have the right to say ‘no, we cannot allow him because he did not come to the bargaining table with us’. If they come to the bargaining table with the right chip, I am sure the northerners would see nothing wrong in supporting Jonathan. Afterall, we all know that the bulk of what we are getting as revenue is from the South South, but don’t forget that the South South is part of Nigeria. So, it’s better they stop singing war songs. They should come with political tact to convince   other Nigerians that this man needs to be given a second chance.


The opposition says Jonathan has not preformed…


No. they have been hungry for too long. So, what they want is to get the power. Give them the power for four years and at the end they will tell you that the person they put there has not learnt yet. Besides, there is nobody born with leadership. You learn it with humility and respect. And if you are able to get the right caliber of people around you, you succeed, but if you get the wrong people, you are in for it. Whatever anyone would say about this man, he has not been fighting people or shouting all over, even the current fight with Amaechi is not between them, it’s just the people around them causing friction to make something out of it.


Has the president shown this capacity to learn?


I happened to be somewhere the president was making a speech. ad I never expected that such kind of speech would come from him. He   showed that he is learning and learning fast. No matter what happens, this country needs stability, because it cannot make any progress without stability.


Is insecurity being handled properly?


Before the last one month, security was a serious challenge and almost divided the country, but in the last one month, two things happened that showed there is light at the end of the tunnel. Now, I am sure that militarywise, it will not take more than three months for the whole thing to die down and people would begin to look for the amnesty committee. I would suggest that those who demand for amnesty be protected. Once they are protected, those hiding would come out.


From what is happening, would there be a Nigeria in 2015?


Let’s look at the two scenarios from the PDP perspective. If a northerner picks the PDP ticket, the war songs would come from the South South, if the ticket is given to the South South the north may sing the same song. If in the opposition the ticket is given to the North, who may likely emerge because all those hungry for the position may likely move there and anyone of them who picks the ticket would have those who lose turned against him to cause mayhem and they will not allow him to succeed.  Besides, most of those looking for the position are from the PDP and may likely go to the opposition, but once they go there and realize they would be guided and may not be as free as they were in the PDP,  at that point, they would realize that things have changed. If there’s fairness at the election by INEC, I think even those who are drum the war songs would have a rethink, that it will not be fair and most of the young men being given peanuts to do violence are now having a rethink. Even the military would not take things to chance, so I believe Nigeria would be there.


You were appointed presidential adviser after supporting the PDP, is that appointment commensurate with the sacrifice you made as the AD National Chairman?


First of all, the alliance between the AD and PDP was not my own making. It was discussed between the leadership of the AD including the governors, but the governors took things for granted, otherwise the AD would have won in the South West. But let me tell you one thing which I have not said anywhere before, it is between me, God and Obasanjo. When Obasanjo wanted to make me presidential adviser, I told him ‘no’. I told him   I wanted to remain chairman of the  AD . Obasanjo was the one who persuaded me to accept the position of the petroleum adviser, which he   already promised (Dr. Rilwanu) Lukman. He gave me a list to pick the one I want when he was begging me. It was at that point that I pointed at manufacturing and private enterprise. Then I told him to change it to manufacturing and private sector then he used his green biro to change it, because I told him I wanted to rebuild my party the AD.
He said ‘you are going to go into the next four years without anybody taking care of the party except yourself as you have done in the past’, because I had always been the one taking care of the party at the center with no contributions from the South West. The only time we had contribution was when we sold the nomination forms. Other resources where kept at the states, I had to keep the center going. So, when I realized I had gone through enough pains and not likely to get any support anywhere, I accepted.
Second, given that all I had done has not been appreciated; all those who sat and took the decision to allow Obasanjo all reneged. Nobody wants to be seen to be part of the decision. S, there was nothing left for me than to go and build my political career in my home state. For me to do that, I had to join the right party. The party in my state then was the ANPP, but I joined the PDP and the PDP won.   


But did the position give you the chance to serve your fatherland as you would have wanted?


It is on record that as presidential adviser I did much more than the Ministry of Trade and Industry did. I did more than the ministers and the private sector combined. During my time, if they wanted to have conference with the private sector, they would contact me and I would give them access to the presidency. I don’t know whether it is the same today.


There are attempts to revive the UPN. Do you think it will work?


Even within the AD, they are now in two groups; now you can see them manifesting clearly. One side is with the ACN and those who are not there are the core Afenifere who are now trying to resuscitate the UPN, but the question is; is it feasible? Balarabe Musa tried to bring up the old PRP, did he succeed? No. Those who are trying to bring back the old UPN am not sure they have the resources the ACN has. And without resources, if you think you can make a party succeed, you have to think twice, because people no longer believe in ideologies especially when those who are key to the party are no longer there. Besides, those in the UPN then are no longer alive and those there now do not even know what the UPN was all about, they were only told. Times have changed, so, the best thing is to go with the reality. 



http://dailytrust.com.ng/index.php/news-news/55699-old-parties-cannot-be-resuscitated-in-nigeria-ahmed

I hope faseun listens to the voice of this veteran politician and stop deceiving himself with the resuscitation idea.if he wants to dine with the PDP,he should just go ahead without dragging UPN into his selfish agenda.

Walai you dey type gan

Weselion: Walai you dey type gan

So far the man made sense about the interview.