Chief Audu Ogbeh
A former National Chairman of the Peoples
Democratic Party and a founding member of the All
Progressives Congress, Mr. Audu Ogbeh, tells
JOHN ALECHENU about the National Assembly
crisis among other issues
You played a key role in the merger of different
opposition parties to form the All Progressives
Congress but with what is happening now
especially in the National Assembly, do you have
any regrets?
No, I have no regrets. It was a good thing to do.
Without doing it, there was no way the
opposition would make any impact on the
political scene. In spite of the obvious
embarrassment we are facing, it was a good
thing to do. We will get over this.
The party especially in the Second Republic had a
better grasp of its affairs and members. What
would you say has gone wrong today?
It’s quite simple. Take India for example. India
became independent in May 1947. India has
never had a coup or a disruption in its
democracy. As turbulent and corrupt as Indian
history has been, they avoided coups. The
soldiers simply left the civilians to blunder
around and mature. But we haven’t had that
luxury here. Each time the system is disrupted, it
degenerates because democracy is not a
destination, it’s a pilgrimage. Yes, in the Second
Republic there was a structure and the party
chairman was a pretty strong person; the
President deferred to him. Today, the President
owns the party chairman, dictates to him or tries
to, at least before now. As a result, the culture
of party supremacy has waned so badly that
respect for the party is quite minimal now. If we
carry on nurturing it I guess it will come back
again soon.
Do you share the fears of Nigerians that whenever
a ruling party is in turmoil it has an adverse effect
on governance?
I do. There has to be some cohesion, otherwise
who is going to adhere to the party’s manifesto?
Who is going to listen to the party? Who is going
to discipline erring party members living
extravagantly, embarrassing the party and the
people? The party has to be strong enough to
call people to order and in the absence of that,
of course, there will be a great deal of wobbling
and incoherence in policy implementation.
What do you make of claims by some of your
party members that what is playing out in the
National Assembly is simply part of the antics of
the opposition Peoples Democratic Party to grab
power through the back door?
I do not condemn those who have this kind of
thinking. It’s like some of our members who
moved over from the PDP still have their PDP
sentiments very strong in them and they are
using that connection to achieve those
objectives. They may be successful in the short
term but it’s going to ruin them in the long term
because one must decide where one belongs. I
do hope that before long, we can get over this
thing and realise that party membership is a
fairly serious business. One makes up one’s mind
where one belongs and one makes sacrifices for
belonging there. If one doesn’t want to, then one
is actually creating difficulties not only for one’s
party but for the country and one’s own person
as a politician. This is because once one is
adjudged unreliable and unstable, nobody will
trust such an individual with higher authority.
Nigeria has been at a political precipice on more
than one occasion. One of such times was during
the Olusegun Obasanjo Presidency. There was a
time the then House of Representatives attempted
to impeach him. What really happened?
There was great turbulence in the PDP before I
became its chairman in October/ November
2001. I knew there were problems in the party.
There were arguments between the party and
the National Assembly and between the National
Assembly and the President. My predecessor had
made a lot of efforts. When I came in we began
the process of healing those wounds. After a
while, we stabilised a bit but then the
impeachment issue came up. Now, the Assembly
members felt the President was too aggressive
and too contemptuous of their membership. The
President felt the Assembly members were not
mature enough and that they were misbehaving.
That dispute almost ended up in the
impeachment of the President. My duty then was
to try and ride over the storm. I saw beyond the
demand for the impeachment of the President
other dangers facing the country and her
democracy. I didn’t like the prospect of the first
southerner elected into office being thrown out
by what in the end would have appeared as a
conspiracy by the North. It wasn’t too obvious
then but I had cause to call the then Speaker,
the young man called Ghali Na’abba, and told
him that I would not encourage him to push the
matter too far. He wasn’t happy about it. After
the (Chief MKO) Abiola saga, we in Abuja started
the party in 1998. The late Sunday Awoniyi,
Adamu Chiroma, Iyorchia Ayu, Prof. Jerry Gana
and those of us who met had decided that no
northerner should be a candidate in the election
in 1999. The same message reached the All
Peoples Party then and that was why in 1999
there was no candidate from the North in any
political party contesting the election. We felt
that the South had endured long enough. They
had been grumbling about this business of
northern domination whether it was civil or
military rule and that it was time for this family
to get together. Issues of chieftaincy and
headship do matter in our society here. Some
day, they may not as in the United States where
a son can take over from a father. Jeb Bush is
on his way now. He may make it, he may not
make it; it doesn’t matter to the Americans. But
here it matters. Therefore, we did what we did. I
was not going to be a chairman who would sit
and watch the impeachment of the first elected
Southern President because I was certain that
the South was going to say wait a minute, “is it
that Obasanjo was that bad or that these
northerners don’t want anyone else on that
seat?” I think the latter sentiment would have
prevailed. And I saw the consequences way
beyond the anger and discontent of the members
of the National Assembly who were pushing for
impeachment. Thus, I pleaded with Ghali. He
wasn’t happy and I am sure he had said so
before to people but he respected me and the
thing calmed down. That is why it is so strange
to read in Obasanjo’s book ( My Watch ) that Atiku
Abubakar, Iyorchia Ayu and I were the ones
planning the impeachment and that he had a
mole in our midst. It sounds preposterous, to say
the least, and highly uncharitable of him. I
respect him as a former president but he was
making wild comments about things he knew
nothing about. I was on his side just as I was
before his re-election in 2003 when 15 governors
came to me that they didn’t want him and asked
me to call a meeting to ask him to step down.
But I told them I would not call a meeting and he
(Obasanjo) in company with (Waziri) Mohammed,
the chairman of the Nigerian Railways
Corporation who died in a plane crash, drove into
my house here shortly after that and asked me
what was going on. I told him what the
governors said and advised him to appease them
and he did. I stood by him and he told people
including Adamu Chiroma that God and Audu
Ogbeh saved him in the election of 2003.
Therefore, these inconsistent statements just to
smear people are highly uncharitable and
hopelessly un-presidential. History can’t be re-
written just because people feel bad about
somebody at different times. I respect him as a
highly intelligent man but he is too full of
mischief and vengeance.
What’s your relationship with Obasanjo now? What
exactly transpired between you two as it was
reported that both of you ate pounded yam
together at your house hours before he moved
against you?
Yes, he came here and we had lunch. We have
no problem (now); I didn’t see him for 10 years. I
saw him after 10 years in his house during the
last electioneering campaigns. I went there with
General (Muhammadu) Buhari and others. We
saw and greeted. I will always respect him as
Nigeria’s president and an older person. I will
always respect his intelligence and capacity for
work. He is an absolutely incredible man when it
comes to ability to work and grasp issues and
deal with them. But I keep saying that the
element of mischief and vengeance tends to
diminish his greatness.
In the light of what you said earlier, would you
say the sentiment that the North is overbearing is
justified?
It’s not true. The North does exist as a political
block. Sometimes, in trying to make
compromises, political commentators become
extremely uncharitable as well. In 1999, the
North decided not to field a candidate. They
were not forced to take that decision. There was
no law banning them from taking part. On our
own, we said no northerner in this election.
Nigerians must appreciate or remember that we
believed the South had genuine reasons to
grumble about what appeared to be an endless
northern domination of the polity. But sometimes
some southern commentators do not remember
this. The North occupies 76 per cent of Nigeria’s
land mass but it is not economically strong and
it has to wake up and become stronger. The
South dominates the economy almost to 90 per
cent. For instance, there is no northern bank
operating today. The so-called banking
consolidation sold all the three northern banks
that were in existence to southern interests.
Today, we have no economic base and we know
that when we do apply for credit there are
sometimes visible discriminations against us.
Even in the agric credit scheme of N200 billion
which many of us applied for; we were turned
down on the grounds that we are politically
exposed. I am aware of senators in the South
who got N3.5 billion and who hadn’t cut a blade
of grass. I was denied, so were Jerry Gana,
(Aminu) Masari, and Abdullahi Adamu. Certain
things happen and we know but we decide not
to flog them too far because we want Nigeria to
function and work together. Thus, these
complaints are sometimes totally unnecessary.
Obasanjo seems to be the go-to person on
national political issues; do you think he will be as
meddlesome as some think he was during the
tenures of late President Umaru Yar’Adua and Dr.
Goodluck Jonathan?
People are free to go where they wish. Like I
said, he is a very intelligent man and he does
have a pretty good understanding of the political
system. People go there but what they make of
his advice is up to them. As an elder statesman
of that statue, there is nothing outrageous about
going to see him but I do hope that people then
filter what they get from him, know what is
useful and what should be discarded.
Does the APC need to be wary of him?
I think our party leaders are mature enough to
know what is good and what is bad. Like I said,
he has played a major role in Nigeria’s history
and he is a statue, in his own right. He is a man
of tremendous capacity too. Therefore, when
people go to speak with him, he will tell them a
lot of fantastic things that will help them but
there are things they may need to be very
careful about.
Should the APC hierarchy expel Senate President
Bukola Saraki and co if they fail to toe party line?
It’s too late to do that. I think dialogue is the
answer and I wish to God that that dialogue had
taken place much earlier. Two, calling that
meeting at 9:00am when voting (for leadership
positions) was happening at 10:00am was a
strategic error. I didn’t know who engineered it.
It was a very tragic error. Three, I think a
committee should have been set up long ago to
get the process of reconciliation over with. The
committee not involving the party leadership but
elders from the party should meet both sides in
the divide within the APC and sort the matter
out because the longer it lasts, the more
embarrassment we get, the more the public
confidence in us shakes and the more difficulties
we face in governance.
In view of the current crisis, will the APC amend
its constitution?
It isn’t the constitution that is the real problem.
Constitutions are run by human beings. We have
our constitution; we have a certain understanding
among ourselves about what we should do and
shouldn’t do. I think there are some managerial
lapses somewhere. Some mistakes have been
made. For instance, we have not yet formally
inaugurated our Board of Trustees; what are we
waiting for? This is the kind of crisis that the
Board of Trustees should have taken over and
resolved and not the National Working Committee
or the National Executive Committee of the
party. Why is the Board of Trustees still not in
place?
Do you see this crisis as a battle between Asiwaju
Bola Tinubu and former Vice President Atiku
Abubakar/Saraki for the soul of the APC?
There may be some credence to that but if we
had a better structure and a better national
vision these struggles will pale into
insignificance. We’ve always had this country
torn apart by these vested little individual
interests diminishing the national interest. Where
would any of us be if this Nigeria wasn’t
functioning? That’s the big question. The debate
has never been about those who are pro-West in
their economic orientation and a few of us who
are pro-East saying let’s look to China and India,
how did they solve their problems and others
who are saying, no free trade, globalisation in
the West. We’ve never had a debate about how
to deal with the issue of poverty saying that that
is the biggest enemy of the society and that 90
per cent of Nigerians are living under terrible
stress. We’ve never had a strong debate on
education. Should we look back 30 years at our
good old Teacher Training Colleges, bring them
back to really teach our children, teach the
teachers first how to teach and make them
teach our children properly? We have never had a
robust debate on our financial system. Here is a
country whose interest rates hover around 40 per
cent for the small scale borrower. Where on
God’s-given earth can 40 per cent interest rate
grow an economy? And then they keep glossing
over it and because one can’t produce anything.
If one adds that to power shortage, one depends
on importation of everything. And the more the
country depends on imports the more the
demand for the dollar weakens her currency at
home and the more poverty and unemployment
are increased. But there are no debates on all
these. It has always been about who wants to be
in charge or wants to be seen as the big lord in
the political system and it’s causing us a lot of
headache.
The APC has jettisoned zoning and some analysts
have linked this to the ongoing crisis in the party.
Do you subscribe to this?
This whole business of no zoning is a political
fallacy that can’t work in Nigeria. The democratic
system of Nigeria as it is today cannot function
without certain sensitivity to the interests of
sections of the society. We are Africans; we are
very sentimental people and highly emotional.
That’s what we are. Even in more advanced
democracies, when John Kennedy was President
of the US, he came from Massachusetts, his
Vice President, Lyndon Johnson came from
Texas, Richard Nixon came from California, his
Vice President came from North Carolina, Barack
Obama comes from Chicago Illinois or is it the
Island of Hawaii, where did he pick Joe Biden
from? The East Coast. One can go on and on.
They have this sensitivity, they may not say so
but there is the need to move this thing around a
bit. It’s always happening. When it suits us, we
say zoning is nonsense, let’s get the best. Is it
true? You have to zone. Are you going to have a
President in Nigeria some day from the South-
West, Vice President South-West, Senate
President South West and Nigerians will accept
it? Or the North brings President, Vice President,
Speaker, Majority Leader and people will accept
it? You can’t do that. Or the East produces
President, Vice President…? It’s not feasible. The
point is that something got a little weak within
the party structure that allowed this situation to
come about and we should learn from it. I only
want to advise the PDP not to celebrate too
early because I hear them making comments.
Even yesterday, I heard them saying something
about us making excuses. But by the time we
start explaining to Nigerians why the treasury is
almost empty, many of them will be in tears;
because they caused it.
The APC governors have intervened in the crisis
with some of them demanding sanctions against
Saraki and co while some are known to be
supporters of the senate president. Don’t you see
this capable of tearing them apart?
I think we will meet soon and take care of all
these issues and put them behind us because
the polarisation doesn’t do Nigerians any good.
They have entrusted power to us, they don’t
want to hear quarrels, they want to hear
solutions. Nobody is interested in where you met
and quarrelled. People are in distress and that’s
the truth. We can quarrel and quarrel and
become as unpopular as the party and
government we replaced. I am talking as a
member and elder of this political party and as a
founding member. We are more concerned about
how to govern this country and make Nigerians
happier and God has given us so much and we
have not one excuse under the sky for failure.
Let the debate be about issues not personalities.
I find debates on personalities nauseating.
Also, what measures are being taken to ensure
that the party is not hijacked by a few?
It’s up to all of us to work hard and stop that
from happening. Why do you need to hijack the
thing anyway? What will you do with all the
power? You alone want to be in charge of
appointing everybody and therefore what?
Become an emperor? Why can’t we work
together for the great good of this great country
called Nigeria? The widow in the village, the
unemployed and the pensioner who can’t get his
money doesn’t want to know who is in charge of
naming everybody or not naming everybody, he
wants some peace, he wants lower interest rates
so he can try his hands on business. A young girl
wants to set up a small beauty salon, she wants
a place to borrow half a million naira, manage it
and create three or four jobs and feed her
brother and sister. But we don’t do it, I am sick
of all these things in Nigerian politics. There are
too many quarrels and too little governance. I am
saying so because I am old enough to know that
these things debilitate governance.
Nigerians nay the world has waited for a month
for the cabinet list of President Muhammadu
Buhari and there is no green light. Is this not an
evidence of a slow and indecisive start?
Are you going to send a list to an Assembly that
is divided? How do you have half your party
members fighting and the other half supporting
and the PDP laughing? Those who blame him
should watch out. He is under immense pressure
too. There are too many interests at play and he
has to search for people who can deliver. There
are Nigerians who are hanging on every word of
his and if Nigerians have any reason to hope
now, it is because of his personality and the
confidence they have that he is sufficiently
mature enough to deal with certain situations. He
will not do anything to make them lose faith or
panic by naming a cabinet that people will say,
“wait a minute how can this cabinet work.” He is
like a coach naming his football team.

source: www.idomapeopleofnigeria.com/its-too-late-to-expel-saraki-from-apc-audu-ogbeh/

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Rounakid:
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source: www.idomapeopleofnigeria.com/its-too-late-to-expel-saraki-from-apc-audu-ogbeh/

It is easier expelling Tinubu.

Summary please

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Governance, a good one, that is what Nigerians want.

Today, we have no economic base and we know
that when we do apply for credit there are
sometimes visible discriminations against us.
Even in the agric credit scheme of N200 billion
which many of us applied for; we were turned
down on the grounds that we are politically
exposed. I am aware of senators in the South
who got N3.5 billion and who hadn’t cut a blade
of grass. I was denied, so were Jerry Gana,
(Aminu) Masari, and Abdullahi Adamu. Certain
things happen and we know but we decide not
to flog them too far because we want Nigeria to
function and work together.
This is the very reason the north having been complaining...
There was never anything like GEJ corruption govt, he only denied them a lil bit of the national cake and every body were wumbling and conspired we the sw to rub GEJ power. Na now sw go understand say na one chance Dem enta

Expel Saraki and APC will cripple under, they just need to sheath their sword and work together