Dauda Birma is a former minister of Education. In this interview with Ruth Choji, the Tsarkin Gabas of Adamawa stated that owing to the costly mistake made by the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in the last general elections, it would be dificult for the party to stage a come back in 2019, no matter how hard it tries.

The PDP appears to be putting its house in order after the last election. Do you think it has taken the right step?
Hate campaigns do not take anybody anywhere. If you have issues to canvass or issues to solve, please do so, but don’t smear your opponent. Look at the way President Muhammadu Buhari was smeared. If these people knew that what they did to him would bring him up, they wouldn’t have done it. What they thought would have negative impact on him made him more loved by most Nigerians. We must learn that when coolest under fire, it is the best option. Those people against Buhari went overboard and invented all sorts of reports against him; it backfired and made him more popular. Buhari has a passion for honesty; so, when what we see all around us is despondency, irrespective of which party the person is coming from, the people will go for an honest person. Buhari came like a knight in shining armour to rescue the princess. He singled out corruption and insecurity. Nobody needs to tell you that corruption has taken over the land; nobody needs to tell you that we are living in insecurity. These things have eroded our values and we are living in this state. If you look at why Jonathan lost, he became complacent. He believed the lie the PDP told itself that it would rule Nigeria for 60 years, but all those have come to an end. You don’t assume that because you are the incumbent, everything will favour you; you have to earn the confidence of the people. Look at the massive looting of the treasury; the bomb campaign by Boko Haram, the decay in infrastructure and lopsided allocation of resources in Nigeria, these are some of the things people saw that made them vote in accordance with their will. One thing is that, we are glad we had a reformed INEC and this is something the PDP and Jonathan did not take into account. Every reform always takes a life of its own; it can go beyond you. Look at the permanent voters’ card, for instance, as a result of it, millions of spurious votes that would have been recorded for somebody were discarded, and the card readers also changed the voting pattern. People who lost have gone to the tribunal and when they prove that the card readers were sabotaged then new elections would be ordered and the card readers would be used and I believe it will work.

As a member of the PDP, why were people like you silent when all these ills were being perpetrated?
I joined the PDP in 2011. I have always been a long time member of the ANPP. Let us not go into why I went to the PDP. But immediately I got there, I latched myself to Bamanga Tukur. From the day Bamanga Tukur was dropped, I was dropped also because there was no way I could struggle to be relevant if the principal I promoted and supported was dropped. Besides, the moment Gen Buhari was given the ticket of the APC, I had to support him because he has been my friend throughout our time in the ANPP. I stepped down for him twice in 2003 and 2007 and therefore, when he emerged as the party’s candidate, I preferred him to the PDP candidate. I could not allow emotion to enable me follow PDP and its campaign because it was insulting northerners; they were telling us that we are blind, lepers and give birth to many children we cannot take care of and no northerner would celebrate these insults, therefore I disengaged.

The loss led to the resignation of some big wigs in the party. Was this necessary?
Although I am still a card carrying member of the PDP, I am not emotionally involved with them. Whether they change the chairman or not, these are the people who, in the first place, have no business being in charge of running the affairs of the party; they are negatively inclined people, who were brought in to destroy the PDP. The party just discovered so late that these are the same people who ab initio were destroying the party; it means the members are beginning to be sensible. I am too old to start cross carpeting from one party to another. For my own honour and integrity, I am not ashamed to tell you that I voted for Buhari as opposed to voting for Jonathan. I rather would not vote than vote for Jonathan.

Your statement could be interpreted as proof that some PDP members actually worked against the party…
Of course, to want to deny it is to deny the truth. Do you believe that there are 15 million people in the APC? APC is a political party and if all is done, they are not more than five million but all people, from students to housewives, civil servants and disgruntled elements in the PDP voted for Buhari. So, what happened is that this is not a Buhari victory but APC victory through Buhari. Of course, APC did very well to have selected Buhari, but it happened at the right time, in this case, the man and the hour came together and it happened. So, if you heard that PDP sabotaged itself, it is true because I am not the only person who voted Buhari. I didn’t vote for APC, I voted for Buhari because you cannot separate him from APC. If anybody says I sabotaged the PDP, I sabotaged Jonathan not the PDP because PDP was stupid to have fielded somebody like Jonathan. By our Constitution and Electoral Act, Buhari in the APC and with an APC majority in the National Assembly, the law says he will govern this country for four years unless something unexpected happens. Buhari will be empowered again in 2019 to rule Nigeria. I don’t see what magic the PDP can do to bring them to power in 2019. If the PDP was stupid enough to have lost power when they were in power and had majority in the National Assembly, I don’t know if they can get power in 2019 when they are not in power. I leave that to my grandchildren because by then, I would have resigned from active politics.

What do you say about PDP members who defected to the APC after the party lost the elections?
Defection is wrong. If they voted for APC, they should be decent enough to remain in their party because Buhari has said he will use anybody that is useful. You don’t have to defect. APC knows that it was not their party members alone that voted for the party; it was APC and other people that voted for him. It was Nigerians who got fed up with massive corruption, lack of power and the rest that voted Jonathan out. My conscience is very clear because I voted against what was not working.

What will happen to former President Goodluck Jonathan within the PDP?
He is now a former president and if you look at the landscape, it is littered with lots of former presidents like Gowon, Obasanjo, Shagari, Abdulsalami and the rest are there. Whatever has happened to them; they have become icons, whether they did the right thing or not. Their time came and they did their best. We have to respect them. Jonathan has nothing to fear, he has done his best and history has recorded it. Therefore, we will have to respect him. Today, if you bring Gen Gown and make him president, he will not do what he did when he was 32 years. When they brought back Obasanjo, he became a different person. Even Buhari will not do the things he did in the past.

The president has moved the Army High Command to Maiduguri. Do you envisage any difference?
He did not say that he will transfer the headquarters to Maiduguri, he did not say that he was transferring the headquarters of the army, but said he was transfering the Command and Control Centre, and therefore it is up to the army to know that anywhere Boko Haram is, that is their command. He will appoint the right general and people who will do the job. Things will be done there without waiting for orders from Abuja. For example, in the United States, they have several armies that don’t depend on one centre of command or control; they can tell you this is the 5th Fleet and they will be totally different from the others and most times, the rest don’t know what they are doing, unless they are coordinating from the centre. Some Nigerians understand what he means; it is just that there is mischief everywhere, people deliberately want to pitch him against the military. He did not say he was moving the totality of the military to Maiduguri.

What will it take to revive our educational sector?
Investment and commitment. We need to change our attitude especially in the north.

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Noted Tanoids, over to you

D guy above though

May they never return to power forever and ever

Na true

Coming from the Most stupid minister ever produced by Abacha in 1996 who told the world that southerners are too eager to go to school when u can achieve whatever u want without certificate? Am not surprised! Birma used the word "Madrush by southerners to get educational certificate" while being a sitting minister shook the world because the North is a million mile away from MDG in education when he said this with pride.
So how can we even believe he is sane enough to be credited with this interview?

pdp is dead as a party...na only burial remains

Mr Birhmah is one of the bad eggs that PDP have cut off. People don't know that in the last decade the PDP have been in the mode of reinventing itself. the party long ago realised that age was catching up with it and that the world is changing. This is the reason for Mr Ben Murray Bruce's remarks about allowing youth into politics. If you look at both parties you see new elements emerging in the PDP and in APC you see old elements dumped by the PDP. The PDP had a fortified blueprint on how to act post election victory while the APC had none. The character assassination against Buhari and other top brass of the party was an investment to reap fruit in the future. They were able to plant doubt in the minds of Nigeria which is already bearing fruit. The fact that Mr Birmah can not realise this is the proof why he shouldn't be in the thick of things in the PDP strategy room. The PDP is light years ahead of Nigeria and we may later on be forced to beg them to accept the mantle of leadership once more

That's my grandfather talking

This man is a betrayer in my dictionary