After an assessment of the All Progressives
Congress, a former National Secretary of the
Peoples Democratic Party, Dr Okwesilieze Nwodo
came to the conclusion that the ruling party has
not kept a single electoral promise. He spoke
with Wale Ajimotokan who presents the excerpts:

How is PDP repositioning for 2019 election?

Our desire is to elect an executive that will give
one, a robust opposition to government of the
day, make sure they are on their toes to deliver
on their promises to the Nigerian electorate and
where they fail, Nigerians will be ready for a
change in the next election. The second thing
we expect the executive to do is to conduct a
transparent national convention at the
appropriate time to elect our presidential
candidate as well as the candidates of
governors in the various states of Nigeria,
because there was once a time PDP paraded as
many as 24 governors out of the 36 in Nigeria.

The membership of PDP has not changed
drastically in most of those states. So, we have
a very good opportunity once we get the party
back and learn from our mistakes, especially
the impunity that have characterised elections
in the party in the past. To correct those things,
we should be able to parade candidates that will
be acceptable to those states once more to
hand over their destiny to the PDP government.
We believe that with the performance of this
government today, PDP has a very good chance
to get a very good presidential candidate in the
next election to win back federal government.

PDP is known for zoning political offices. What
is the zoning arrangement now?

Well, we have just zoned two offices principally
for now. The presidential candidate of the party
will come from the north and the chairman will
come from the south. Of course, the other
positions in the national executive of the party
have been zoned to the six zones and all the six
zones have some offices zoned to them they
will now go back again and zone to the states
that constitute those zones. And as much as
possible, candidates for those offices will be
nominated at the state level to come for the
convention. Our constitution says we must take
zoning and rotation of political offices into
consideration in order to carry the whole
country along in the party.

Ekiti State Governor, Ayo Fayose is already
campaigning for the presidency. Going by what
you said, the North will present your presidential
candidate, is he trying to contradict what the
party’s leadership has proposed?

Well, Fayose cannot run. I tell you why. When
we formed PDP, it was a battle. The first battle
that PDP fought and won as a party was to
zone the presidency to the south and those of
us from the south made a case that in the First
Republic the Prime Minister was from the north;
in the Second Republic, the president was from
the north; the Third Republic, a Southerner won
and the election was annulled. There was no
way we would go back to the south and say let
us elect a northerner and again without giving
the south the slot. It raged on, but eventually a
decision was taken that the presidency should
come from the south and the chairman of the
party should come from the north. That was
how Solomon Lar became the chairman and the
secretary was zoned to the south, and I filled
that slot as the secretary of the party. Now, it
did not go down well with some members even
after the party had made the decision. And they
felt that they must exercise their inalienable
right. For example, the Late Abubakar Rimi,
former Governor of Kano; he paid for a form to
run. I was the National Secretary at the time. I
retuned his cheque and wrote him that the party
had taken a decision, the candidate can only
come from the southern Nigeria. When we went
to the convention in Jos, he actually, without
having a form, because we did not give him a
form, he came to the venue and started to
campaign. And then, we had to get some party
leaders there to go and counsel him that we did
not want to get the security agencies to
manhandle him or embarrass him. And good
counsel followed and he stepped down. So that
was what PDP did and now we have not only
zoned the presidency to the north, we have,
following the report of the Ekweremadu
Committee, at every other opportunity, re-
emphasised that zoning would take place. For
anybody else who is not from the north, who is
running, the party will not collect his expression
of interest money and will not issue him a form,
will not collect his money to contest and issue
him with a nomination form. The party will not
do that.

Can you beat your chest and say that come
2019, PDP will bounce back?

We owe it to the country, first of all, before
owing to ourselves, because there is no doubt
that we made mistakes in the 16 years that we
ran the country. And that is why we lost the
election. Now we have learnt from those
mistakes and we have seen that the party that
replaced us has not been able to even fulfil their
basic electoral promises. They have not been
able to do so. We have also seen a lot of
indices in our country going bad as a result of
the country being midwifed by APC. Whether
you talk about foreign exchange, unemployment,
poverty level, quality of education and our
hospitals, they promised us that nobody will
travel again outside the country for medical
treatment, but the president himself is always
abroad for medical treatment. There is
absolutely nothing that they promised Nigerians
that we are enjoying. So, it’s the easiest party
to beat in an election. And all that we need do
is to get ourselves together and know that this
country needs PDP like it needs oxygen. And
with that spirit of patriotism and commitment
we have no alternative but to go to that election
with our best foot forward, correct our past
mistakes and rescue Nigeria from APC.

PDP ran the country for 16 years and APC is
just into its third year now. APC also said that
most of the crisis facing the country now were
caused by PDP, what is your position on that?
My position is that when PDP came into power
in 1999, the price of crude oil was $8-$9 per
barrel. We inherited an empty treasury -Gen
Abdulsalami handed over an empty treasury.
There was nothing. We were able to rescue the
country from a pariah state, we were able to
restructure the economy with $8 per barrel. By
the time oil hit $20-22 per barrel, we left this
country with a buoyant economy in the sense
that the strategic reserve of the country went
from almost zero to a couple of billions of US
dollars. We were able to begin to think about
doing railway. Before Obasanjo left, a 25-year
railway plan was in place. We were able to get
debt forgiveness for Nigeria. The economy
changed drastically. There is no doubt, no
matter what you say about Obasanjo, he left this
country better than when he got to power. And
when Yar’Adua came in, you can imagine an
elected president, his first reaction in his
inaugural speech was he was not satisfied with
the election that brought him to power. And he
set up the Uwais Panel to review the electoral
laws and having done so will continue to
improve on performance of elections in this
country from that time on. And I believe that
President Goodluck Jonathan kept that tradition.
Elections became much more transparent and
better organised. Therefore, I also want to say
again that the growth rate of the economy at
the time PDP left the office was 7 percent,
inflation was one digit, about 9 per cent or eight
percent. Today inflation is double that figure
hovering around 17 percent. The exchange rate
before we left was N160 per dollar. Under this
regime, it’s close to N500. How can I explain
that other than the strategy the government is
using faulty? So, if you look at the 16 years of
PDP from when we took over from Abdulsalami
to the time Jonathan left, every index in the
country had monumental improvement from the
day we left. There was nothing we met that
went bad. But since we left, everything has
gone down. So, I want to be proved wrong that
the country is doing badly because PDP left the
country in a bad shape. We met the country in
the worst shape than we handed over to APC
and people know what we handed over to APC.
The GDP was growing at 7 percent, anywhere in
the world you don’t see any growth of more than
eight percent.

But the GDP growth was predicated on oil
prices that was making a rally in the global
market …

…No, there was just what we may call
acceptable international indices for looking at
the figures. It was the fastest growing economy
in Africa and we were looking forward to 2020
to be one of the 20 best economies in the
world. Today no one is talking about 2020
anymore. Nobody is talking about we are
growing at about 3-4 per cent now. Can you
imagine that from 7 percent it was in
comparison to anywhere in the world.
Something is wrong somewhere. If you say that
PDP stole all the money, you may have
recovered up 50 percent. So that should bring
us back to somewhere. There is no person in
the country today who is feeling better because
money has been recovered. There is no food on
any body’s table because money has been
recovered. You don’t see where the money that
is recovered is being injected in order to
improve the lot of the common man. Is it in
road construction or agriculture? Where is the
money? So, it is as good as we should have left
the money with those who stole it because it is
not impacting on the country. They should have
built factories and employed people.

What is your position on the future of the south-
east in the PDP since the party has zoned the
presidency to the north, which will likely keep
the presidency in the region for another eight
years. Where does that arrangement leave your
zone?

What it means to our zone is that we are not
interested in running for the position of the
chairmanship of the party. I was Chairman and
Ogbulafor was also chairman in the past. The
people who are showing interest for
chairmanship now are south-south and south-
west. Secondly, we are not interested in
presidency of the Senate because we had five
Senate presidents when it was our turn. The
only position that we have not held that we are
interested in is Vice- President. We prefer to
have Vice-President rather than to have
Speaker, we have been Deputy Speaker. But the
other zoning will come after we have secured
the Northern presidential candidate and
southern chairman. Then we will know where
those can come from. Then the other four
zones will now be left to choose the other four
positions –the Vice President, Senate President,
Speaker and Secretary to Government of the
Federation. This is how PDP will zone its
principal offices in the 2019 election.

http//:www.thisdaylive.com/index.php/2017/10/12/nwodo-apc-is-the-easiest-party-to-beat-in-an-election/


Quote
It is as good as we should have left the money
with those who stole it because it is not impacting
on the country. They should have built factories
and employed people.

The interviewer sef. What does he mean by "can you beat your chest... " LMAO.
Cc lalasticlala.

APC and PDP the yahoo yahoo parties in Nigeria