Deputy National Chairman of the
Peoples Democratic Party, Uche Secondus, speaks about the party’s
presidential campaign and other sundry issues. OLUSOLA FABIYI reports
how is your party’s presidential campaign going?
We have made a lot of progress. In the
next phase of our campaign we are going to emphasise on town hall
meetings by meeting face to face with the people and getting to know
what is going on. In fact, that has been going on in virtually all the
states of the federation. Some of our governorship candidates have
carried the campaign to the markets, mechanic workshops, etc. We are
dealing with the people directly.
If you have to reflect on the campaigns so far, are there things you wish you would have done differently?
None at all. The only regret was that
when we visited some of the states in the North, some unguided youths
or, if you like, misinformed youths, threw stones at us. I believe they
were not civilised enough. The All Progressives Congress and its
leadership are putting together their propaganda. In fact, they have in
their propaganda machine to misinform Nigeria by attacking Mr.
President. Part of it was arranging the youths in part of the northern
states to throw stones as if the President was not liked by Nigerians.
They want to create an impression both inside and outside the country as
if they are more popular than the PDP.
Was that why your party was said to have distributed billions of naira to bribe the electorate?
No, part of the propaganda is to imagine
meetings that never held and make up what they discussed in meetings
that never held. I am quite sure you are aware of the text messages
people received about the $20bn purportedly distributed. Also Governor
Rotimi Amaechi of Rivers State accused the leadership of the church in
Nigeria that they received N6bn from the Presidency. Those are part of
the misinformation of the public and this is evil. I regard it as
satanic verse.
But the Governor of Bauchi State,
Isa Yuguda, said those who stoned the President in Bauchi were PDP
members. How then do you reconcile that with your position?
The governor and the minister of FCT have
their own problems. But the statement I made was that some part of the
North, not all. Not Bauchi alone. What happened in Bauchi was
unfortunate, but I think that the two or three major office holders
there are trying to blame each other. But obviously what I saw on that
day because I was there, was not a question of PDP. Our people were at
the stadium, we went to the emir’s palace to pay a courtesy call. As we
came out of the emir’s palace, they started throwing stones. But as it
were, there is blame game between them, indicating that they are not
united. But that is left for them (governor and FCT minister) to sort
out.
Was the PDP ready for the postponed election of February 14?
We were ready for the February 14
election. But before that date, the Chairman of the Independent National
Electoral Commission, Prof. Attahiru Jega, called all the political
parties. I represented our party at the meeting and 16 political parties
accused Jega directly that INEC was not ready for the election. It
wasn’t just about the issue of insecurity. On page 11 of his memo to the
Council of State, Jega said if INEC has a little time they will perfect
their preparations. And as you can see from that time he had that
discussion with us and now, some millions of PVCs have been distrusted
and people have received them. But we were ready then and we are ready
now for the elections.
The Court of Appeal said that the
military should not be deployed for elections. What is the position of
the PDP on the use of military for the elections?
Honesty speaking, the issue of security
should be handled by the experts, they are professionals. But I believe
that it is not the first time the country has deployed military to
safeguard, but not to conduct elections because if you see what happened
in Ekiti State, military was put at strategic positions in case there
would be uprising or violence. And that is what it is supposed to be.
Paris was bombed recently and the leaders of EU, came into Paris to give
solidarity to the French government and they flew in from all parts of
the world. On that particular day, the French Government deployed 10,000
soldiers to safeguard the city of Paris. The soldiers were not walking
with the leaders of Europe, but they were in strategic places to keep
the city safe.
Perhaps the audio file of how
your party used the military to allegedly rigged the Ekiti Governorship
election informed the APC fear?
Whatever they cooked up as audio was not
on the day of election. And we believed that Femi Fani-Kayode has said
it was cooked up by the APC.
There is the notion that if the
PDP had put its house in order, the elections would not have been this
tough. There is this allegation that the leadership of your party is
arrogant, you allowed governors to defect, and also allowed a former
president to leave. What really happened?
Obviously, human enterprise is the most
difficult. When a child is old enough to marry and he feels he is
independent he goes out to marry. He separates himself from the original
family. So most of the governors felt they could do it on their own.
There is no way you can control them. There were a lot of peace talks
and meetings.
So, the PDP is intact; there is no
problem. For those who left there was no way to stop them. It was not
deliberately done on our part. In the case of former President Obasanjo,
I believe that he can best be described by his children, Iyabo and
Gbenga. He is their father; so if you can have that kind of father you
will know the kind of trouble that the PDP has gone through.
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