By Banji Ayoola
“I give him his due. The man has served Nigeria in many capacities before now; and people may say creditably well. That again is a matter of opinion. But I think the Buhari that we have today, like Obasanjo said, is tired and should just go home and rest.”
These were the exact words of Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, spokesman in Nigeria’s South West Zone, Mr. Ayo Fadaka.
In this interview, apart from the worrisome economy, he expressed concern at the security challenges confronting the nation, their feared escalation, unless they are decisively cheked; PDP’s alleged 16 years ‘reign of the locusts’, his party’s candidate, Atiku Abubakar’s perceived plan to sell off Nigeria if elected president and other issues. He spoke with Banji Ayoola of The Radiance.
Enjoy the reading.
What preparations is your party making to ensure victory at the coming elections?
We are prosecuting the elections with every seriousness, which explains why our presidential candidate is going round the entire states of the federation; and our senatorial, House of Representatives, Houses of Assembly and governorship candidates are going round the nooks and crannies of their respective states.
We are not just contesting for the fun of so doing. Ours is a party that has tasted power before. Ours is a party that believes so much that it has so much to contribute to the betterment of our nation. We are contesting these elections to win. And to that extent, we are not leaving any corner un-stoned in our quest to get victory.
The APC has been saying that your party ruined the economy of this country during the 16 years you were in power; and for this, the PDP should no longer be entrusted with state power again…
The APC is a party of people that are absolutely economical with the truth. They are so adept at promoting falsehood; and I don’t think there is anybody in this country that takes what APC says with all seriousness.
The APC is free to say whatever it wants to say. It has said that the 16 years of PDP were years of waste and that in those 16 years, the economy of the country was destroyed. But I keep saying that there are indices that indicate how badly managed our economy is, and also point out the level of destruction in any given country.
As at the time we were leaving power, salaries were not being owed by any tier of government across the nation. The PDP government was adept at managing the economy so much that the capital and recurrent expenditures never failed to achieve what they should actually achieve.
And to that extent, I want to say that at the time PDP was in power, there were times that the prices of oil dipped very badly. In fact when Obasanjo took over power, oil was being sold for less than 20 dollars per barrel; and the PDP was able to manage that.
So, for them to keep saying that we destroyed the economy is again to let you know how un-imaginative they can be.
As at the time APC came to power, Nigerian economy was rated as number one in Africa. They took power at that level and they began to enact very curious policies which were further accentuated by what they introduced as the body language of the President. All these things destroyed the economy.
Our economy has what we call portfolio investors. These are people that bring their investments from wherever across the world into our nation and when they do that, they put their money to work. And if they see that the system s not going to pay them again or it is not going to be business conducive, they withdraw same and left. That is what ruined our economy.
Their (APC) policies ruined our economy. They ruined our economy. Their actions ruined the economy. They are not educated enough to know what the flashpoints of Nigerian economy were. They just came in and like the proverbial mad man in a China shop, they were just busy pumping everywhere. And that was how they destroyed the economy.
If they keep saying that we destroyed the economy in those 16 years, they said they are doing reform and promoting the economy, the question to ask them is that why is it that inflation keeps rising, why is it that poverty keeps rising in our nation, if indeed they are not the ones that destroyed our economy; if indeed they have been able to do any reformation within the system.
Their lack of understanding killed our economy. Their lack of understanding of the use of power destroyed the socio economic standard in the nation today. There are so many people that are dying because of ordinary N1, 000 that they cannot afford to treat ordinary malaria. It is that bad.
Today, people find it absolutely difficult to feed. It is the very first time in the history of our nation. The APC destroyed our nation. Beyond the average imagination of anybody, they destroyed our economy so badly that people can no longer feed, inflation becomes the order of the day.
Can you imagine in the days of the PDP, a bag of rice was being sold for N7, 000. And today it sells for about N19, 000. But at a time it went as high as N23, 000 just for a bag of rice. That will let you know how badly our nation has been managed.
The PDP worked for the betterment of this country. We introduced new things into the nation’s socio economic life. And we did so much to ensure that the country continued to progress. But the APC came to destroy all that.
Some are saying that there is no difference between your party and the APC; that those in APC now were in PDP; that they ruined the economy and ran into APC. And there was a time you reeled out the names of former PDP Governors and other elected office holders who are now in APC…
I will begin from the angle of so many former members of PDP that are now in APC. It is a fact; we have a good number of people who held positions in PDP administrations at the federal, state and local government levels, now in APC. That would let you know the level of political indiscipline that exists in our system.
I keep telling people. For who-ever among us that is a politician, I keep telling all of us that being political is not a job. It is a call to service. For those that see it as a job, those are the ones that are moving around from one party to the other believing that once they join the party in power they would continue to do business as usual. But there are some of us that continue to remain in PDP because we believe that nothing can make us join the party APC.
The APC itself is a very curious party. It is not a party of distinct membership from onset. It is a party of many strange bedfellows. You would remember that Buhari came from CPC, Tinubu came from ACN. A number of people came from APGA; Okorocha came from APGA.
Some of them came from other sundry parties like that. And each of these parties had their own different philosophies before joining APC. There were even some that went from PDP to join them then. But as soon as they got to power, they said that they were coming to sanitise Nigeria.
That was their original ambition; that they were coming to sanitise Nigeria and they had so much fresh breath to offer and so many new things to do. Of course to those of us who know these individuals that formed APC, that joined APC then, we knew they were merely grandstanding because when you look at the public record of so many of them you would see that many of them were … of the highest order.
You would see that many of them that held positions before, raped the system so much such that they became so much stupendously rich today. And they do not have industries; they do not have any business to show that they got money from another source apart from governance.
So we are not the same as APC. The APC is a party that acquiesces with corruption. Of all the corruption, those that formed APC were well grounded in corruption. It was formed with funds from questionable sources, and it was accentuated on curious funds too. So the APC itself is a party of corruption.
While I agree that some people in PDP may have raped the system and taken what does not belong to them when they were in power, our party is not a party that supports corruption the way they are saying it.
You would recall that it was the PDP administration that formed all the corruption fighting agencies of government that we have in Nigeria today. And the truth of the matter is that all the agencies like EFCC, ICPC were formed, the Nigeria Police was saddled with the prosecution of corrupt issues and we all know that the Nigeria Police lacked the capacity and capability to prosecute actions against corruption itself because of its own internal contradictions.
So that was why the PDP government formed the EFCC and ICPC to battle corruption. And you would see that even members of our party were taken to court and sentenced on account of corruption.
Since APC got to power, we have fingered high ranking members of that party that are corrupt, and nothing has been done about them; absolutely nothing. So if you say a party is fighting corruption, they control all the organs of state that should prosecute the war on corruption, and be selective on how to get this done, you would know that that party is a party that is enmeshed in dishonesty; a party that does not have commitment to what it says. So that is what the APC is.
How do you react to this reported statement by Oshiomhole that once you join APC, your sins are forgiven?
He stated the fact. Oshiomhole is not much of a grounded person himself …What he said at that campaign rally is what we have always known.
For instance before Akpabio, the former Governor of Akwa Ibom State, joined the APC, he was being hunted by EFCC. And the moment he joined APC, he has been dining with Mr. Integrity, because they tell us that Buhari has integrity. He has been on Buhari’s campaign trail all along. So his corruption seems to have been forgiven probably on account of the fact that he is now in APC.
So Oshiomhole stated the absolute fact that their party is a party of pretenders, that the APC is a party of … people, that APC is not a party that keeps its word. Oshiomhole is correct.
Yesterday (January 20), former President Obasanjo, in another letter, reeled out reasons why President Buhari should not be returned. What is your reaction to that?
No sane person that has love for this nation and the continued corporate existence should ask Buhari to remain as President. And if you ask me how I am coming to this conclusion, I am going to begin now.
The man went to Kogi State to campaign and he declared that he was inaugurated as President on the 19th of May 2015. From there he went on NTA for a live programme. Much as he struggled to answer questions, he never succeeded in answering any. There was a lacuna between thought and speech in the way he handled his questions. And there was no sequential logic between one sentence and the other.
That would let you know that there is a gap. To that extent, I believe that Buhari is doing himself a great harm by continuing to have the ambition that he wants to remain as President. It is a great harm to him and that is where his family has failed him.
Political jobbers are pushing Buhari ahead to remain as President, while his family too is failing him by not asking him to return home to rest. It is a failure on the part of the family to allow Buhari to be brought into the open in this manner.
I give him his due. The man has served Nigeria in many capacities before now; and people may say creditably well. That again is a matter of opinion. But I think the Buhari that we have today like Obasanjo said, is tired and should just go home and rest.
The job of the President of the nation is a 24 hours job. What do our old parents do at home? They wake up and eat, joke with their grandchildren, take a sleep, wake up again, take another meal, take another sleep and play off. How can such a man continue to remain as our President? If Buhari indeed is a patriot, he should be patriotic enough to say that he has had enough and return home to go and rest.
Look, the security challenges that Nigeria is going through today is because we have a very old man at the helm of affairs, a man that is not in charge, a man that is not abreast of developments on his desk, or new trends in governance. That is why we have all these security challenges.
In almost all the states in the North, there is a crisis. I tell people that we are fighting an undeclared war; and that is the truth. Let’s begin from Zamfara. Bandits occupy a great portion of Zamfara State. From there to Katsina, from there to Kaduna, then Kano, then the North east generally is a crisis point. Is it Borno, is it Yobe that you want to talk about. Then look at Taraba. Taraba has a crisis. From there you go to Benue, you go to Plateau. And there are flashes of this crisis sometimes in Kogi.
And you see, all these crises indicate one thing – that they are anti system groups waging a war against our nation. And the presidency of Buhari is not capable to offer a response. And this is going on unabated. If Buhari should become President again for another four years, the entire nation would be engulfed in this crisis. The best thing we can do to ourselves as Nigerians is to stop Buhari from becoming President.
We are all aware of the corruption crisis that came into the open recently in respect of people who have been identified as cabal discharging Buhari’s responsibilities for him. These people are the ones that are compromising our economy and our system. And these are private citizens but they wield presidential powers to hurt our system.
So we need a president that would be abreast of every development on his desk, a president that can be president. That is why Atiku should be president instead of Buhari who needs every rest and should go home to rest.
When you were in power, your party made some mistakes. These were admitted by your chairman, Secondus, who regretted the mistakes and apologised to Nigerians for those mistakes. What is the assurance that the PDP would not repeat those mistakes if entrusted with state power once again?
Much as I cannot query my chairman for the admittance of those things that you called mistakes, I would want to say that our National Chairman is a gentleman, a very serious minded person and he took cognisance of what people were saying that in PDP days, there was impunity.
This impunity that they continue to accuse PDP of was never proved in any manner. But they just said hey PDP impunity, PDP impunity. And the chairman being a statesman rather than want to dot on that accusation said well if you say we did this, we are sorry. He said so that we can open another chapter and put all that behind us.
I am telling you, the APC has done more impunity than whatever they may claim the PDP has done. In the PDP days, none of our Presidents sought to run roughshod over institutions of the state. None of our Presidents did anything to hurt anyone in the nation.
None of our Presidents trampled on individual human rights, as we see in the cases of Dino Melaye and Deji Adeyanju. This is absolute impunity. How would you excuse the case of Deji Adeyanju. He has been tried before a court of competent jurisdiction and absolved. And the Police under Idris decided to reopen a case that had been adjudicated upon by a High Court judge, a learned judge, a case that was never appealed, and decided to arrest that young man, on that account again and take him to a magistrate court.
What further impunity can anyone betray? The PDP never did that. I wish to let you know however that we will get back to government by the grace of God. We would do far better than APC is doing today. Ours is a party that have respect for the people of this nation. We respect our fellow citizens and we respect institutions. We will never rape any.
And some are saying that your party’s candidate, Atiku would sell this nation if elected President.
They are running out of lies. They have fought Atiku on so many planes, and they are failing. The last line they are saying now is that Atiku said that the NNPC is there to be sold; and that Atiku is going to sell it to his friends.
It’s a puerile talk. It’s a cheap talk. It’s a kind of talk that lets you know that these are desperate people that can only survive on falsehood alone; and they would go to no end to manufacture lies to be told to the people.
They used to say that Atiku cannot go to the US. The man went to the US; and their immediate explanation of the fact that he got into the US was that he was able to enter US because there was a government shutdown in the US and the border guards were not at work.
Such is the kind of puerile lies that the APC would tell you. When they saw that that was not going to fly, they said he entered the US because he was registered as an aide to Senate President Bukola Saraki. Even if you are registered as an aide to anybody, as long as you do not travel on the blue diplomatic passport, you would be arrested.
Atiku is a private citizen currently; and he travelled on his green passport. So the APC is a lying party. They would be ready to tell you any lie.
Do you have any further comments?
Except that you are doing your work very well.
