He looks very urbane with his fairly gray moustache. Ben Obi, as he is simply known, was Atiku Abubakar’s running mate at the 2007 presidential elections on the platform of the Action Congress, AC.For a man who had served as Political Adviser to the National Security Adviser, Aliyu Gusau, Obi was largely seen by many as an Aso Rock power house of sorts.  However, when his quest for the Senate  from a district in Anambra State suffered a discount in 2003, it became clear that his membership of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, had become tenuous.

He won the legal battle which spanned some 18 months and got into the Senate, by which time it had become discernible that his days in the PDP were numbered.  

Ben Obi

So, whenever they are ready, they will certainly communicate to our lawyers and our lawyers would inform us accordingly. So, to that extent, one has been lying low, and this is also an opportunity to do an appraisal of where the country is and where the country is supposed to have been.

There is enough time to attend to one’s pressing family problems putting in mind that in this part of the world, you have the extended family, so you now have time to ask who is where and who does what.

Since you now have all the time, I guess that you would have had time to sit down and reflect, have an assessment of what is happening in the country today. What can you say is really wrong with this country and what is your assessment of the country?

Well, it is a pity that we are still a country drifting by the second. I was in Lagos for three days and there in Ikoyi for the three days I spent, I stayed some 72 hours, I do not think we had electricity for more than eight hours and to think that I just came back from Arusa , Tanzania .

So, you now talk of the African giant, Nigeria, any factory that wants to survive in Nigeria runs on diesel, so you find out that what is supposed to be the profit of these companies are now diverted to buying diesel, therefore, they can’t survive, and so workers are laid off, so you have un-quantified level of unemployment.

So, what do you want to say about the country? What do you want to say about the leadership? Look at how Nigerians surrendered themselves to Obasanjo in 1999, Nigerians were over-jubilating because they thought truly that the messiah had been found, the messiah who will come and put the country in its rightful place in the comity of nations, but less than 18months after Obasanjo took over, it was clear to some of us that the man did not know anything about governance, the man did not know anything about running the country.

18 months, I started telling people that, this man cannot handle the situation and people said, you just don’t like this man, I said it is not a question of likeness, it is a question of looking at this and seeing through what is happening.

You know, I started politics at a very young age and I met the likes of Great Zik of Africa, the sage, Chief Obafemi Awolowo, Mallam Aminu Kano, Ibrahim Waziri, and I played politics with people like that, you can quantify in terms of political tutelage, so I ask you my good friends, what else is there to say? People say because you are from the opposition, you would not have found anything good.

Well, let them tell you the good we have seen since 1999, what good has the Obasanjo administration brought to bear in this country? The place is there with complete squalor, decadence, corruption, if nothing else, what the House of Representatives has exposed, talk about the Power sector probe, talk about the oil sector, these things stink to high heavens. But unfortunately still, we do not have a dynamic government in place, we are still crawling, still trying to find our feet, so that is the situation as far as I’m concerned.

Are you saying there is no hope with this government?

I do not see any hope from this government, but I have hope that ultimately, the Nigerian nation would find its bearing, I have hope that ultimately, Nigerians will rise up to the occasion and take the bull by the horn.

Having said that, in the situation Nigeria has found herself, what do you think is the way forward?

Well, when the incumbent president came on board, he was honest enough to say that the elections were flawed and promised to do some reforms. He did not need anybody to tell him, he said so because the world had already said so, that is exactly why when he put forward his question, I said to him, which election are you talking about?

The one that the whole world came to witness and passed judgment on or the one that you conducted yourself? It was clear that the election was flawed and the man said so, but as time went by, I kept hearing that 'oh I won the election', he has changed tone that he won the election.

Now, we have had some cases of re-run, they were worse than the election that was conducted in 2007, conducted by these same people, the same INEC.  So, if this country must move forward, today everybody is screaming Obama, Obama, how many times did you find policemen moving round polling centres and I beg to say that almost 75 per cent of Nigerians watched the American election if not more, did you find soldiers being deployed, did you find policemen, did you find INEC officials moving around? You will find nobody, people just went and they voted and when they had problems with their votes not reflecting, there and then, it was corrected.

In 1983, when the NPN came with their so-called landslide, the great Nnamdi Azikiwe and Chief Obafemi Awolowo, were in shock, they had never experienced anything like that, Zik was so shocked and he could not speak, when the media confronted Chief Awolowo, he replied and said that he was so shocked about what has happened and that his prayer was that, if this was allowed to stand, our dear country may never again witness election and ever since then, the various elections that have been conducted have been going from bad to worse.

If you take 1999, you can simply say that, the elections were rigged. If you take 2003, Obasanjo invaded the whole of South-West, even though to a large extent, his brothers still reasoned with him and typical Obasanjo, he betrayed them and used the power of coercion to snatch away from them.

In 2007, that is when they threw all decency to the wind.

If you play back what Chief Awolowo said in 1983, that is what is called wisdom and I want to say without any fear of contradiction, that by 2011, election will just be, “my friend, this is the candidate, full stop, don’t waste your time," and if you come out, they throw you in the boot of the vehicle and take you wherever police will take you to. We must do a complete reform of the election process, a procedure whereby the members of the electoral commission are appointed will also have to be  enforced to include the political parties.  

Those that will form the members of the commission - the civil rights must be included, Nigerian Labour Congress, and we also need a truly Nigeria Police Force that will not be subservient to the man who appoints it. Then you can now start to talk about the true potentialities of a great Nigerian nation.

The impression out there is that opposition parties in Nigeria are just opposition on the pages of newspapers and nothing is on ground and what role is AC playing to ensure virile opposition?

I will tell you here again, that it is not everybody that knows how to be in the opposition party. Opposition calls for a lot of practical, painstaking guts; it takes a lot of guts, a lot of Nigerians do not know what the opposition is because everybody wants it on a platter of gold, everybody wants a properly dressed bed that you will just go and lie down.

Now, I ask you, opposition also includes the media, because the media are supposed to be the watchdog of the people. Even in opposition, you see them cross-carpeting again and again because when you are in opposition, you do not get patronage from the government, a lot of people do not know how to manage and endure.

To properly organise an opposition, that is why we are yelling for a two- party system, so that it can either be this or that, then you can have a formidable opposition because when the masters were playing the politics, when they were around, it was politics of integrity, politics of ideologies and ideas, parties were founded based on ideological purpose, but today, go to all the parties, it is a rainbow coalition of strange veterans and all they are interested in is how to get power, how to share booty and power, there is nothing that binds them ideologically.

When we started politics with our great leader, Tunji Braithwaite in the Nigerian Advanced Party, we had the second most important office which was the director of ideology, but today, nobody talks of all of that and that was why the Nigerian Advanced Party was a solid revolutionary movement founded in the strength of the Nigerian youth, but today, you find out that the youths are even more on the fast track, they are desperate.

So, in as much as I agree that we have porous, ineptitude and corrupt leaders over the years, the followership also need to wake up. I am worried that the Nigerian people have not understood what the struggle is all about, for them, it is everything goes, people trample on their rights and they keep singing Halleluyah, hoping that manna will drop from heaven, manna doesn’t drop from heaven.

Adams Oshiomhole was recently declared the winner of Edo gubernatorial election by the Appeal Court. What signal does his victory send to the Nigerian polity?

I said to him, you can imagine what I went through twenty months to recover my mandate. In his own case, he had just to go through the tribunal and the Court of Appeal, in my own case, Obasanjo and his cohorts took me from Magistrate's Court to Supreme Court, courts that do not have jurisdiction over senatorial matters. In one particular instance, we went before the Supreme Court and they looked at us and sais:

"What are you doing here, you don’t have anything doing here." My lawyer, Sir Clement Akpamgbo, of blessed memory, told them that they dragged us here, they said no, "there is nothing to do with you.," all of that happened because of executive lawlessness and manipulations.

Again, Adams in the 2007 elections, 90 per cent of Edo citizens were yearning for him, but when they miraculously announced my colleague, Senator Osunbor winner, Edo people reacted, so, we knew it was a question of time, that sooner or later, justice will come his way.

I am happy today as I speak to you, that before the government of Adams came, AC had Fashola, and you can see what he is doing to Lagos , he is showing the light to his colleagues. He pleaded with his leader, that look, "you be playing the politics and leave me to governance," so he devoted 10 per cent of his time to politics and I am sure Adams will do the same thing.

Looking at your party, Action Congress, there seems to be little activity except occasional releases and you talked of the need for a virile opposition and you are a product of that opposition. Why has the party not been able to move beyond just issuance of press statements?

Well, the problem is that in various parts of the country, we are at different levels in Court and like I just told you now, that we are still expecting like about two or three more states. You cannot be fighting court cases and be building parties. Some of the states where there are no court cases, there have been activities, but then, like I said, opposition is a very expensive thing and how many people do you think can run the opposition parties across the length and breadth of this country.

I know what it takes because I have been involved, I toured the length and breath of this country in 1978 to get the Nigerian Advanced Party registered and we had only one source of income which was Dr Tunji Braithwaite and that time, we had three jets, I had one attached to me in 1978 until 1983 when the military struck, so I was able to move, even there are times when I had to tour the country by road, so for somebody like that, because of his enormous wealth, he was able to provide the resources which we used to run the Nigerian Advanced Party.

As at the time the five parties were registered in 1979, the Nigerian Advanced Party was more on ground than the Peoples Redemption Party, but because we came out as revolutionaries, Obasanjo was scared that he made sure the Supreme Military Council did not register the Nigerian Advanced Party and I know what we did to get the NAP registered in 1982, we mobilised the youths, the National Association of Nigerian Students, before Ovie Whiskey’s FEDECO, said look, there is no reason why we will not register this party, we did not fold any of our branches throughout the country from 1978 until 1982 when we got registered.

When you look at the eagerness of this government to fight corruption and you now look at fundraising by PDP for the building of secretariat, what impression do you come out with as an opposition member?

Very simple, mindless leaders, reckless, irresponsible and I do not see how that has become a priority and when you now think of how they keep saying to you that they will govern for 60 years, they are not even talking about the Nigerian people, because it is the people who you cater for that will determine whether you will govern them for 60 years or more, but as far as they are concerned, it is not the question of the people deciding who they vote for.

It is just like what I told you, as far as they are concerned, they call the shots, they appoint the Inspector-General of Police, they appoint the chairman of INEC, they appoint the service chiefs, so we will just bulldoze our way into it, Nigerians can be taken for granted, they will say, is it not the same Nigerian people, when they protest for two days, they give up, just go ahead, they will fall in line.

As for Nigerian leaders, leave them, after two months, they will come and look for contracts, that is the way they perceive Nigerians and it is unfortunate, unfortunate in the sense that, when Nigerians are living in squalor, the poverty level is unprecedented, unemployment unprecedented, then you come and say you are using N10 billion to build a National Secretariat, a thoroughly disorganised political party called PDP, a party that has never conducted one transparent convention, then you assemble your 'leaders',  put them there and then you mock Nigerians. In any case, the president and the vice-president were there in that reckless show of shame.

Whatever the PDP is doing today, the argument out there is that, Atiku, you and few other people were also part and parcel of the PDP government before things fell apart...

In the course of this interview, I have told you that 18 months into Obasanjo’s government, I told General Aliyu Gusau that Obasanjo had derailed, I told Patrick Dele Cole, I said this man has nothing, yes I travelled with him to all eastern states. The problem is, I respect people a lot, but I don’t fear anybody, I have been bold enough the few times I had an opportunity to have audience with Obasanjo, I told him my piece of mind.

There was an occasion in late 2001 when I went on a Saturday to have lunch with him and in the course of the lunch, I went with a friend of mine who is a chief executive of a major newspaper house, after lunch, some of his aides walked in, from the entrance, they started praising President Obasanjo, calling him names as the 'greatest black president in the world', 'the most powerful black leader in the world', all sorts of funny names, Obasanjo was enjoying it.

When I left with that friend of mine, I said the enemies of progress have captured this man, the way they were praising Abacha, that is the way I saw them praising this man today and the man was enjoying it. At the time Obasanjo sent Patrick Dele Cole packing. For me, it was an icing on the cake because that was one man who could speak to President Obasanjo in his own way, he has his own way of conveying things across to him and Obasanjo will react sharply.

As soon as that man left, there was nobody left that could talk to Obasanjo or advise him, so that was the end. Do not forget, I did not start with the PDP, I was a foundation member of the All Peoples Party and we had a problem when they surrendered the platform of APP to a junior partner in the APP-AD alliance which founded the ticket, Olu Falae ticket, some of us said no,  APP is a bigger party than AD, let the AD produce the vice-presidential candidate and we parted ways at that point.

So, some of us in the party along with our nine governors supported Obasanjo inspite of the fact that I knew from day one that Obasanjo is a no-good fellow, but it was a decision of the party and I am a party man to the core.

I was the first person General Babangida and General Aliyu Gusau contacted to come and support Obasanjo in 1998, but I said I will not do that, because to me, this man is an opportunist. Benjamin Adekunle fought the battle in the Third Marine Commando, towards the end of 1969, they said Benjamin Adekunle, the Scorpion, as he was popularly known, had become so bigheaded, they brought him back to the headquarters and Obasanjo took over, two to three months after, he claimed to have won the war for Nigeria, he became federal commissioner of works after the war. 

From federal ministry of works, they  made him Chief of Staff, Supreme Headquarters. Unfortunately, they assassinated General Murtala Muhammed  and they brought him and said 'come and be head of state.' This will also remind you of what General T.Y Danjuma said, how he wanted an elongation from the rear as military head of state, so this issue of tenure elongation did not start in 2005 and 2006.

How will you describe the man Obasanjo and what endears you to Atiku?

Obasanjo in my own knowledge is a very deceptive leader, deception runs in his blood, he is not a true leader, he has no respect for democracy and that is why God in his infinite mercy allowed him to do a second term. If Obasanjo had left in 2003, his stay would have continued in the minds of Nigerians as it was in 1979 when people regarded him as a great leader, the one who handed over government to an elected civilian government.

If he had left in 2003, he would have escaped, but God wanted to expose him, that is why I was talking about the issue of how he got on to pursue third term and I was talking also about how they went and brought him from prison to presidency.

In one of the occasions, he has asked that how many presidents do we want to make of him, it is because he was not prepared. To those who know Obasanjo, one of his greatest ally was the man called TY Danjuma, he made a statement in 1998 that if Obasanjo was not elected president, he would go on exile. What happened?  Five years, he was forced
to swallow his saliva, the true Obasanjo showed.

When I was a member of the party, I ran my primaries and won un-opposed, go and ask, the records are there, I got my certificate of return after the elections of April 14, 2003, I got my certificate on 16th, on the 18th, Alhaji Hassan, the electoral commissioner in Anambra State called a conference and said there were directives from above to withdraw, null and void my certificate of return. I came to Abuja and went to President Obasanjo that I am going to fight this, he said go to court, I knew he was behind it, but I needed a challenge.

Throughout my four years in government, apart from official function, I never found myself in the presidential lodge, nor did I visit the vice presidential lodge. As I speak to you, I am a Christian, but I do not know where the chapel in the villa is  located.

When I was denied, I went to Yola in company of my governor then, Mbadinuju, Senator Joy Emordi, and Ukachukwu,  we went to Yola to see Atiku to help us plead with Obasanjo for us to have a meeting with him on Anambra. We went to Yola on the 9th of February, 2003, the vice president then asked what we want and we gave him a tip of the iceberg and he asked, will you be able to say all this? I said yes. He helped us to organise a meeting with Obasanjo.

So, on the 13th of February, we invited the party chairman, Audu Ogbeh, we also invited the National Secretary then, Vincent Ogbulafor, Bode George and everybody that has something to do with Anambra State including Andy Uba and Chris Uba.

My governor, Mbadinuju started the matter, doing the preamble, Obasanjo descended on him, that was when he fell in the bathroom, when he was still using walking stick, he descended on this man, the man sank into his seat and could not continue. I said to myself, if I keep quiet, then it will mean we just went to mislead the vice-president and Obasanjo will now tell the vice-president that, 'I told you.'

That was running through my mind and I said, oh God, no, I will not be a party to this. Then I stood up, I said to him 'look sir, first of all, we know you are very busy, but tell us, if for this meeting, you have 20 minutes, 30 minutes or an hour, we have to compress all we have to do for you to go and continue your state function.'

The man shouted at me, go, go ahead, he talked to me like that, of course, he tried to make me stop and I refused, I made sure I emptied everything that was on my mind, all I had to say, I told him that day, the vice-president was there too, I said that it is not possible that Chris Uba and Andy Uba will be my leader, it is not possible and it will never happen, that they have stolen my mandate, but I will fight and I will get it back.

At the end of the day, Chief Audu Ogbeh said, Mr President, Chief Ben Obi won his primaries un-opposed, won his elections un-opposed and it is too glaring for anybody to say they snatch that victory off him, it has to be returned back to him. Obasanjo stood up from his seatt calling the Vice president, “VP let us go, Ben Obi won his election, they say Obasanjo took it, VP let us go.”

That was the beginning of the friendship between me and the vice-president, he said 'each time I see you, you are always quiet', I said I can be quiet, but you do not have to trample on my right. So, the vice-president is a true democrat, you can sit him down and say 'look sir, I do not agree with this and we can’t do it this way', he will listen to you, but the other man would not listen to you, he will call a meeting, he will start it and end it, so why call the meeting? We were all here when he inaugurated his special advisers and he said, yes, you are my advisers and I have inaugurated you, but I will not take your advice.

You were part of the Atiku/Obasanjo government.  What really went wrong between Obasanjo and Atiku. Was the fight unavoidable?

Well, you see, we are talking about democracy.

Atiku, being a democrat, was able to establish a solid relationship with the governors and Obasanjo wanting to change Atiku as his vice created the problem. The governors now went to Atiku to say 'fine, if this man is going to run without you, then, you will run against him and we will back you.'

So, when it dawned on Obasanjo that he had lost control completely, that was when he went about begging.

You know Obasanjo, he does not forgive, so the fact that he went begging all these people was what made him to turn around after he had been allowed to run, “so you people made me to beg you, now I will teach you the daylight lesson”.

That was what happened. You see, we have a problem. In fact, at a stage I told him that 'the way Nigerians think about you, even when somebody slaps you on your right ear, give him the left and give thanks to God.' He looked at me from head to toe and said I am a mad man, he spoke to me in Yoruba and said, which ear will I give, this one?  If you don’t get out of my sight now, I will start the slap with you. But again, his era has come and gone, but he has unleashed on us this go-slow government

It is said in some quarters that you betrayed the interest of the Igbo people when you decided to run as a vice presidential candidate while most of the Igbo people felt it was time for them to produce a president. How would you react to this?

Well, fortunately, we all have our track records and I am sure that I am one Igbo man, I can say this without any fear of contradiction, I am one Igbo man  who does not think any Igbo man will ever look into his eyes and say, you are a traitor or you are un-Igbo,

No, it will never happen. But, I can say to you gentlemen, fair is fair, and what makes political sense makes political sense. In 2007, it was not possible that Obasanjo will do eight years from the south and another southerner will take over from Obasanjo, I happen to know that, that was not politically practicable.

I also know that the Igbo where I come from need the presidency like yesterday, not even today, but we have to allow God's acclaimed time in this pursuit. I will be the last person to betray an Igbo cause, I believe in the struggle of Igbo man and I can say so without any fear of contradiction, I want to put on records that there is no struggle of Igbo nation that I have not been in the front, I have participated always and at all levels till today.

You worked with the former National Security Adviser, at what time did you fall out with him?

I have not fallen out with General Gusau, nobody can ever tell you that. We are still best of friends, we speak three, four times a day, we see virtually everyday or every other day, we are like brothers. So, that is not true and nothing like that at all.

 So, from the way it is now, what is the future of the opposition party in Nigeria?

Well, the future of the opposition is that I am sure that after the Supreme Court judgment, there will be a re-awakening of the opposition and the opposition will really galvanise itself for the way forward. And once you have a two-party system like I said, opposition becomes very effective.

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