*My regrets in politics
*Says Buhari would make a  difference

Alhaji Isyaku Ibrahim is a politician with a sense of history. In this interview, he takes the reader down memory lane, from the political developments in Nigeria in the first republic, down to the second republic in which he was actively involved, and the aborted third republic.Ibrahim also speaks on the formation of the Peoples’ Democratic Party, PDP, as a pioneer member, the administration of Obasanjo and the ongoing political process. Excerpts:

As one of the founding fathers of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, what would you say were the philosophies behind the founding of the party?

First and foremost, the philosophy behind the founding of PDP was that we wanted to have a nationhood called Nigeria and because of this nationhood and democracy, that is why we came together from at least 13 political associations to dissolve the associations and become one in PDP, sharing identical philosophy.

We founded PDP because we wanted the average Nigerian to have a sense of belonging regardless of whether you come from a small ethnic tribe or a bigger tribe, at least you will have that sense of belonging as a Nigerian. So, the motive was to build nationhood.

Isyaku Ibrahim

Nationhood! How did you plan to achieve that?

That is the reason we came about zoning because we believed that, in zoning, the six zones in Nigeria and eventually each one of them will have somebody from their zone to become president of this country. If we believe in nationhood, there is a possibility the presidency will go round, though this country is divided into two, we can take somebody from the South-South, South –East or South-West to be the president from the South. Also, there are the North-Central, North–West and North–East zones. When we agreed that our southern brothers should produce the president, the three zones automatically had the right to contest for that position and that is why General Olusegun Obasanjo was the only person from the South-West.

From the South-South, we had Don Etiebet, Graham-Douglas and Philip Asiodu and, from the South-East, we had Dr. Alex Ekwueme, Jim Nwobodo. For Dr. Alex Ekwueme, I was involved in his campaign as the Director of the campaign. We all went to Jos for the PDP convention under the late chairman, Chief Sunday Awoniyi, and the convention was acclaimed to be a transparent one and all these people contested and Obasanjo emerged the winner, second to Obasanjo was Dr. Alex Ekwueme at the primaries.

And, of course, Alex Ekwueme stood up and made a powerful concession speech which preached unity and that the party will work together to support our presidential flag-bearer and he was involved in the campaign of Gen. Obasanjo. The whole thing went smoothly because we presented a well- articulated programme for Nigerians, what we were going to do for Nigerians and Nigerians trusted us in 1999 and voted for us because we had a well- articulated system. So, we won in 1999 because they gave us the mandate.

But the party has since missed it.
What happened? Obasanjo came into power and, of course, brought out a committee to articulate the blue-print under the chairmanship of General T.Y. Danjuma and Adamu Ciroma. The programme document was well-articulated and this is what we were expected to do for Nigeria and, had it been we implemented that programme, Nigeria would have been a great country today, we would not have been talking about all these problems – power, energy, un-employment, industry, because everything was covered. But, unfortunately, for me, personally, I have been vindicated by all that is happening now in the country.

Vindicated? How?

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Read the concluding part of this interview in tomorrow’s edition of Sunday Vanguard.