By BASHIR ADEFAKA

Senator Ben Ndi Obi, an Anambra high chief, was vice presidential candidate of the Action Congress (AC) in the 2007 presidential election won by Alhaji Umar Musa Yar’Adua.  He was later appointed by President Goodluck Jonathan as his Special Adviser on Inter-Party Affairs upon assumption of office. Since his appointment, Obi has preached the need for politicians to eschew party politics, especially after elections, and embrace national-interest politics, in order for the leader in power to successfully move the nation forward.

To him, with sincere commitment and unwavering cooperation of all stakeholders, the current socio-economic imbalances and security challenges facing the country would become a thing of the past.  He  spoke to Sunday Vanguard  at his Abuja home.  Excerpts:

Your major advocacy as President Goodluck Jonathan’s Special Adviser on Inter-Party Affairs concerns the need for leaders of all parties to join hands with President Goodluck Jonathan in the interest of the nation, setting aside party politics.  How much of that would you say has yielded results?

I keep speaking to leaders of the opposition parties.  I understand they are opposition parties and I understand their right to criticise and that there is nothing wrong to criticise the administration that is considered to have erred in one way or the other.  Once the criticism is objective, it’s nothing wrong.

But I keep speaking to them that once elections have come and gone, we have to put our hands on deck to allow the ship to sail and berth safely in the interest of the country.

*Senator Ben Ndi Obi….We must drop personal interest and put the national interest over and above any other institution.

The reason is because the country itself is going through a lot of challenges and our peers have moved on from being under-developed nations.  And these are the likes of India, Malaysia, Brazil and so on.  In the 60s, Nigeria was ahead of them and  the only way we can catch up with those countries is for us all to work as a united people.  That doesn’t stop them from being opposition.

We must drop personal interest and put the national interest over and above any other institution.  That is the only way I have seen that every  country is developed.  That is the only way I have seen that people also create an atmosphere whereby countries are built into nations.

And the other aspect that is, a task is of course, the aspect that all of us believe in, the Vision 20:2020.  That was not created by President Goodluck Jonathan.  It was established in the era of General Sani Abacha administration.  And then, since we know that the other countries that are in the current 20 economies of the world are not going to remain static for the Nigerian nation to come and catch up with them, it becomes imperative that we do certain things right and work hard enough together to make this country to be able to attain that position.

So, you see, this is the reason for my call on all opposition parties to work hand-in-hand with the president for us to achieve our positions in the global arena that will begin to see us as a key player in the arena of the comity of nations.

The issue of national conference, recently, reared its head again with the Patriots insisting that there was no alternative for the nation to move out of its present challenges except the president convenes the conference. You once expressed a position that once there was a National Assembly in place, it was within its constitutional responsibility to do so and not by anybody or group elsewhere.  Taking a look at their fresh demand, what is your position   now?

You see, what I said ab-initio was in reaction to the issue of the sovereign national conference.  There is nothing wrong with a national conference; there is nothing wrong with a national dialogue; but a sovereign national conference is almost impossible because you cannot have two sovereignties.  The moment you have an elected president, the vice president and the elected legislatures, it is difficult to begin to talk about sovereign national conference.

Now that the talk is based on national conference involving ethnic nationalities; at the last meeting of the Patriots, that was discussed and it was part of the issues raised by the chairman of the Patriots, Prof. Ben Nwabueze. He did say then that a forum would be established and the forum would meet with Mr. President and leaders of the National Assembly to programme the way the national conference would go.

That is the kind of thing dialogue can bring about. And I’m pretty certain that the president will definitely grant them audience and listen to them.  I have not heard the president saying he’s against national conference. But it is the modality that it will take.  Since they now want to meet with Mr. President and leaders of the National Assembly, it’s a welcome development.

In his time, Chief Olusegun Obasanjo granted pardon to people like Mukoro, a member of the Major Gideon Okar group behind the 1990 coup, followed by the amnesty granted by Alhaji Umaru Musa Yar’Adua to Niger Delta militants when he came to power.

Others like General Oladipo Diya, General Tajudeen Olanrewaju,  the late General Abdulkarim Adisa, all military officers (now retired) from the Yoruba part of the country where the cries of marginalisation have thrived non-stop, were, until recently, on the line awaiting their own pardon.  The pardon was recently announced but delay in the gazette is generating worries as it is not yet clear who and who are really on the pardon list, due to conflicting reports in the media.  How long will it take Mr. President to conclude this?

Well, the issues of General Diya, General Olanrewaju and others that you have just mentioned  were very sensitive matters.  President Goodluck Jonathan, before going into all of such things, needed to do consultations.  Really, I’m not aware of what you are talking about, but knowing President Goodluck Jonathan, he would do some very big consultations before granting pardon  to leaders of such calibre.

Now, as you can see, he has done that.  Since he has started it, he would finish as he is never known for starting something and not finishing it.  The delay in gazetting does not mean he has stopped the process.  Now that the stage is set for such things to take place, it is going to be done to a logical end.

What is your general appraisal of security, infrastructure and other areas of development?

I can say that we are moving on slowly but surely.  Yes, we have faced a very serious challenge on security but it came to us as a completely new development.  Nigerians were not known to be involved in terrorism and suddenly we find ourselves neck-deep in it.

Again we must congratulate our security agencies because, as I said, this is alien to us, but they have tried to live up to expectation by making sure that nothing has happened without them tracing…  And then ever since it all started, security agents have been made now to take counter and anti-terrorism training and that has improved the skills of our men and women in the security agencies.

And we have to give some kudos to the agencies starting from the National Security Adviser (NSA).

On infrastructure, there has been general improvement on our roads and one must congratulate the Minister of Works for at least making the roads motorable from what they were some four, five years ago.  More importantly is that the president himself has assured Nigerians that by 2014, we will report a remarkable change in the lives of Nigerians.  And I believe he has the data of how things will be looked at.

That is why it is also important, as I said earlier on, that we must all support him to be able to deliver on these things.  Let us leave politics.  We have one year plus to go into politics of 2015. So, let us use that one year plus that we have, maximisingly, cooperating with ourselves to get the best for our country and then, after that, the issue of politics can commence.

My candid advice is this: let us work hand-in-hand with Mr. President so that Nigerians will enjoy democracy he has promised them, not distract him. Some of these things you see are just distractions.

Mr. President is seen as a leader that does not witch-hunt and so is careful to be hard on opposition, put side-by-side with some past regimes.  Is it part of his political strategy to win the hearts of the opposition to support him ahead of time or it is just deliberate or natural of him?

Well, you cannot say it is a deliberate attempt.  It is the character of Mr. President such that he believes that you can criticize his administration and then make suggestions and he asks for recommendation and the way forward and it will be considered.  It’s just by nature that he accommodates.

He’s a man who asks people to go around and who likes to consult.  So, he’s not in any way doing so because he wants to woo the opposition. It’s characteristic of Mr. President that he does not witch-hunt.  What he’s doing, he’s acting as executive president not as commander-in-chief whereby you have to use force to counter force.