By DAPO AKINREFON

ALHAJI Lai Mohammed, the Interim National Publicity Secretary of the  All Progressive Congress, APC, in this interview, lampoons those criticizing the party for opposing the proposed National Conference. He explains why the APC had decided not  to throw its weight behind the conference. Excerpts:

Mixed reactions have greeted the proposed National Conference and your party has been in the forefront of those against it. What informed this decision?

Anybody who read our statement will not be in doubt of our position. Firstly, we said we are not against any genuine, honest attempt to discuss the Nigerian question. However, we refuse to be taken for a ride when the convener is insincere, without credibility and is confused. The greatest obstacle to this conference is the credibility of the convener. The convener had  robustly defended his position on why there should be no National Conference. He found an ally in the National Assembly, in the sense that the Nigerian people have spoken via the 2011 elections and sovereignty lies in the elected representatives at the various levels.

Now, all of a sudden, the president found himself enmeshed in a corruption scandal, security challenges, unemployment, ASUU strike, decayed infrastructure and he saw his ranking plummeting to its lowest ebb. He was then advised by his spin doctors that the only way out of quagmire is  to give to Nigerians a Greek gift.

Most progressives are thrilled with the idea of a National Conference. But they also made it clear that whatever National Conference we are going to have, must be sovereign.  Again, his local advisers saw the rising profile of the APC and saw the opportunity to throw a clog in the wheels of the APC by dangling the carrot of the National Conference.

Alh. Lai Mohammed

Their thought was clearly to divide the APC along North and South. Don’t forget that the South-west  has been clamouring for a Sovereign National Conference, while the North, before, was adamant if there was going to be any National Conference, it will be sudden.  We said we are not against any genuine attempt to solve the national question, so we support the National Conference provided  the convener is sincere. But we now said that in this instance, it is clear that the convener is insincere because he does not have an agenda.

When the convener first raised the issue, the day he was swearing in the Advisory Committee, he called it national conversation but while the committee was boasting to everybody that there will be no,  no, go areas and that it was going to be a genuine National  Conference, the president threw in the dabbler that the outcome of the conference will be subjected to the approval of the National Assembly reducing the whole thing to constitutional amendment.

So, how do you expect us as a political party to sign in to this kind of deception and diversionary tactics  on  the part of the president?

The antecedents of the past National Conferences are pointers to the fact that anytime a sitting president calls for a National Conference or whatever name, he has only one thing in mind. It is either to perpetuate himself in office, like the case of Babangida, transmit from a military president to a civilian, like the case of Abacha, or seek to elongate his tenure like Obasanjo.

At the end, nothing happened. We will probably support a National Conference where the convener is sincere and where he is not confused and that will be subjected to a national referendum.

But it should have been expected that the APC governors and some leaders of the party especially from the South-west  will  consult with eminent personalities within the geo-political zone before taking their decision because the impression being  created is that they are acting  the script of Asiwaju Bola Tinubu?

Is the APC a South-west party? How many governors are in the APC? There are 11 governors, how many of them are from the South-west? Only  five.

Some people are deliberately ingenious and because they want to arrive at a conclusion, they overlook their fault? How do you think, for instance, that  Asiwaju could rail road people like Tom Ikimi, Buhari, Modu Sheriff,  Yerima, Shekarau,  Fashola, Al-Makura, Shettima, and others into taking a position?

The APC governors met and deliberated over this, came to the party and gave the party their position on the matter.  We are not the only group that has given reasons  this conference should not hold. I think we should make a distinction between a political party and an ethnic nationality.

The advisory committee has been going round holding town hall meetings and this is gaining momentum… If it is gaining momentum, that means it is becoming popular. Is there any way that the APC can stop anyone that wants to attend the conference?

If the government comes out with a position today and says this is how you are going to elect your members of the National Conference, what are we going to do? All we can is not participate, we cannot stop it. We have never said people should not go, all we are saying is that we do not believe in the sincerity of the convener, it is a waste of time and even the convener has said at the beginning that whatever you say  will be subjected to the approval of the National Assembly, so people should think.

The argument of those in support is that if a conference is not held before 2015, it might be dangerous for us to conduct another election considering the crisis situation in the North?

What has changed between 2011 and today?Was Boko Haram not existing in 2011? Was there no corruption in 2011? I think it is quite ingenious to say that if the National Conference is not held between now and 2015, elections will be impossible to conduct. Of course that exposes the agenda of Mr President that he does not want elections at all.

If he does not want elections, all he needs to do is say that he is bound to popular demand that the conference will be sovereign and will be subjected to a national referendum and that whatever they say is final. But of course he will not say that because he is not sincere. In all the other National Conferences we have held before, the president comes up with an agenda first, he does not set a committee to go and look for the agenda. But he is now saying that we Nigerians are the ones to set up the agenda.

The leadership of the APC has been going round to meet with some leaders of the New PDP, but there is this insinuation that it is a plan to sell the rights of the Yoruba to the North…

When did it become unconstitutional for a group to meet with other Nigerians? There is only one purpose why political parties are formed, it is to form government. We do not form government by excluding some people, we form government, especially in Nigeria  where you have multi-cultural values, multi-religious values and multi-ethnic nationalities and that is all we have done. We are not stretching our hand of friendship to a particular geo-political zone.

During our visit, we also mentioned it that those who are propagating that message are mischievous. Is it not an open secret that Chief Olusegun Obasanjo, was the choice of the North? That time they were not selling Yoruba to the North. Are Rotimi Amaechi, Rochas Okoroacha and Adams Oshiomhloe from the North?

And of course, we are not limiting our visit to the the seven governors, we are continuing our meeting to other major stakeholders of this country. It is not  only these seven governors that we are going to visit because we are on a rescue mission and, if you want to rescue this country, you better forget about ethnicity because if this country sinks, every ethnic group will sink with it.

Is it true that APC manifesto states that you will abide by the dictates of the 1999 Constitution and that you prefer it to a National Conference?

Any political party that does not recognize the Nigerian  Constitution as the ground norm of all our laws is not a political party because we all derive our laws from the Constitution. It is in the Constitution that we can form political parties. For us, the Nigerian constitution is sacrosanct, what that means is that we shall do nothing to undermine the constitution.

If tomorrow, there is a new Constitution, we will still be bound by it. So, I think they are stretching things too far to say that because the APC says that the Nigerian Constitution is sacred, we are not going to support the National Conference. In any event,  at the time our manifesto was put in place, did anybody ever think that the president was going to talk about  National  Conference? The manifesto was put in place in February this year, we submitted our manifesto to INEC in May. So, I will say those saying that are stretching things too far.

But you agree that the Constitution needs  thorough amendment.

We are the foremost in arguing that the Constitution is not perfect, we are the foremost in arguing for a branded federalism. Our point is that we do not believe in the sincerity of the convener of this National Conference. All this is about credibility, it is not about the concept but about the convener himself.

The credibility of the convener is at stake and he has even confirmed our fears by not having a single agenda.