Dr. Idi Hong a medical doctor turned full time politician served as minister in three different portfolios including Ttourism, health and foreign affairs. A long time political associate of Prof. Jibril Aminu, himself a medical doctor turned politician, Dr. Hong had aspired for the governorship ticket of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP in this year’s governorship election due next month.

However, circumstances and other factors pushed him towards seeking the Senate ticket which he obtained in the party primaries conducted last December in Abuja.

In this interview he speaks on issues flowing from the primaries among other issues. Excerpts:

By Jimoh Babatunde

Why did the primary hold in Abuja instead of Adamawa?

The PDP National Working Committee is statutorily empowered to take decisions on behalf of the party. It is the highest day to day organ of the party to take decision before NEC calls for review or the convention of the party to make strategic decisions like rectifying, or changing constitution.

So the working committee of the party based on available information, first and foremost, the issue of security in the three states where we have emergency in the North East could be one of the reasons they considered.

Two, when we were given the opportunity of conducting the primary in Adamawa State for the House of Assembly, there was a very nasty experience on the part of those sent by the national secretariat to carry out the exercise.

Illegal leadership

•Hong: I am Senate bound!

This was so because after their arrival in the state, they were held hostage, they were made to work with illegal leadership of the party which had been suspended by the party.

So when the team from Abuja went to Adamawa State, the former chairman of the party gave them a list to use, but those people because of the briefing they had before leaving Abuja said it was not possible because they were not informed and if there was any new change they need to hear from Abuja.

Unfortunately, when they discovered that those people were not complying, they went the extra mile by holding them hostage, ceased their materials and conducted an exercise supervised by an illegal structure of the party.  At the end of the day they were thinking they had conducted primaries, but the panel members on getting back to Abuja wrote a report that they disassociated themselves from what happened in Adamawa because they were not party to it.

Two, that they were molested and held against their wishes. That the materials used for the exercise were forcefully taken from them and they were conducting the exercise with an illegal delegate list.

Based on that they advised the NWC not to append their signature to what happened in Adamawa state in the case of the State House of Assembly’s primary election.  It was based on that experience of molestation of the panel in addition to the underlining insecurity in the state, I think the NWC in its wisdom decided to bring the other primaries to Abuja.

Mind you, it is not the first time that primaries will be held in Abuja. In 2007, some states did their primaries in Abuja.

Secondly, the PDP NWC might have respected the safety of its membership by bringing the exercise to Abuja.

The NWC has the power to do what they did because they have the constitutional power to change the venue or location of the congress. It is within their power.

In fact, we all contributed money to charter 747 aircraft to pick them from Adamawa to Abuja. We also hired over 200 buses that brought in delegates to Abuja for the congress. We had more than 1500 delegates, supporters and leaders of our party in Abuja for the congress.   So, the exercise was conducted in the open, it was free and transparent.

On the allegation by some stakeholders that they were not given enough time for the Abuja congress?

I don’t think I am in a position to defend the NWC on this matter. They should go and asked them, just like they were informed so we were informed and we took advantage of that to prepare and work hard.

If you are a serious candidate who wants to contest, you should have complied except you want to constitute yourself to a power bloc or become the working committee on your own.

Those of us who were serious aspirants and have respect for the superior organs of the party took the directives and went ahead to participate in the exercise and we were delivered.

You wanted to be governor, why did you shift attention to the Senate?

I had an aspiration to be the governor, I was thinking very robustly in my mind that if the factors are in place and I emerge as the governor there are lots of things to contribute, but as events unfolded I saw realistically that the strength I was thinking of mustering both human and material to emerge as a governor in a big party like PDP was not there.