By Dirisu Yakubu

Segun Sowunmi, a chieftain of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP and spokesperson of former Vice President, Atiku Abubakar, says in this exclusive interview that for PDP to stand a chance of winning the 2023 Presidential election; it must hand its ticket to a tested leader in the mould of Atiku, rather than a political greenhorn. 

Former Vice President, Atiku Abubakar is again gunning for the PDP ticket to contest the 2023 Presidential election.

What separates him from other PDP chieftains who have equally expressed interest in the race?

In trying to answer this brilliant question, I will say that I imagine what an inexperienced leader would have done during EndSARS protests.

With all of the failings of the Muhammadu Buhari administration, one of his highest points for me that make me bow to experience was his handling of the EndSARS protests.

Imagine for a second how an inexperienced trigger-happy, frail nerved would have reacted at the beginning of that crisis.

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He would probably have given instruction to the armed forces or the army and all of that to open fire and if that had happened, God forbid, we would have had Iraq or Libya or some of the failed locations in the Arab spring in our hands.

But because he is experienced, he knew that the instruction had to be, hold your fire till the police and all the complete efforts that a government has by way of his quasi instrument were exhausted.

You will never learn that in Harvard neither can you learn that by filibustering and talking anyhow. That is where you see the subtle work of experience that will tell you how sometimes, experience is needed.

To answer you specifically, Atiku understands how to run and work democracy.

Atiku understands how to manage power, Atiku understands and had gone through the rigors of how administrative civil service procedures ought to work and should work.

Atiku understands how to bring deliberate steps and actions to create big ripple effects that can impact an economy and make life far more abundant to the people.

And you must be persuaded by the fact that but for Obasanjo/Atiku years, Nigeria doesn’t seem to have had any major high points on the overall composite assessment of how life has been in the democracy.

Anybody can claim that he is in charge but the truth of the matter is that some of the players of that era know what the Vice President Atiku Abubakar contributed and brought to the table.

Governors Nyesom Wike and Udom Emmanuel as well as former Senate President Pius Anyim have clamoured that power should shift to the South in 2023. Shouldn’t there be a power shift to the South after 8 years of a Buhari Presidency?

Those men may have become governors by the benevolence of all of us who are PDP members but they do not represent the best insight in how these things work.

You cannot run a similar agenda with your rivals especially when your rivals have better material from that section of the country.

If we go South, I guarantee the next President will most likely be a Southerner from the South-West and in worst case scenario,    will be a Southerner from the All Progressives Congress, APC and what would PDP have gained there?  

We do not zone only for equity and justice, sometimes we zone because we have a particular individual in mind because you cannot zone to my village without first checking if there is anybody who has the prerequisite skills, experience and readiness to do the job.

In any case, that argument even falls in his face when you realise that in Nigeria, we can be very hypocritical. If you are saying oh, PDP is ready to make an Igbo man the President,    maybe you can persuade me on your equity argument because in that case, even if they lose the election at least, they will calm the frail nerves of the Ndigbo.

But I know them, when they speak South they are actually looking to take the ball into their undeserved corner. The South-West has produced the President and has produced Vice President. The South-South has also produced President and has produced Vice President. We cannot pretend that there is a Southern equity outside where the Igbo are and I know they are not looking in that direction. And in any case, it will be interesting to know who they are bringing. Those who call themselves governors today crawled on their bellies to get ticket sometimes ago and those of us who have been members of this party who have never left the party, who have been consistent in this party, who have not gotten really any big position in this party, are not any less members of the party.

Therefore what we are looking for is a level playing field. You cannot take a constitutional right of people away from them no matter how hard you try. 

It is the constitutional right of people who wish to be President to work with the process, to look at how the process is going on, to engage the electorate, to move through the nook and crannies and try to convince the delegates.

Only recently, former spokesperson of the Atiku Presidential Campaign Organization, Prince Kassim Afegbua advised the ex-Vice President to quit politics and devote time to mentoring young ones…

The problem is that Afegbua has been very inconsistent. As at the last time I checked, I don’t know whether he is a truly PDP man. It seems Afegbua is always available to do the hatchet job of those who sponsor him. 

When he came with his agenda to remove Uche Secondus, I was nervous because I wanted a situation where you do not destroy or do more harm to the party in a bid to finish a term that was already about to finish. But at last, they cared not what the consequences of rhetoric were and all their rhetoric was indicating or suggesting instability in a political party.

We were saved momentarily by the nick of time that we were able to do a convention. That matter is still at the  Supreme Court and we don’t even know whether this nonsense they have done  will cost the party dearly.

This is the same man (Afegbua) who when the party finished everything and chose a governorship candidate in Edo State, he boastfully and publicly worked against the
party. Shall I now begin to exchange words with a man who has not been consistently PDP when in the real sense of the word, I have been PDP since the day the party had been inexistence.  

And my sympathy for them has not been without my own concern for some of the things they do. You are either a citizen of a country or you are not. You are either a member of a political party or you are not. It comes with its own baggage.

Have you ever heard Bola   Ahmed Tinubu with all of the rumours, suspicion and with all of the things that have been done to him, say one day he want to do anti party? Men like that inspire me in terms of consistency.  I have said my piece on Afegbua matter. You do not have the right to bully anybody. The decision to contest an election is first personal, then it requires family support, consultation and planning, counting the cost and putting yourself together to examine whether you have all it takes to do it.  

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