*Says Obasanjo was not a product of zoning
*’Jonathan has demystified the old order’

Senator Anietie Okon is a member of the President Goodluck Jonathan Campaign Council. In this interview, he bares his mind on some  national issues ranging from the former President Obasanjo campaign in 1999 to that of Jonathan.
He also chides the North for being an apostle of zoning just as he denies that Obasanjo was a product of zoning.

By Gbenga Oke

You happened to be the publicity secretary of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) during the campaign for Chief Olusegun Obasanjo in 1999. Since then, you fizzled out. What really happened?

There is nothing, just that there are some of us who engage in politics to set the agenda and define the direction of government. We are also fired by the need to instal a new order of participatory governance and quite a number of us came forward because we believe in democratic ideals and that the trust given, the internal energy that are clearly in abundance in Nigeria and that trust perhaps, is the best form of governance.

In 1999, considering the role you played in the Obasanjo campaign organisation,  a lot of people thought you were going to be part of that administration, but you never did. What happened?

Well, there may have been dialectical differences and also the question of chemistry between individuals. There are those who were prepared to do things just to be part of the beneficiaries of the appointments and those things grated against my own principles and my character. There may have been some unspoken discomfort about our individual capacities to hold our beliefs quite strongly.

How do you mean?
I think one of the areas in which there may possibly have been differences, there could possibly have been frictions on the portfolio offered to demands from the people of the Niger Delta. Again, some of us do not think that, at the end of the day, the level of one’s involvement must define or must necessarily be the basis for inclusion in government, it should not be the making up of those within an administration or outside, it should not be defined by compensatory considerations, no.

The important thing is that the party which forms the part of process of various components that make a healthy and robust democratic order must at all times be grown, it is important that the institutions that qualify the final democratic order must continuously be grown and strengthened. I do think that part of weakness of delivering governance is that there has been a compensatory ethos in determining our government machinery.

Senator Anietie Okon

At the moment, my greatest concern is that Akwa Ibom State that actually fired the ambition, fired the decision, stood the fire in Mr. President to run for this office should continue to feature as the prominent, if not indispensable factor in the victory and the construction of the administration that will follow the victory of Mr. President. I believe that whatever role I find myself in the past, it is more as a duty to my people not just Akwa Ibom but as a Niger Deltan and it is on the same conviction and commitment that led people like myself and others like Chief Dokpesi, as far back as  2000, to begin to consider establishing a platform to force the people of the South–South to transform into a major political factor in the dynamics of the Nigerian politics.

You were a force to reckon with in the Olusegun Obasanjo campaign in 1999 and is at present playing a role as a member of the President Jonathan Campaign Council. Can you compare the 1999 campaigns and the present campaign for President Goodluck Jonathan?

Well, in 1998 and 1999, the template then was to create confidence in Nigerians and that is why we needed a tested and proven leader and what we did was to galvanise the country on the basis of the accomplishment of President Obasanjo as a military head of state. And, of course, there are things to point to, like the expansion of the transportation system, general upgrading of infrastructure.

If you remember, it was during his regime that the Nigerian maritime capacity rose by almost 70 per cent to the establishment of new ports in Calabar, Warri, Port Harcourt and about two additional ports in Lagos. There was also the determination to upgrade the rail system and expand its reach in the country. So, there was more than enough to use from Obasanjo’s previous reign as the head of state.

Then, the message was very clear, we were just coming out of a long season of military incursion into  our political environment and we were now stepping into the new order that will also be acceptable in the face of our people in the latter part of the 20th century in this part of the world. So, we had Obasanjo. He came forward as a guarantee and insurance against military incursion and to further nurture the growth of democratic institutions and there was sufficient mileage to ride on.

This particular campaign takes a new dimension.  That is the difference!

What is the new dimension?

If you recall at the formal declaration of President Jonathan, I had a role of speaking for the people of the South-South and our message was very clear that we were asking the country to line up behind a Nigerian of South-South extraction. As a matter of fact, that day, I took the singular initiative of thanking the rest of the country for indicating their support for a Nigerian leader of South-South extraction and we promised it will be a massive and enthusiastic government.

In one of my positions, I made it clear that the people of Nigeria have shown the capacity to be fair, they have shown the capacity to be moral in where they invest their political results. When people talked, especially members of the consensus chicanery, about Obasanjo was a product of zoning, I continue to maintain that Obasanjo was not a product of zoning. For us, we believe that Nigeria must break out of the cleavages that had all along predetermined on whom this country will thrust its leadership.

President Jonathan and Vice-President Namadi Sambo are a complete redress to the well-fitting route of having leaders sprung up by some faceless activities that have always remained shrouded in some mystifications.They are being mystified and brought into the open and made it possible for Nigerians to say the leaders they are going to vote for have come through the processes that they can be held accountable, they were part and parcel of those processes. We found that the hostility that developed between Obasanjo and some self-anointed establishment clique was because Obasanjo as president thought his first responsibility was to Nigerians not to some clique of persons, some cabal that believed that they have been instrumental in bringing him forward. I quite understood the hostility that pervaded the political climate in Nigeria towards the administration of Obasanjo from the beginning of his second term and, when he ill-advisedly attempted the third term, all those forces frustrated the moves and I must say a number of us were involved at ensuring that the quest was dead on arrival because nobody has ever succeeded in ruling Nigeria against their common will.

Are you saying there is no meeting point in the Obasanjo campaign in 1999 and the present Jonathan campaign?

No, there is no meeting point because the environment is clearly different. In 1999, the campaign talked about moving on from the foundations which the first Obasanjo administration had laid. Unfortunately, the campaign today has this mountain of ethnicity, this mountain of stability, this mountain of security of lives. Yes, we do know that Nigerians, having had the taste of the Goodluck Jonathan/Sambo leadership, have expectations, those expectations I have confidence they will meet.

The battle cry in this country is that of transformation and the major objective of President Jonathan/Sambo ticket is to transform Nigeria but we must first secure the nation and that is why the tone of the campaign today is about unity and that is why it is appropriate that we must seek first the political kingdom and then the dividends of democracy will follow. That political kingdom is one strong and united Nigeria. It is expressed in the adverts that we have put out, it talked about struggle being that of freedom and equity, our vision is a strong and united Nigeria and their belief is that of a nation for all. The only similarity and common ground between the campaign of 1999 and today is that they are all campaigns geared towards seeking the endorsements and the mandate to lead this country but the issues are not the same as they were in 1999.

You said Obasanjo was not a product of zoning.

Obasanjo emerged because there was a consensus in the country that the zone from which he comes had been shortchanged by the military under the administration of General Ibrahim Babangida who annulled the June 12, 1993  election that was adjudged the best and fairest election in the country’s history. There was a perception that the South-West had received a rough end and an  act of injustice and should be given consideration and that was how Obasanjo emerged.

It was the contention that such move would enable the people of the South-West zone see themselves as part of the new order that was being ushered in and, to ensure acceptance and a degree of inclusiveness in that election. It was, therefore, a conventional rather than legal decision. So, the general mood then in 1998/99 was to compensate the South-West for the impunity that resulted to the annulment of the June 12 election. Up till this moment, there was nobody among these apostles of zoning who did not concede that Abiola who came from the South-West
won that election.

In other words, you are saying Obasanjo was a sort of compensation to the South-West in 1999?

Ex-President Olusegun Obasanjo was a necessity of stability for the Nigerian polity then, but his quest for third term was unfortunate.

Many Nigerians believe that a majority of the problems within the Peoples’ Democratic Party (PDP), today is based on lack of internal democracy and that is why the party finds it hard to resolve some of its problems. Do you subscribe to that view being one of the founding members of PDP?

I do believe that because those who continue to talk about internal democracy live on a misconception. Yes, internal democracy exists in PDP. How will you compare the processes that threw up all the disputes  you see raging in the party? It is because of the overflowing combustion within the party, the party is so strong, the energy within the party is overwhelming and there are people who believe that they have been there with right to represent their people. Sometimes it comes to them with shock that their perception is not the same as that of the constituency.

There are also without denying the fact that there have been manipulations which again are a symptom of the process of our political growth. You find  the hierarchy chief executive in the state who believes  that the presence of one personality or the other may imperil the smooth running of their government and, unfortunately, there are such aberrations and I have been a victim of that in the past. You come to realise that if you speak by principle, you may suffer some denials in the short-term but, in the long-term, those who stood on ground of principles have always come out on top.

What do you then make of the different cases within your party that are still before the courts?

The fact is that there is clear and apparent effort by PDP to practise open, transparent internal democracy. What do you talk of other parties where a national chairman was known to have said that those processes do not matter to them and that they know who their candidates should be? So, you find that it is in PDP that people have resorted to exploiting whatever legal release exists for a redress of injustices or injustice to rear hopes and to rear ambitions. Most of the cases we are talking about can be traced to our party members and it is because the party has allowed full expression in the pursuit of rights that you find some of these, although one cannot rule out that many of them have also induced their views of court processes which is why INEC, the umpire themselves, have now found it necessary to make a representation before the National Judicial Council because some of those cases, if you look at the remote of basis, it ranges from the sublime to the most ridiculous. Some are clearly preposterous, some raise questions of impartiality of the judiciary and it is unfortunate that today the judiciary has allowed itself to be dragged into some foul aspects  of our character.

The judiciary has allowed itself to be dragged into the political issues of this country, the claims and counter-claims now making pages of newspapers leave a lot of us anxious of the judiciary because that part of the Nigerian establishment should be the one to harmonise all the intent of purposes of the survival of this country.

Since after the PDP presidential primary has been won and lost, there still seems to be this element of zoning playing out in PDP and statements by some of the members of the party under the auspices of the Northern Political Leaders Forum (NPLF), seems to be causing some confusion within the party.

Let me state this very clearly, it is the demystification of a certain old order, so if you listen to the governor of Niger State, Muazu Babangida Aliyu, when President Goodluck Jonathan visited the state, he stated very clearly that the new order cometh and that no holy branch that entails bending over backwards should be extended to anybody because, as I have said, there are millions of party members that have worked assiduously to ensure the emergence of President Jonathan; no matter the attempt to deprecate that victory, it was a watershed political development in Nigeria.

It has opened a new political system in the Nigerian dynamics. So, you will not expect an old order of mystifications to simply whimper and fade that way. That old order of cleavages and intrigue-driven arrangement will not work. Zoning, to me, is anchored on a platform of exclusivity. In contemporary politics, because it purports a constriction of the political space, it restricts participation and denies any given political community the right of choices. Today, they may be talking about zoning with passion but, as far as I am concerned, it is anachronistic and has no place in the current dynamics of the nation’s political realities. Also, zoning appears to be a demon’s agreement  borne out of intrigues against the interest of Nigerians.

They said they are angry, let them be angry, but come April  9, Nigerians would have spoken and would have spoken in support of the turning of the pitch of the old order to a new order of equal opportunities. They have every reason to continue to burn and have every reason to continue to smoulder in anger because what that convention did was to show them that they are out of tune, out of step and completely astray of the urgencies that crowd the minds of Nigerians today.

Nigerians are thinking of a greater future, the future of competitiveness not only within the country. We are looking at installing a government that will be in tune with the aspirations of the people. President Goodluck is looking at achieving a better, kinder and more inclusive Nigeria.