Senator Tunde Ogheha was a member of the National Assembly between 1999 and 2003. He can also be credited with the feat of being one of the few politicians in Kogi State that brought the incumbent governor to office.In this interview with Lekan Bilesanmi, he explained that despite the crisis in the party due to the emergence of its new gubernatorial candidate, Wada, the party will still come tops in the December 2011 election. This interview, which was conducted long before the courts affirmed that Wada was the rightful candidate of the PDP, also brings out the logic of how the PDP decided to go for fresh primaries.Sunday Vanguard wanted to ask many questions but time did not permit. Yet, you would appreciate the workings of the mind of an Officer and a Gentleman turned politician that Ogbeha, who retired as a Brigadier, is.

Excerpts:

The party has produced a candidate for the December gubernatorial elections even though the candidate earlier chosen for the elections which could not hold in April and other stakeholders are spoiling for a showdown with the party?

It is a simple matter. There is no crisis. The candidacy of Jubril Isa was meant for the April election and when the April election was no longer feasible. And because of the legal implication, the party, after consulting stakeholders, decided that there must be fresh primaries, and the decision of the party is final.

When the party said there must be fresh primaries, they brought out guidelines and everybody who was interested bought the forms and went for the primaries.

Are you aware that some stakeholders are already in court?

It is their right. They have the right to got to court; the court is the final arbiter whatever it says will be binding. However, I believe that the PDP national secretariat has the right to conduct the primaries it feels is right and after a lot of deliberations and consultations, the headquarters decided that the party and democracy would be better served if fresh primaries were conducted.

One of the arguments of Isa, aka Ochocho, was that Wada was not known to be a member of the party?

Well that was what we thought but don’t forget that before you go into such primaries, your party would have screened you and in so doing your membership, qualification and other things would have been asked leading to whether you are cleared or disqualified.

I am sure that the people who did the screening must have looked at the aspect of membership and felt satisfied that Wada is a bonafide member of the party. One aspirant was disqualified; I don’t know the reason for his disqualification.

What I am saying in essence is that the PDP secretariat has taken adequate steps to ensure that who so ever contested the primaries to pick the ticket must be qualified to stand for the general election.

Some feel the whole exercise was turned into family affair because Wada, as the in-law to the governor, was strategically placed to win.

I agreed that it is not supposed to be a family affair and, should therefore, not be done or turned into a family matter, okay. However, the test of his popularity will come on the day of the election. The people of Kogi will decide if they want him or not. They will vote him in if they want him or vote against him if they don’t want him.

I also do not believe that because he is an in-law to the governor he should be disqualified, no I don’t think so. Anybody can. Even the governor’s son can contest if he so qualifies. The governor’s brother can contest if he so qualifies. Being a relation or friend of the governor should not and must not be a yardstick for disqualification or nomination; it should not be used in exercising your civic right.

Sen Tunde Ogheha

Would you agree that the emergence of Wada has further polarised the party?

Agreed! You are absolutely right. It had further polarized the party. His emergence definitely has ruffled many feathers. It has created problems for the party and that is why the party has moved in very quickly to reconcile all aggrieved parties and I think he himself has started doing that by getting all the aspirants together, by showing some level of solidarity by visiting Lokoja and meeting all the stakeholders.

There is no doubt that his emergence has ruffled many feathers just like he himself said. Jubril Isa, who up until now had the ticket, would definitely be aggrieved. When you are going for primaries, it is looked upon as if it is a family, and ordinarily that is the way it ought to be so that if you win you are magnanimous and if you lose you are humble to accept defeat.

It is not supposed to be a do or die affair that if you lose, you then say it’s either I win or the system collapses, no.

There can only be one winner who would occupy the governor’s office. This is why I said PDP has a lot to do in reconciling all the aggrieved parties; a lot of work has to be done which I want to believe has started.

With the obvious crisis at hand, is PDP not about losing control of the Government House, Lokoja, to the opposition?

We are hoping not. I am not a prophet to know whether PDP would lose or win but as a member of PDP I want my party to win.

Even with the crisis at hand?

Yes of course. Crises abound. Crises are supposed to happen; it is the ability to resolve it that matters and that is the beauty of democracy. Again there must be consensus and sacrifice so as to avoid a situation whereby the PDP fell victim of the electoral system – because nobody was willing to sacrifice; everybody believed that he must be there. I believe that Kogi will learn from history, experiences of other states to ensure that the members don’t go into the election with a divided house.

Beyond the incumbency factor which the party is relying on in the coming election, there is virtually nothing on ground in terms of developments to make the people vote for your party again?

I differ with you on that assumption. However it is not as if Kogi State has experienced the best of developments in the last eight years – far from it.

But at the same time, there are some cases of developments that have occurred in the last eight years that warrant some accolades. But be that as it may, you are having a new set of people in government and looking at the people, you tend to believe that they will make the difference and that is what we are staking our hopes on now. We believe that the next set of people in the party will take the state to higher level.

You played a pivotal role in the emergence of the governor in 2003 but it appeared that there was a chasm between you and the government and, therefore, you distanced yourself from the administration?

Your assumption on not being active about the governance of the state is not correct. I have been very active.

With the governor?

Sen Tunde Ogheha

I mean politically. I come from Kogi West and we believe that power should rotate and for power to rotate, we think there should be a lot of consultations and hard work and that we did in trying to make it shift and it was for the purposes of the April election.

Unfortunately it did not happen that way and so Kogi West could not provide a candidate for the party and this was due to so many reasons which included personal interest, lack of sacrifice, no consensus, everybody believed that once he picked the ticket, he would win and if you start a revolution without a compromise and sacrifice, you can never get to your goal and when that happens the resultant effect sort of dampens the interest of some of us stakeholders in the party.

You might not know the amount of work and activities that go into trying to produce a gubernatorial candidate but after that failure, after that April failure where Echocho emerged, it sort of dampened ones appetite politically so that when this last primaries occurred, one just played a low key role because almost the same set of people were on the field again; because if we wanted to achieve the set goal, we would still end up with the same result.

Concerning the governor, we are not drifting apart as you said, that is not correct. I was part of those who made it possible for him to become governor in 2003, and after the initial hiccups, there was corporation among everybody towards the government even though I did not positively participate in the governance of Kogi State but where assistance and corporation were needed, we did give it. So I never drifted away from the governor but definitely the emergence of Wada is a very, very knotty issue but as I said, the ability to resolve crisis for a common course is always paramount.

The Igalas have always dominated the political landscape of Kogi State even though the Igbiras have consistently clamoured for a fair share of governance in the state, don’t you see a block vote against your party in the election in the light of contemporary realities?

Yes I agree with you but the situation we have found ourselves is different.

I am sure you know that politics or democracy is a game of numbers; if you don’t have the numbers then you don’t have the votes and the situation we found ourselves in Kogi is that we find the majority in Igalas always at the helm of affairs in the state and that is because of their numerical superiority.

For us to effect change there must be some considerable level of understanding among the three senatorial zones. There must be some level of education to show that power should rotate. If you don’t have all these factors, it now behooves on the majority to think that it is not their birthright to always produce the governor of the state.

That is why I am pleased with the president’s comment recently when he was talking about zoning that he will propose that zoning should be included in the constitution both at the federal and state level, otherwise you will find out that in states like Kogi and Benue, any politician from the minority groups there will never rise to become governor of the state.

But if we have zoning in place which says the governor’s office should rotate among the three senatorial zones, though zoning may not be the best but because of equity and our type of democracy, it is about the best. So this will go a long way in reducing the syndrome of saying that majority must always produce the governor because the situation we have now is almost becoming a norm for the Igala in Kogi.

In a situation like that, for me, it is most unfortunate. I think there must be understanding, education and I think it worked perfectly in Kwara State. When Saraki was in charge, he allowed minority to rule. There was a time Adamu Attah was a governor because the majority in Kwara allowed him. Shaba Lafiagi was a minority too; he, too, was allowed to rule.

Even Cornelius Adebayo was a minority but he was allowed to rule. I think that is a test of maturity, understanding and of course the magnanimity of the majority tribe. It happened in Kwara. It has happened in Akwa Ibom even without constitutional provision.

Akpabio is from minority tribe; today he is a governor, twice, so it can happen anywhere.

Can it happen in Kogi State?

Not for now. That is why we are saying there must be a lot of education, understanding and the people must have a free mind to look at individuals rather than where they come from. Wada is from Igala, just like the other candidates from other parties, all are from the east where the Igala reside. So if you want to do any protest vote, who are you going to protest against?

The Federal Government was pressured to have the independence celebration in Aso Rock rather than the usual Eagle Square due to the activities of Boko Haram?

That is not my understanding of the situation. According to information available to me, the reason for having the event at Aso Rock was to cut cost as the celebration was declared a low profile, therefore, they did not want an elaborate celebration.

But much was spent on the president’s inauguration?

I am not in a position to answer that because don’t forget this year’s independence anniversary is not as symbolic as the 50th we had last year which was celebrated in a big way. Then coming to the inauguration, this is the first time of having such inauguration, therefore it must be symbolic and I think it was. Mind you, he successfully conducted a free and fair election acclaimed domestically and internationally. To that extent, I think it was worthwhile to have an elaborate celebration particularly being his first term.