Says any attempt to stop Jonathan’s presidency in 2015 is a call for anarchy

Hon Matthew Iduoriyekemwen is a chieftain of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in Edo state and former state Representative on the board of the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC).

The PDP leader who is one of those eyeing Governor Adams Oshiomhole’s seat in 2016, spoke to Vanguard last Tuesday, after some members of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in the state dumped the party for the PDP. He reacted to their defection and asserted that no amount of terrorist activity will stop Jonathan’s re-election. Excerpts:

Iduoriyekemwen: We’ve all learnt our lessons

How would you react to the crisis in the state APC which led to the defection of some party leaders to the PDP?
I have always said that the only thing constant in life is change. And one thing you cannot take away from any human being is ambition. People have ambition and if they feel that that ambition can easily be achieved in another political platform, then they can easily change political parties. But I want to commend the courage of those that joined our party because the PDP is the party for all Nigerians as at today. It is a party that has clear cut agenda for Nigeria.

Sectional parties
Others are sectional parties or regional parties. So if we as Edo people must be part of the national government we must identify with PDP. I welcome into our party and I am happy the PDP is bouncing back again.

But the same people were in the PDP before they joined APC due to crisis, are you not envisaging another crisis in the PDP?
Well in Nigeria politics, crisis is normal, but it is the ability to manage the crisis that makes the parties stand out. We have had our crisis in the PDP and we learnt our lessons at different times. With these people coming I don’t envisage any crisis. We all have experiences in politics so we must pursue our ambitions without trying to exterminate the ambitions of others. And we must know where to draw the line between our personal ambition and that of the party.

Your party the PDP is likely to zone is governorship ticket to Edo Central, but we know some of you want it in the South, what is the situation?
I think it is too early for me to comment on which zone the governor should come from. But as an individual I know that the party will look at character and quality of the individuals, some body that will deliver the state and ensure development. We must look at the geo-political zone of the person, his ethnic group because those things matters a lot.

But I believe that at the end of the day the party will sit down and look at the most credible candidate which will give the party victory because that is the most important thing at the end of the contest.

When and others ran for the PDP governorship ticket, you complained after the primaries that Gen. Charles Airhiavbere was imposed by the leadership of the party, has imposition stopped in the PDP?
I believe that we have all learnt our lessons, I don’t think that there will be any imposition of candidate this time around. I believe that the party will be completely democratic in the choice of candidates. We have seen crisis in different forms and different shapes and was have seen the results which usually don’t end well.

So we will try and put our house together, I believe that the process that will lead to the emergence of the governorship candidate of the PDP will be transparent, democratic. Yes we all have our personal ambition but like I said the overall interest of the party supersedes the ambition of everybody including myself.

You are a very close friend of President Jonathan are you satisfied the way he is handling the Boko Haram insurgence?
I am in full support of the steps taken so far by the government. We all know that the Boko Haram issue is taking us backward in terms of the efforts being made by President Goodluck Jonathan to woo investors to the country. But if you look at the situation critically, you will know that the Boko Haram thing is a set up to stop President Jonathan from seeking re-election.

It was created by opponents of the present government to take over power by all means. Unfortunately, the abduction of the Chibok girls made the whole exercise counterproductive. How can you go and pick up innocent girls? The governor of the state as we learnt was warned by WAEC that the school was not conducive for the exams yet they went on to use the school as an exam center and there was no provision made to secure the school.

I think it was a calculated blackmail against the presidency. I will say that President Jonathan has done well by inviting the international community to join in this fight against Boko Haram. But it clear that these people are being sponsored.

And I heard people condemning the President for not visiting Chibok, but even if the President visits Chibok who is he going to meet there. Are the girls back? If the President provided all the logistics to ensure that the girls are found, why will he now be forced to go to Chibok?

Security agencies are busy combing the entire area and from what we saw in the video, those girls do not look like people in the forest. It means they were being fed somewhere. All the girls were wearing hijabs and the question I want to ask is who made those clothes for them?

Very prominent persons in this country are involved in this and I will only appeal to government to fish out those behind Boko Haram no matter how highly placed they are.
Government should prosecute them because some persons cannot because of power become enemies of the state or try to blackmail the president not to contest the 2015 presidential election.

I feel the President’s approach in handling the Chibok issue is commendable. If the President had gone out to declare war on them, these same people complaining now will say the president wants to kill the Northerners.
Not long ago we saw them saying that the President has declared war on the North. And when he wants to be diplomatic they say he is a weakling. It is sad.