Former Military Administrator, Air Commodore Idongesit Nkanga (rtd), is one of the renowned chieftains of the People’s Democratic Party, PDP, in Akwa Ibom State. In this interview he explained some of the disturbing political issues in the state in view of the 2015 general elections. Excerpts:

By Chioma Onuegbu

Will the defection of so many aggrieved stakeholders of the PDP in the state to opposition parties especially the APC not affect the party in the polls?

As a matter of fact you don’t know how relieved we are in the PDP. You see when there is problem and even in the days of the Bible they said take Jonah out of the boat, so that the sea will be calm.

That is what we have now, so whoever is in PDP we know is in PDP. Right now we are even saying we don’t want the ones that will be supporting Nicodemously. They come in the night and in the afternoon they are somewhere else. If you are in the PDP be loyal to the PDP and stay there. And when they talk of defection, you must have been in the party before you start defecting.

Some of the people that I heard have defected were not in the PDP. This is just the first time some of them are coming into politics, so if some of them crossed over to any other party that you are seeing, there are certain things to consider. Sometimes because you are in government for so long and you pretend that you are in that party in that government.

Position in the party

We should ask them what and what  position have they held in the party? What have they really done that we can say yes, this was the PDP man that did this.

Some of them were just in government, just working as civil servants and when they retired they decided to go into politics. This is the first time they are actually choosing a party that we are hearing about. And number two I read in the local paper that about 28,000 defected to APC. Even this new stadium that we built that is 30, 000 capacity. Can you imagine the place they use as secretariat which is less than half a football field and they said 28, 000 have defected. Even that old stadium will not accommodate 28, 000, so how would that have been? This state up till this time is about 98 percent PDP, so if you see a few PDP people that believe they could stand alone or go into some other party to pursue their interest that is fine.

What are the chances of your party’s candidate, Udom Emmanuel in the governorship election?

He has very bright chances, not only that he has the chance I am also praying that he wins the election. You are here and regardless of what anybody has said, there has been a touch of difference in the lives of the people here. We have seen infrastructural renaissance in place, nobody can deny that. Whether it is the opposition or the ruling party would have seen that something has been put in place.

Udom Emmanuel’s emergence was a result of a research. The area of zoning ended with what the party wanted, so that one was the first step. The party, PDP said it is in their constitution to support zoning and rotation of elective positions, so that one is there. If you are a good party person you will not go against what the party has said. If you don’t respect the party you cannot be loyal to the party.

And as of now there are 3 senatorial districts and the other two have had it and it is only one that is left. So you don’t need to go to school  to know that it should go to Eket district.

But why do you think Akwa Ibom people are still agitating that he is imposed on them?

As a matter of fact agitation and imposition come from the vocabulary of opposition. That is the truth because if the party has said, it should go to Eket Senatorial district, why should somebody from Uyo Senatorial district stand up and agitate? So that agitation is unacceptable. A matter of imposition we know that in this state, earlier on there were some other people that seemed to be favoured, how come we didn’t talk about imposition at that time. Is it when Udom came that imposition came?

We know that the matter of who will succeed Akpabio did not just start.

Who succeeds Akpabio

There were some body languages that people felt it should go somewhere but the truth there is if the establishment so to say is with me, I won’t call it imposition, if it is with somebody else I will say they are imposing somebody.

Some say that the people of Akwa Ibom are opposed to President Jonathan for not doing anything for the state or the South-South. Do you agree?

As a matter of fact I can tell you that the South-South has unanimously said that Mr. President is going back. I can say this from the position of authority. I am the Chairman of the South-South People’s Assembly and the very first shout that he should be given a second chance came from me.

I was the one that made that announcement on the television, appealing to other Nigerians to give him a second chance.  Sometimes we make blanket statements. It will be nice to call Mr. President and say sit down one day and say this is Jonathan’s administration and then take it sector by sector and look at the past presidents that we have had, there is no sector that you will say ah, this president did better than Jonathan including President Obasanjo that just finished.