By Peter Duru

Prof. Jerry Agada was a former Minister of State for Education in the immediate past administration of former President Goodluck Jonathan, Adviser to former National Chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP and Secretary of the party’s Elders Committee in Benue State. In this interview, he spoke on why his party suffered a massive defeat at the last general elections and several other issues. Excerpts:

Do you fear that the APC could crumble upon the crisis arising from the National Assembly leadership contest?

The APC is a party of strange bed fellows. As far as I’m concerned, the PDP is the only formidable party in this country. Over the years parties tried to wrestle power from the PDP and they couldn’t. So people of different political beliefs, principles and ideologies decided to assemble themselves together in order to wrestle power from the PDP no matter the method used. So CPC, ANPP, APGA, ACN and the rest of them gathered to wrestle the power, but the problem is how do they sustain it?

See how they could not organize themselves properly during the elections of the National Assembly leadership. That clearly tells you that more crises would still come. So they should know that it is not just enough to wrestle power.

How would you react to the allegation by the ruling APC in Benue state that the out gone PDP administration led by Gabriel Suswam ran the state aground leaving unpaid salaries and huge debts.

Such allegations are everywhere across the country, that is definitely not what Nigerians what to hear at this moment.   We expect that our new leaders would rather use their ingenuity to right the wrongs rather than lamentations and blame shifting. It is a question of translating the lamentations to concrete action.

Our local proverb says a woman who craved to wear beads on her waist should have a big enough waist line or buttocks to carry the beads. So if you want to govern you must be ready to face the challenges and obstacles.

Read full interview on Friday Vanguard