The PDP members and stakeholders have been beating their heads trying to figure out why they were white-washed in the recently concluded elections. Ahmed Gulak, a former adviser to the president granted an interview on the issue.
Ahmed Gulak, former special adviser to President Jonathan on political matters opens up on the 2015 electoral woes of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP.
The former Adamawa State House of Assembly Speaker is sure that the PDP would bounce back, but first Mu’azu and his team has to go.
Read excerpts below: -
What was your reaction when your party lost the presidency and governorship of Adamawa State?
Nigerians must learn that the country belongs to all of us and we must remain united. The Nigeria we want is the one that takes care of everybody, irrespective of your religion and tribe. The leadership we want is one that takes care of everybody. A leadership that is selfless, considerate, leadership that is hungry for development and consider every Nigerian as equal partner.
This is the first time that a sitting president lost his re-election bid, and from your party. What happened?
We lost the presidency because the party was not cohesive. The PDP could not manage its successes after the 2011 elections. We had won overwhelming in the states and at the center, but we didn’t move as a united family. Everybody was trying to create an empire or territory for himself within the party. We were dragging each other down. It got to a point when the leadership of the party went from bad to worse. With the coming of Adamu Mu’azu as the party chairman, the situation nose-dived. There was no cohesion, Mu’azu was creating an empire for himself, and there was no unity of purpose. The National Working Committee (NWC) as a team was not working. Mu’azu considers himself as the chairman of the NWC and because most of the members of the NWC who pushed for the removal of Bamanga Tukur were now ashamed to come and complain about Mu’azu again, that was why Mu’azu rode on their backs with impunity. It was the NWC that pushed for the removal of Bamanga and Mu’azu came in and discovered that he was worse than Bamanga, but they were mute.
But why were people like you silent when you noticed this?
We were not silent, in my own way, I did my best. As the then political adviser to the president, I stood by Bamanga until the last because I knew the implication. Bamanga was brought in by Mr President and so he was the only person that had the president’s interest at heart. All others were brought in by one interest or the other. I told Mr President that Bamanga might have his own weaknesses but he is loyal. When there was this gang up by some governors to remove Bamanga, the president had to cave in. The governors were threatening to leave the party and the president did not use the powers available to him to stop them. I told the president that Mu’azu was a political suicide. But some forces, a cabal ensured that Mu’azu became the chairman and immediately he became the chairman, they started plotting our removal. Bamanga was gone, the chief of staff was removed and myself.
Who are members of these cabal?
They are the people who never wanted Mr President to be president in the first place and these were the forces that fought Mr President even during his acting capacity days. These were the forces that brought up the zoning formula in order to stop Mr President from contesting the elections in 2011. The political vibrancy and mobilisation died down when we were kicked out so that they can have their way. The result is what you saw at the polls.
But some have blamed the massive loss on Mr President’s weakness and his inability to deliver the dividend of democracy to Nigerians?
It is not true. President Jonathan’s administration has done a lot in terms of education, railway, and agriculture. They have created fourteen more universities, road networks have been turned around. What ensured that Mr president didn’t win the elections were the forces that felt that the country must be ruled on their own terms and immediately they started plotting within and outside the country.
The PDP chairman’s heart was not with the president. Let me give you an example. How can a chairman on the day that the president was inaugurating his campaign, stand up to say that, ‘there were lots of injustice in the PDP’. It is like telling Nigerians that, the product I am trying to sell is not a good one, please get another one. So in terms of administration and work for the country, the government has done its best. But in terms of political sagacity, I would say the president did not use what was available to him – his power, leadership and political will. In politics, you don’t build on someone’s foundation, you must create your own. You must create those that will stand by you and propagate your programmes- those that will sell your candidature, and sincerely work for your progress.
There have been reports that the government spent N2 trillion on the campaigns. What is your take on this?
That cannot be true, the whole budget is about N4 trillion, so how can they spend that kind of money? Anyway I wasn’t part of the campaign, I wouldn’t know how much that was spent. We have the electoral act that put ceiling on funds to be used for campaigns.
What is the way forward for the PDP now that there is massive defection to the APC?
The PDP must rebuild and rediscover itself. We have to start on a clean slate. First of all, Mu’azu and his people must leave and give way to a new, committed and faithful hands that will be sincere in building the party. We have some states and we won two more recently. So we will give a vibrant and alternative opposition to the APC.
The president-elect has indicated his plans to focus on corruption. Don’t you think this will affect the PDP because they have been accused by some Nigerians as being corrupt?
Let’s wait and see the type of people they will have in their government once they have been sworn in. With what we are hearing, it is rather unfortunate that people like Ahmed Joda, my grandfather is back in the scene to lead the transition committee. I don’t know what strength he has left to be there for such jobs. If these are the signals of the incoming government, then we are in trouble.
On the issue of corruption and probe, I don’t care, I am totally in support of any probe they might want to do because if Buhari doesn’t probe, then we would be surprised. He has to probe so that those that short-changed Nigeria will be exposed. The probe should extend to the state level too.
The resources of the people belong to the people not individuals. Let the probe be holistic and encompassing.
Some Nigerians thought Mr President conceded defeat too early. What is your take on this?
The president has always said that his ambition is not worth anybody’s blood. The president till date is my hero for Nigerian democracy and Africa as a whole. In the face of glaring irregularities cutting across the nation, he came out and congratulated Buhari and conceded defeat. That averted lots of crises and lots of lives and properties were saved. I believe everybody should praise Mr President for that act.
What happened to the PDP in Adamawa State during the general election?
Well. Like I said, the party was in tatters. You cannot just bring in Nuhu Ribadu from the APC and give him the ticket of the party and expect him to win.
But you were part of the primaries that took place in Abuja. Why didn’t some of you protest then?
Yes the primaries took place in Abuja, but it was an order. I heeded to the parties directives. The governor did not help matters. He did things that the National Working Committee latched on. The members of the panel that was sent to Adamawa to go and conduct the congresses were held hostage in Government House. That was the account they gave when they came to Abuja. Based on that, the party ordered that primaries be held in Abuja which cost me extra budget to bring delegates from my constituency to Abuja. But the party mishandled the issue. Nuhu Ribadu was not part of PDP in Adamawa State, it was an imposition by Muazu and that was replicated in almost every state in Nigeria and that was what alienated the people from the party and the president.
Supposing you are asked to say in one sentence the cause of PDP woes. What will it be?
Mu’azu. He was the main cause of PDP’s woes.
Where do you see the PDP in the next five years?
In the next two years rather, we will re-organise the party and bring in good hands who will pilot the affairs of the party. We will wait for the implosion of the APC because it is definitely going to happen. Then those who left the PDP because of what they perceived as injustice will meet the same thing in the APC and come back. We will begin to mobilise and by then, the partnership between the north-West and the South-West will begin to weaken. Other components of Nigeria will begin to see clearly the agenda of the few and PDP, by 2018, will begin to be vibrant again and by 2019, PDP will recapture power at the center and in the states.
So you are going to remain in the PDP
I am not only going to remain there, I will be a part of it to preach the gospel of PDP. When we do away with the criminal elements, then the PDP will rise again and take over.