Hot SourceAstute businessman and prominent member of the main opposition party, the People’s Democratic Party, Gbenga Olawepo-Hashim, in this interview speaks about salient national issues including recent decision of PDP National Executive Committee to zone the 2027 presidential ticket to the Southern part of Nigeria saying that decision cannot stand the test of time. Chuks Okocha brings excerpts:
The Peoples Democratic Party recently zoned the presidential ticket of the party to the south. Does it not militate against your ambition?
A – Yeah, I said it’s not personal, or about my ambition. It’s an issue of fundamental human rights. The Constitution of Nigeria does not allow any political party to exclude anyone from running for public office that he is qualified for on account of where you come from. That’s discriminatory. The Constitution does not allow it. And that resolution, though taken in error, is inconsistent with precedence in the party. No party in the history of Nigeria has ever zoned presidency.
They didn’t do it in Action Group. They didn’t do it in NCNC. They didn’t do it in NPN. They didn’t do it in PDP either when it was formed. Okay? When the party was formed, though after the annulment of June 12th, there was a preponderance of sentiment that, look, in order to have peace, let’s have a candidate from Southwest. But that was against the circumstance of that era. But the leaders of the parties and the founders of the parties never precluded anybody from outside Southwest from contesting. Dr. Alex Ekueme from Southeast contested. Alhaji Abubakar Rimi from Northwest contested. In 2003, President Obasanjo, as a sitting president, ran a primary in the Eagle Square. He didn’t insist, I want automatic ticket. And at the end of the day, you had Gemade from North Central, Alhaji Rimi from Northwest, Dr. Alex Ekwueme from Southeast, they contested alongside Obasanjo. So, when people feel that there is a preponderance of sentiment, what leaders do is that they allow their delegate votes to speak for them.
They don’t pass a resolution shutting the door around a region. This terrible practice started under Dr Goodluck Jonathan, when Jonathan was afraid to put himself up for a contest at the PDP convention. And some people came and said, you should have automatic ticket. And the consequence of it was that a number of governors from a certain section of the country walked out of that convention and went and joined the All Progressives Congress. That’s how APC came into power. And PDP was house-treat. After 16 years, Jonathan threw away the PDP victories and traditions that have been built for a long time. Because of this kind of thing that he did, I’m sorry to say that those who are advocating to zone the presidency to the south are the same people saying that President Bola Tinubu should return. So, it’s a default campaign for Tinubu to come back. They just want to liquidate the PDP completely as a political party. And they are the ones also sitting on the NEC of the Labour Party, sitting on the NEC of every party.
Tinubu wants to be a sole candidate, like Abacha. That’s all this is all about. It’s not only unconstitutional. Now, we have gone through this kind of road before, under late General Sani Abacha. When GDM, UNCP, all these people said they had adopted Abacha. You had MD Yusuf, former Inspector General of Police, who was insisting, I’m going to run against Abacha, even at the GDM convention. So, when I make up my mind to formally declare, as I will do at the end of the year by the grace of God, this kind of resolution cannot stop me from running.
If they have made a decision, is there any likelihood of you challenging such a decision in the court?
It’s not a binding decision. Even the national chairman in his interview on BBC clarified that very clearly. I also learned that somebody who was on TV, one of the senators today, said, look, yes, this decision has been passed, but it does not preclude anybody from running. It doesn’t have any binding effect. Yeah, they may be relying on some things that have been smuggled into the constitution of the PDP in the days of darkness to say, oh, once this is like this, it comes like this, then they can quote any section of the PDP constitution, which was not there when the PDP was founded.
They put it there in the era of darkness and decline of the party to play games, you know. But whatever section of PDP constitution or new importation into the PDP constitution, different from when we created it, as a people’s party, all those things will be expunged at the next national convention. Even if they have such provision that contradicts the constitution of Nigeria, such provisions will have to be expunged.
I know some lawyers are already making their memo up for that. It will come up at the national convention. So it cannot preclude me from running if I so decide to run, because, I mean, to be clear, you are going to have many NEC meetings before the primaries. This is not the final NEC meeting. The provisions of the party constitution even allows for special convention. If you need to have a special convention and you have enough signature to call the second convention over constitutional matters, you will call it. So, I mean, the people who are pushing this thing are very young people in politics. You know, we’ve been through all these before, and we’ve tackled all these kind of things. We will not allow any totalitarian importation into the politics of the PDP.
Will this your action not be considered as anti-party, even as the FCT chapter of the party has adopted you as a candidate?
No, what is anti-party about it? If Nyesom Wike is campaigning to put Tinubu into office, and it’s not anti-party. So it’s me that is saying that the PDP must have a formidable candidate that is competent, you know, that is doing anti-party? I don’t understand.
Well, I’m not afraid of such task, because we fought this as early as year 2000. Let me give you one circumstance. We have fought this kind of thing in PDP before, and as I say, these boys who are coming, they have loads of money. Some of them were SAs to some of our junior colleagues in the party. They are now governors, and they think they can just do anything they like in the PDP. It will not happen. Let me tell you something. You know what happened in the year 2000? I was Deputy National Public Secretary of the PDP. We were elected for two years. Suddenly some of our members felt that we should change it to four years because governance and chairman are four years. So I was the chairman of the group of 54 NEC members. Dr Chris Ngige was the secretary at that time.
Harry Marshall and all of them were part of it, Ibeshi and all of us. And we said, gentlemen, you cannot change two years tenure to four years. They said they would do it at NEC. Some of them said, ah-ah, Gbenga, but this thing will benefit us. You are still behaving as if you are a students’ union leader. This thing will benefit you. Why should you be kicking against it? I said, because it is not right.
So they passed the resolution at NEC. Then we went to the special convention and defeated the NEC resolution. And the convention said, look, in as much as you want, two years will be changed to four years. Even if it is changed to four years, it cannot be applied retroactively. You cannot benefit from it. You have to participate. So this is not the first time we are seeing this kind of aberration.
So I am talking about all these boys. All these boys, they were not in politics at that time. All these boys that are going around, running around the PDP. They have not joined politics. Most of them have not joined politics at that time I’m talking about. We went to the National Convention and we defeated it.
All right? It caused a lot of uproar in the party. So if I’m in this party, this kind of thing cannot happen. You understand what I’m saying? No matter who is behind the resolution, whether they are governors or whatever they are.
What you are telling me is that this decision will be challenged at National Convention or subsequent NEC meetings?
It will be challenged at subsequent NEC meetings and subsequent national conventions, as we did in the year 2000, when some of our colleagues wanted to change. And so I’m telling you that at that time, it was my tenure that was going to be changed from two to four. I would have benefited. I kicked against it because it was wrong. So I’m not kicking against this because I want to run for presidency.
I’m kicking against it because it is wrong. It is not correct. You do the correct thing. You do things that are sensible. I learned that one of our respected elders went on TV today defending this aberration. He was one of those who defended the tenure extension at that time. And we defeated them at the national convention. So this is a democratic party. The beauty of the PDP is that it’s a democratic party. It’s not like the APC where they don’t have meetings. They don’t contend over issues. They wink at each other and they’ll pass instruction. That’s the beauty of the PDP.
PDP at the NEC meeting said they are zoning the presidency of the party to the south because of the mood of the nation.
Look, listen. Nigerian people are not interested in where the president comes from. Nigerian people want a competent leader that can fix the economy and fix national security. Young people want jobs. They are not interested in all this rubbish about where the president comes from, whether it is North or South. As far as new voters that I’m engaging with, I’m speaking to them on their platform on TikTok and all that, and I have the highest level of engagement on these issues. And they are telling me what they want. We just want a country that works for all Nigerians. They are not interested in your political shenanigans. So the mood of the country is not for this kind of rubbish. The mood of the country is for restoration of the national economy. The mood of the country is for a leader that can give the country security. That’s the mood of the country.
So with what happened at the PDP NEC meeting, you are not bothered. It cannot deter you?
No, no, no. It cannot deter me. You know where I’m coming from? Do you know where I am coming from? Do you really know where I am coming from? We fought against the military. The day Abacha died, I was one of the civilians negotiating with the military high command on the structure of the new transition. Then Dan Nwanyanwu of the Zenith Labour Party, myself, we took the memo from the Institute for Civil Society, the Underground Secretariat, to Fort IBB. They were moving tanks all about when the life of the country was in parlance. We were there. We were civilians among soldiers. Some of the people who are running their mouth now about fighting for democracy, they were not here. They were drinking cognac in foreign embassies abroad. We are here in Abuja.
So who are these people? They are not in a position to stop me. If the military could not stop me, who are these ones? They can’t stop me.
So, what happened despite the shortcomings of the NEC meeting? I was there, the FCT adopted you. The adoption, does it mean you will be coming from the FCT or North central?
I’m registered in the FCT as a voter, all right? Bwari local area council is where I am registered. I’ve been registered in the FCT for about eight years now. Not just now. You understand, I’ve been playing my politics in FCT. The whole Nigeria is my constituency. I can move anywhere that I like. All right?
But in the presidency of this country, you are from North West.
No, North Central. When I ran as president against Buhari, I ran from North Central, I’m still running from North Central.
The issue is that the North Central has dominated or the North have dominated the presidency of this country. And that is why….
No, listen, I don’t want to go low on turn-by-turn arguments because turn-by-turn always leads to disaster, such as we had.
I don’t want to go turn by turn. You know the problem that started in Kigali and people started killing themselves between Tutsi and the Hutsi. It was simply because people were talking turn by turn. And when it was somebody’s turn, they had a plane crash, and it was alleged that they blew him up because the bloodletting started. Almost 30% of the population was wiped off. You understand? So when you start inflaming ethnic passion, pitching one region against the other for political calculation and gambit, it always leads to tragedy. We don’t have to go through that. Let’s stay on the same lane, all right? The way our political predecessors in Nigeria have stayed. But if you want to go to the turn-by-turn argument, I will tell you that since democracy was established in Nigeria, the North Central has never produced a president or vice president. At least the South East has elected Ekwueme as vice president. Tell me the president or vice president that have been elected from North Central. Not a single one. So, but there are people who are making those agreements, you know? And then the more you go into all this turn-by-turn agreement, you run into a lot of complications. There are people that will tell you that in these 25 years of return to democracy, that the North has only produced president, okay, for about 10 years, and that the South has had about 15 to 16 years of presidency. How about that? There are those who make such, they make such arguments. So, anyone can throw up any argument they like. Now, look at, for somebody like me and even my children, not just me, my father is Hausa, my mother is Yoruba, but I’m geographically in a region called North Central. Biologically, I’m from the two largest ethnic groups in the country, but geographically constrained among the minority. So, some people who are minorities, who don’t even have as much number as my ethnic group think that they have the leeway to oppress me and prevent me from running for election because they can go and cook up some zoning formula and all that. And my children, too, will never even be president, will never be vice president in their lives.
So, look, these are issues that are quite touching. And it’s not just about us. You understand? So, and there is no need to inflame passion over ethnicity and geography. Nobody chooses where it comes from. And that’s why the Constitution of Nigeria does not recognize any ethnic group. It recognizes states. I hope you know that. There is no section of Nigerian Constitution that talks about all these things. And anything that is not in the Constitution that people are trying to bring into our politics should be rejected. So, I reject all these things. It’s pure nonsense.
Nigerians may not be interested where you come from. They want competence. What do you have to offer when we talk of competence and integrity?
Okay, if you are talking about integrity, it takes integrity for people to want to change two years tenure to four years and you are a potential beneficiary and you are kicking against it. If you don’t have integrity, you won’t do that kind of a thing. You won’t say, let fair, be fair. Let’s uphold the sanctity of constitution and the rule of law.
You cannot amend a constitution and apply it retroactively because you want to be a beneficiary. People on the other side, let them tell me one of the occasions in their history that they have stood for principle or for anything. It’s always about their pocket, their belly, and their power.
Now, I’ve been in private business for 34 years now, globally, across Europe, America, Asia. I’ve built corporations that are creating jobs in Nigeria that there are turnovers that are bigger than most of the turnovers of the state governors we are talking about. I didn’t inherit this money, all right? So, you have to be competent and blessed by God to be able to have that achievement if you didn’t have it as inheritance. And most people who have shown competence in businesses, in other civil society engagements, rather than being just career politicians, having nothing else than being promoted from local government chairman to governor, to these, they have never worked in their life. They have never built anything with their hands and they just suddenly appear with loads of cars and billions. I think Nigeria needs something different, not that kind of thing. We need people who have character, who have history, who have built some things with their hands. So, if you talk about competence, we due modesty by the grace of God, God has given me the skills to organize this country, to manage this country.
One of the major challenges of this country is insecurity. Because this insecurity has affected the economy and people cannot go to farm and if you don’t go to farm, people will be hungry. How will you tackle insecurity?
You know, I’ve been speaking on insecurity for the past seven years, and some of the interviews I’ve had with you in the past had bordered on these things, and I made a lot of recommendations, all right? One of it is that we need to decentralize policing, and I don’t know why people are reluctant, because you have to deal with the issues at the level of the communities. So local government, states must also have the legislative enablement to create their own police, not vigilantes, not militias, proper police. That’s number one, as we had in the First Republic. That is true federalism.
Secondly, we need to rebuild the security agencies. I think some are quite overstretched and demoralized. This country used to create order in other African countries and West African countries. We sent troops to stop the war in Liberia. We sent troops to stop the war in Sierra Leone. We did very well in peacekeeping effort in Darfur. So we are not the country whose army and security personnel should be chased around by young boys that hardly have good shoes. You know, there is something wrong. And I know what is wrong. But most of the details of what I’m going to do in the security front are not things that you want to pre-discuss. You know, you can just outline the general perspective that we will decentralize security. We will build a new architecture to handle insecurity and nip it in the bud. And it should be of concern to a lot of people because the intelligence I have is that if we don’t have a drastic change by the end or before the end of 2027, you may have the creation of a terror-backed state between Zamfara, Kebbi, part of Katsina and Kaduna. So security is not just critical, it is urgent. And so we can’t go the way we have been going in the past 10 years we have to go in a new direction.
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