A lawyer and former National Auditor, Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Chief Ray Nnaji in this interview with LAWRENCE NJOKU in Enugu, explained why his party could win 2023 general elections, despite opposition within.

It appears your party, PDP, will go into the presidential election without support from the G-5 governors?
One thing you will understand in politics is the fact that one cannot be afraid that criticism or opposition by opponents will lead to failure. The mere fact that the G-5 governors are insisting that they must have their way and taking into consideration the short time the party has to look into their grievances, which we know are not objective is very unfortunate. It is unfortunate in the sense that the party in recent time is not strong enough to control such negative action. If the party is strong, I believe it would have by now whipped them in line. It is a delicate situation and that is why the party has kept quiet. But I must add that it is only tree that bears good fruits that normally get people throwing stones at it. You cannot go and start throwing stones on a tree that has no fruit. The mere fact that we are having this crisis shows that we are a party to beat and that is why people are afraid.

That is why the G-5 governors that have no serious thing to lay hands on are trying to destroy the party. They are just destroyers. But let me also tell you that they are single individuals and on the Election Day, they will be restricted to their polling units and won’t be given opportunity of going round despite being governors. They had made their point initially and the people were happy with them but now, the same people have realized that they are doing what they are doing in bad faith.

It is God that gives power. The PDP will win this presidential election despite opposition from the G-5 governors and others. I am saying so because APC has failed the people, despite having more governors and more states.  APC came into power with several promises but today, Nigerians can conveniently tell you that leadership by APC is a disaster and nobody wants that party in power any longer. You heard Olusegun Obasanjo when he was endorsing Peter Obi saying that the country is in a total mess; that if we allow APC to come back to power, it will spell doom for the country.

So you are saying that the PDP is not worried about the activities of these governors?
The PDP is not worried because they (G-5 governors) have lost public sympathy. There was a time people agreed with them but the same people have now realized that their demands are not for equity, fairness and justice. The people have realized that Nyesom Wike is championing the cause of vendetta, having lost the primary of the party. Those of us from Southeast are not interested in what he is doing. That is why I am disappointed with Governors Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi and Okezie Ikpeazu, who decided to follow a man who has no interest of the Southeast at heart; a man who has never for one day spoken in favour of the Southeast. The PDP should not be worried at all. They said they are coming up with their preferred presidential candidate and that anybody they support will win the presidency. We are waiting to see them do so.

We can accept that the role they are playing is affecting the party and its presidential candidate. For instance, in Enugu, we don’t have that kind of activism expected for the presidential candidate of our party because the governor is not showing enthusiasm towards it. The same governor who is the senatorial candidate of the party in Enugu north has tried to downplay the efficacy of the presidential campaigns here but it is a difficult thing for him to achieve because Enugu is a PDP state. He is even struggling to convince his own people to vote him to the senate.

The issue is that the party has made every effort to make them return to the fold to no avail. They are saying without the National Chairman resigning, that they are not going to sheath their sword.  I want to say to you that there will be much more problem for the party should Ayu resign. Much more problem for the PDP than the one created by the G-5 governors. They know that yielding to their request will bring down a whole executive and return the party to more crises amid the short period we have to the general elections.  That is why I described them as destroyers.

Why has it become difficult for party to impose sanctions on these governors to check further hostilities by other members?
It is not as if the party cannot impose sanctions on these governors. But we want to see the efficacy of their opposition on the party in the 2023 presidential election. When you start playing God; He will tell you that He is God. The G-5 governors are playing God. Wike, who is the leader of the group has been having his way in the party. He was among those who opposed the zoning of the presidency to the Southeast when the party agreed to zone to the South. So the party has tried to dialogue with the group but they are not ready for any form of dialogue. They have made up their mind against the party and we have refused to dance to their whims and caprices.

It appears that certain members of your party in Enugu are taking after the G-5 governors and are showing support to other presidential candidates other than the one produced by the PDP?
I must tell you that it is unfortunate that the leadership of the party in the state allowed those things to be happening because ordinarily they should have called to order those people doing those things. I feel so bad and unapologetic of what I said when the name of Senator Chimaroke Nnamani appeared in the presidential council list of the APC. I thought it was a mistake until I started seeing other things coming out from him to show that actually he may have lobbied for that. Campaigning for another party is a grave anti-party activity. As a governor, he (Nnamani) would not have allowed such a thing to happen. As a candidate and sitting senator of the PDP in the senate as at now, it is very bad for him to start campaigning for another party’s candidate.

There is the Speaker of Enugu House of Assembly, Edward Ubosi, who was allegedly spotted at an APC presidential rally in Abakaliki. That could be excused because he is not contesting for any office.  For Umunnakwe Onoh, a former Chairman of Capital Territory who contested the governorship primary of the PDP and lost; I really don’t know if he remained in the PDP after he lost the governorship ticket of the party. He was among the people who visited Chimaroke Nnamani recently where Nnamani showed his preference for Tinubu. Honestly, I am looking into the books to know where I am going to place it because he (Nnamani) cannot be a senator carrying the ticket of the party and still campaigning for another party. I am going to activate the national leadership of the party and the state to take certain decisions to show that the party is not weak. It is a slap on all of us whom he is representing because he is not showing good example.  The party’s constitution is very clear. That he is a candidate and believes that nobody will remove him is not true.  One of the stipulations of the Electoral Act is that you must be a member of a political party before you can aspire for elective position. If you are removed from being a member of a political party, you have lost your seat. So let him not think that nothing will happen.

He is my brother and boss but I must tell you that I am totally disappointed in him. If I had known that he would turn this way, I would not have fought Sullivan Chime (former governor) the way I did when he descended on him. He is not showing good example.  How can somebody you are looking up to behave this way? If he wanted to work for Bola Tinubu, why did he accept the ticket of our party? You cannot have the ticket of our party and going for election next month and you are campaigning for another party and you believe that nothing will happen to you. It is not true. I may even go to court over this development. Things are not done that way. I totally condemn it. 

Are you saying he should retrace his steps and support your party’s presidential candidate?
I don’t need to advise him. He doesn’t take advice. This is one of the things that made him have problem when he left office because he jettisoned the advice we gave to him. How can you do this kind of thing? God made it possible for you to have a second chance and you are abusing it. This is a man who left the political scene after he lost out in his PDC. When he left PDP for PDC, we advised him not to do so but he refused and that caused a lot of problems for him. Now he was out of the scene and Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi brought him back. What he is doing now shows that he did not value what Ugwuanyi did for him. He has forgotten where he is coming from. But I believe the body language of Governor Ugwuanyi contributed to this. Since the governor is not interested in the party’s presidential candidate, he will not have a moral right to blame any other party member doing the wrong thing. It is sad. So what I am saying is that these people are not living by example. What they are doing is anti-party. How can Senator Chiamroke Nnamani be campaigning for APC and nobody is talking? Does it mean we have all become docile? What it means is that he does not value the ticket he has. He has as well taken the party for granted. But what I have said is that he cannot take our support for granted.

How do you feel about the plethora of endorsements that the Presidential candidate of the Labour party is receiving against other candidates?
Former president Obasanjo is someone that most people have respect for. He has been endorsing people in the past. When he tore the membership card of the PDP before the 2015 elections in support of Buhari, it was a victory for Buhari. In 2019, he came back to support Atiku Abubakar of the PDP but Atiku failed. But I don’t think he is happy with Atiku over the issue of the ‘third term’ because Atiku contributed in ensuring that the issue was frustrated through the National Assembly. I was the National Auditor of our party when he was the President and I know the battle he fought with Tinubu with regards to Lagos State over the creation of local governments. I don’t think he has forgiven Tinubu for that. So he won’t endorse him. He does not have a problem with Peter Obi.

Edwin Clark has been supporting PDP. The issue is whether their support has the weight to make Obi president. What will decide this election are the votes that will be coming from northern Nigeria. As it used to be, I don’t anything will change.

To what extent has the endorsement taken Peter Obi towards victory? I must tell you that one of the challenges Obi has is that he has no solid structure across the country. During the election, if you don’t have agents in all the polling units, you will surely blame yourself for what will happen. So you must have polling agents in all units of the federation and as we speak, there are places Labour Party has no candidate. So how do you do it? The endorsement can only have effect on a certain percentage of the elite, not to illiterate voters who will be charged by the structure that is already on ground. If you say you are campaigning, there are those at the grassroots who will mobilize the voters to ensure victory and without structures, it is not possible. The Labour Party has impressed so many people within a short while especially since Peter Obi joined the party. But the impact that Obi has made will only be useful in the future not in the 2023 general elections and that is if he is consistent with the party and not jumping into another party when the result does not favour him.

What are you looking forward to in the elections? 
The scenario for me is that the election is going to be a straight fight between APC and PDP and that is because APC is the party in power; they have more states and for you to defeat a champion, that champion must have been weak. Because of the fact that the APC has failed, the PDP now has an edge in the election. APC has destroyed the country and the little achievements they are talking about are not comparable with the damage they have caused the country. If you check the indices you will find out that the PDP did better than the APC and that is why the PDP remains the party to beat in this election.