Wike Gave Us Condition Not To Field Presidential Candidate In 2027 — Sani
Umar Sani is a chieftain of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP). In this interview, he speaks on the party’s elective convention in Ibadan, why the party is justified in its decision to expel the minister of Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Nyesom Wike, former Governor of Ekiti State, Ayo Fayose and nine others. He also speaks about the absence of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), among others. JOY ANIGBOGU brings the excerpts:
INEC stayed away from the convention in Ibadan, despite the ruling around 2.30pm on Friday by the court of justice Akintola. Some people say, will seem to call to question the validity, the legitimacy of the convention in Ibadan. The second issue is the expulsion of Minister Nyesom Nwike and Ayo Fayose, former governor of Ekiti State, and nine others. These are persons, they may belong to another faction, what is called the Wike faction, who have invested in the party. At the time, Minister Wike, was governor of Rivers State, he carried the party on his back. Maybe he then overreached himself and started quarrelling with anybody who became chairman of the party. If they all committed anti-party infractions, why are they being expelled now? Why not in 2023, before some of them became very powerful and very difficult?
The issue of whether INEC’s presence or absence will put to question the convention is not correct. The electoral act is very clear. It says INEC may attend, and in the convention that was brought in Abure, INEC didn’t attend. They said they were not going to recognise Julius Abure. They went to court, got an order, and INEC said, in obedience to that order, we’re recognising him. And as I’m speaking to you now the name of Abure is being reported by INEC as the duly recognised chairman of the Labour Party. These are to put the perspectives of people to understand that the coming of INEC won’t validate or invalidate the convention. The statutory requirements for the convention, which was to give the 21- day notice, has been given and we’ve gone ahead to hold our convention in compliance with statutory court orders. The last court order that was issued was on Friday, around 2.30, by Justice E.L. Akintola of the Oyo State High court, who was in jurisdiction to entertain the matter and who has been entertaining the matter. So it gives us that leverage to conduct our convention. Secondly, on the issue of Nyesom Wike and the rest carrying the party on their shoulders, and that the actions we took were coming a little bit too late. I want to say that the actions we took, it’s better late than never. And even when we were saying we were going to resolve this thing as a family, it became very clear that there was no way we could resolve it as a family because the BoT in their last resolution set up the Ambassador Hassan Adamu Committee for reconciliation. They tried to broker some peace and reconciliation within the two camps. Hassan Adamu approached Wike, he gave two conditions. One of his conditions is that we must agree we’re not going to field a presidential candidate in 2027. Or that this will be a fight to finish. And we cannot wait for a fight to finish. We have to end the fight.
Some states were not represented. Osun State, Taraba State and Rivers State. The delegates from that state and the governor from the state weren’t there. Rivers State, Taraba State were not there at the convention. These are critical areas to look into as to whether or not the PDP still has a standing, especially ahead of2027. The convention demonstrated that the PDP was literally dead and it would be difficult to see how you would be able to bounce back and bring all stakeholders together. Compounding the matter was the expulsion of these 11 prominent and political heavyweights. Influential political figures in the PDP led by Wike Wike, Ayo Ayose, Samuel Ayanwu. How is the PDP going to survive the deluge of court cases, dissents from members within membership of your party?
First and foremost to address the issue of the delegates. The expected number of delegates from our delegates list which the accreditation committee verified is 3,131 delegates. But a total of 2,745 delegates were present. This is excluding the Taraba delegates who came late. They came into the stadium late after the accreditation had been done and voting had already commenced. So there was no way they could have been accredited and so they couldn’t perform their statutory responsibility.
Was River State present?
Yes. Your judgement is because Wike is from Rivers State and no PDP members from there will be present. Uche
Secondus was a delegate. Celestine Omeha was a delegate. Austin Opara was a delegate. They are all from Rivers State. And there are other sub delegates under them. Not all the delegates were there, but some delegates were there from River State. You said we expelled heavyweights. In our party everybody is a heavy weight if you can help us win elections. We don’t believe that anybody is not important. We cannot accept people who openly disparage our party, try to kill it. And then we now say we cannot do anything because they’re heavyweights. We have to do something to salvage our party. And our party is the largest party in Nigeria. It’s the largest party with all structures. It’s a party that hasn’t changed name, hasn’t changed logo. It hasn’t changed anything. It’s the party that’s still existing.
You said your party is the largest party in Nigeria. Do you have empirical proof for that? Is it bigger than the APC now as you speak? Because the APC too makes that claim and has almost all the governors.
The APC is making the claim. I want to ask you. Is that the measure of knowing the strength of a political party because you have governors and you don’t have governors?
That’s one of the measures. In fact, the governor of Taraba State is leaving soon. He’s leaving on Wednesday here. If you lose governors, then you’re certainly not popular.
Because a governor who was elected under the PDP leaves for another party, transferring our mandate to another party doesn’t make him popular or doesn’t make the other party popular. It’s called poaching. Now, when you poach our members that’s not to say we’re out of circulation. The people who voted in while he was in the PDP are still there. They’ve not followed him anywhere. So the measure of our popularity is measured by our acceptance by members of the public and not by the governors or by the president.
When somebody that came on your platform left your platform and went to another party, it’s an indictment that your platform is no longer popular, that nobody cares about your platform again, and your platform has become a joke. Do you think we still even consider Governor Fubara, as part of your party? Is he still part of your party or when is he going to complete his transfer?
I can see you are using football terminology. Fubara, you know the situation. He has been caged and you know it. You know that all the blind minds that were placed before him to make him not be interested in participating in politics. Fubara is neither here nor there. He hasn’t come out publicly to say he’s no longer a member of the PDP. And that’s why in our programme of activities at the convention, his picture was there because he’s still a member of the PDP unless he says otherwise. Now you just told me that the governor of Taraba has just mentioned that he’s completing his medicals, going on transfer to APC. That makes him an outgoing member of the PDP. He has already made a declaration. And as far as we’re concerned, he’s still a member of the PDP. And there’s nothing we can say other than to say he is still a member.
