Its better not to have any government than for PDP to return
How Igbo leaders betrayed Ekwueme
Obaseki is doing well but losing grip of his party
What Awolowo told us about party supremacy
Senator Rowland Owie. a veteran politician was a former chief whip of the senate. He was also in the House of Reps between 1979-1983 is currently the chairman, National Contact Committee of the Action Democratic Party (ADP).
In this exclusive interview, Senator Owie declared that both the PDP and the ruling APC havesa failed Nigerians, asserting that his new party the ADP has all it takes to sweep the polls come 2019. He disclosed why he worked against his former party the PDP in the 2016 governorship election in Edo state to support Governor Godwin Obaseki of the APC.
Excerpts:
SIMON EBEGBULEM, BENIN CITY
Sir, as we head towards 2019, politicians have started adjusting here and there. The opposition PDP is regrouping threatening to come in 2019. The SDP is also waxing stronger while the APC government is being accused of disappointing on their promises, what is your take on all these?
It is unfortunate. The problem we are in today was caused by the PDP. It is a pity I was in that party before, we were the founding members of the PDP. The leadership of that party brought in impunity in the party. If the late S.B Awoniyi was allowed by Obasanjo to be the chairman of the party in 2000. By the time the PDP took over government Nigeria Airways was on, Aladja was working, Ajaokuta was working, Basida sugar was working, NITEL was working. As a matter of fact, when we were in the senate, NITEL in their account have over N2.4billion. They were not borrowing to pay salaries. But the PDP government came, sold these businesses, as at today not one single staff of these former companies have gotten their pensions and gratuities. They went ahead and destroyed all the toll gates which was a goldmine. If toll gates have been restructured and hotels with security attached to them, the money from toll gates will be able to fix all Federal roads without going to ask for task payers money to fix the roads. Do you know that the allocation for one year that Obasanjo PDP received, was just about 10 per cent higher than the allocation IBB got in eight years. And yet IBB’s performance for those period cannot be compared to Obasanjo’s performance for eight years. So when you say the PDP is regrouping is laughable. The Holy Spirit has deserted the PDP so they can never regroup. This is a party where governors decide what happens, the ideals of the party built by the founding fathers of the party, were destroyed and hijacked.
Few weeks ago I saw on television, they were launching a book by Col.Ahmadu Ali, then he opened his mouth to say he was a major proponent of 3rd term. Ordinarily he should have been stoned. I was even more disappointed when Prof.Jubrin Aminu, former Vice Chancellor of my Alma Marta Ahmadu Bello University, saying that he respects Col.Ahmadu Ali, a man who supported third term for Obasanjo. It is a shame. It is better there is no government in Nigeria than for PDP to return. I was just reading in the papers how PDP shared N150billion two weeks to the 2015 general election. Let me tell you, after Shehu Shagari, then Shehu Musa Yar’Adua, a bit of President Jonathan before he was hijacked by palace jesters, there has been no civilian president in this country. The eight years of Obasanjo was a wasted one and PDP should take responsibility for it because they fielded that candidate. So PDP cannot come back again, they are making noise as usual.
For the SDP, my happiness about the arrival of SDP is that it is depleting PDP and very soon the PDP will be erased and the SDP will be nowhere. Those who are going into the SDP are analogue politicians, they don’t know the mechanics of a political party. In the first Republic it was Action Group, NCNC, UNPC, NEPU, when the coup took place and entered second Republic those four parties died and never came up because they were already in the mortuary. So the old Action Group came out as UPN, the old NCNC came out as NPP. The old NEPU came out as PRP and the old UNPC came out as GNPP and that was the end. So NRC, SDP came in the third aborted Republic. Are you still hearing of NRC, no. So SDP cannot fly. If you are looking for the sins of SDP and their leadership, it is the spirit of late Gen.Yar’Adua that they betrayed that will finish them. Unless they find the spirit of late Yar’Adua to beg him so he can forgive them there is nothing SDP can do. SDP can never be a threat to ADP. With ADP, by the grace of God, in government in 2019, the past shall be corrected and the future shall be secured.
Obasanjo/IBB letters to Buhari
Obasanjo’s letter had merit but the messenger has no merit. IBB a credible messenger, a credible message. Ordinarily, Buhari should not think of a second term but we pray that APC should field him, it makes it a lot better for ADP to win the election. As at today there is no APC in this country anymore.
We are heading towards an election with reports of killings, insecurity across the nation, does it bother you?
Of course because I have never seen this type of killings before.The killings you are seeing, they are not killings by herdsmen, they are killings by organized killers. Since Nigeria became one, herdsmen have been going around, they carry their stick and escort their cattle, they never held any gun. As a matter of fact I have never seen any of them holding guns. It is those who wants to destroy this democracy that are doing what they are doing. They are hiding under the herdsmen thing to destroy Nigeria. Those who are doing this across the country, they have sponsors and their sponsors don’t mean well for this nation. But the only thing that shocked me is the quietness of President Buhari over the atrocities of these people. They are not herdsmen. A responsible government should know that its borders ought to the protected. I feel very strongly that those who are carrying out these killings they are not from this country. But because the government is not bothered about how to protect their borders, those who are doing this continued. Our borders should be policed seriously and every effort must be made to identify the non-Nigerians in our midst who are killing our people. There is so much joblessness, we have lost our values as a people. A lost nation is one which hungry and jobless people blindly support those responsible for their agony and misery. PDP and APC have failed the nation.
IPOB/MASSOB agitations
That also brings me to the issue of IPOB and MASSOB. Any reasonable person in Nigeria cannot condemn IPOB because the Igbo man has been totally marginalized in this country. Though some of the elites contributed to the marginalization of the Igbos. How do you explain it, since 1979, the East has been marginalized. In 1983 it was going to be the turn of the Igbos to produce the President, but it was aborted by the military coup. Thereafter we came to 1999 when they talked about zoning, it was clear the first President came from the South West even though it was unjust because the PDP constitution was very clear that anyone who wants to be President must win his booth, ward, local government and state. But Obasanjo lost his unit, his ward, his local government, state and zone and yet he became candidate instead of late Alex Ekwueme. And the Igbo politicians who are supposed to insist it was going to be Ekwueme refused to reach out and quite a number of them started singing Obasanjo. Igbo leaders betrayed Ekwueme, if they had stood their ground to say this time it is our turn not South West, we were to have it in 1983 after Shagari, at least people would have listened to them. That was why before late Solomon Lar died, myself and one of my colleagues met him in Jos. We told him he did well when he was governor but the way you managed the PDP, you have sown a seed that will be difficult to grow good fruits. He said why. I told him that the constitution of PDP provided that any body that did not win his unity, local government, state and zone in the preceding local council election must not contest for presidency but you went ahead and gave form for Obasanjo to fill and refused to enforce party supremacy. I was with late Senator Jamfar that day. He regretted his actions and told me it was not his fault that some top military men wants to equalize June 12 and they imposed Obasanjo on them. How on earth will some body sit down in Aso Rock and you think you can give Igbos menial pot folios. When you look at the nation, after the Hausas the next major tribe are the Igbos. Unfortunately the Igbos who are more traders when you ask them to go and collect their voters card they will tell you they are in the market. You can see that about three Igbo men won elections in Lagos, it shows that the Igbos in Lagos are conscious and you have to remain conscious because you cannot win Igbo presidency by just praying. You win election with your PVC so I advise Igbos to equip themselves with their PVCs. And I advise the Federal Government to stop persecuting IPOB or MASSOB members. He should look for them and discuss with them rather than proscribing IPOB. Late President Yar’Adua did it with the Niger Delta militants. IPOB never killed anybody, they have not destroyed anybody’s farm, yet you are proscribing yet. Whereas Boko Haram and herdsmen killing people should go scotch free. Igbos should wake up and take what belongs to them.
For instance in 1999, the senate President was zoned to the Igbos while the Speaker was zoned to the North, after Salisu Buhari fell due to the certificate forgery as Speaker, everything that was done by the Obasanjo regime to remove Na’Abba and encourage Northern House of Reps members to take over from N’Abba no body agreed. Whereas the senate President zoned to Igbos, Obasanjo went after Okadigbo using Igbos to remove him and picked Evans Enwerem. He could not do that to the North. The Igbos started destroying themselves because they want to taste the senate Presidency, all of them. So we feel for the Igbos for the marginalization they are suffering in the hands of the Federal Government and that is why the ADP have zoned our presidential ticket to the South East in 2019.
You were a founding member of both the PDP and ACN which is now APC , what do you think is the problem with these parties that pushed you out?
What you see today as APC in Edo but before it was ACD, ACN started in my house, this sitting room as ANPP. After my governorship election, which I ran under the ANPP. Incidentally, Chief Anenih deregistered Lucky Igbinedion and his people in PDP then, then Lucky Igbinedion, Sam Iredia and Capt.Hosa came and said they want to join us. We arranged it, Lucky brought the state chairman of Tony Omoaghe while I brought the state secretary Gentleman Amegor. I brought Reti Uzzi as Publicity Secretary then Igbinedion brought in Madam Modino Emovon as state woman leader. We shared the 18 Local Governments, 13 chairmen were ANPP chairmen while five were PDP chairmen. That was how AC came to Edo. Lucky Igbinedion was governor then. He supported us because he has been deregistered in PDP by Anenih. That was how AC then came to Edo state. That was why the day PDP went for campaign in Oredo, I chatted with Lucky Igbinedion and he said my leader, we are going for campaign today what do I do, you know I cannot condemn you people. I laughed and I told him to go there and describe us as ‘AC without compressor’. And that was how he described us that day because of course Chief Anenih thought he was smart but Lucky wanted to tell him that he is smarter. They were playing games then. That was how we frustrated PDP out of power in Edo state and Oshiomhole became governor. When Oshiomhole came, he worked with the good, the bad and the ugly and he did very well. Initially Ize-Iyamu and co wanted to confuse Oshiomhole on the issue of appointments. They went to report me to the Oba that I was anti Benin. But I explained to Oba Erediauwa of blessed memory, that I only told Oshiomhole to maintain the tradition by appointing the chairman Local Government service commission and SSG from Edo North because it has been the tradition. So the Oba commended me after I explained to him. So when I heard that they said it was Grace Group that formed AC then, I laughed.
So what you see today as APC, is not AC, it is an amalgamation of ACN, CPC, part of PDP and ANPP. It is an angry organization. If it was the ACN alone without these amalgamation that formed the today APC, they would not have had this problem they have today. When we formed ACN we tried to copy the UPN pattern, party discipline. The problem I had with them in ACN then was that they started giving ticket to new members that came from the PDP leaving out the old members that built the party. They capitalized on Oshiomhole’s large heart to do that but that led to my exit from that party. So if ACN was the one that built itself up nationally without bringing others into it, they would not have had the problem they have today. Today there is no APC, it is an assembly of the ungodly like the PDP.
When I went back to the PDP, I thought we will be allowed to sanitize the party but the god father will not allow us lead the party democratically. For instance, Chief Anenih will sit down in Uromi and come to my Local Government to decide who the chairman will be. He will decide who the delegates will be. We were thinking that this will be corrected but no way. Unfortunately for the PDP, apart from when Okwy Nwodo was chairman, then a bit of Solomon Lar, and Audi Ogbe, other PDP chairmen ruined the party. They killed the party. Audi Ogbe was forced out at gun point at the Villa while insisting on party supremacy. Other PDP chairmen were palace jesters. While they were destroying the party at the national level the same thing were happening in states like Edo. Chief Anenih will always impose delegates for elections dropping people he felt are not bowing down for him. So you cannot expect someone like me to be there.
The final straw was during the election governorship election, I sat with Chief Anenih and I said Sir, where are we heading to in the primaries. I asked him what his interest is. He said he has no interest that Solomon Edebiri has met him and he told him to beef up his security. He told me that everywhere he goes people are recommending Edebiri as PDP candidate, I commended him and I told him Edebiri is the candidate I have in mind. He said all of them should be working. But three weeks to the election, somebody told me about a meeting in Auchi that Chief Anenih has directed all of them to vote for Pastor Ize-Iyamu in the primaries. I drove to Chief Anenih’s house and I asked him. I reminded him that people supported Lucky Igbinedion as governor because he performed as chairman of Oredo but that it was the same person he is telling people to support that gave that administration a bad name. I told him I will not be part of Ize-Iyamu’s campaign. I was in this state when I was running election against Anenih and others when they went to lie that I kidnapped INEC officials. I know what happened and I know those who went to Agbor to pay for dead bodies in mortuary to try to replace those bodies they said I kidnapped. As a sitting senator I was detained for 18 days at the state CID. If the police had not done their work and carried out a raid, those boys they wanted to use against me would have been flown out of the country and they will say I abducted them just to frame me up. I told Chief Anenih I knew those who did that to me and not you but that if it was Ize-Iyamu they are picking I will not be part of it. And as soon as they gave the ticket to Ize-Iyamu, I called my people and told them that if Pastor becomes governor, he will fight me, fight all of us but if Obaseki wins, he may not do anything for us but he will not fight us. So I told them, gentlemen all of you vote for APC. And our people voted for Obaseki. Uhumnwonde Local Government where I come from, PDP could not get any evidence to go to tribunal against Obaseki because there was nothing to get. I worked against the PDP and I did not hide it. But after that election, I did not want to join APC even though I supported Obaseki, myself and other well meaning Nigerians decided to form Action Democratic Party (ADP) and I thank God we have members across the country today.
You supported Obaseki against the candidate of your former party, how will you access his administration so far?
The Benins have a parable that it is only ones enemy who gives advise to somebody in the presence of the Oba. Obaseki was my candidate and I voted for him. I did that as a rebellion against the irresponsibility of the PDP. Chief Obafemi Awolowo told us at a meeting of governors of UPN, Jakande, Bola Igie, Ajasin and members of the National Assembly caucus were there. He said governors, if you like go and use gold to tar roads but when you use gold to tar roads and you are not an independent candidate, your party members are not happy with you because they are hungry, your gold will mean nothing because how would they drive on the road when they don’t have money to buy cars. He went on to tell them that as you are using gold to tar roads carry your party members along. Governor Obaseki is doing well and that is why they call him wake and see governor. He is working on several roads and the city is becoming more organized and cleaner. But the problem I am seeing is that he is too far from his party members. The truth is that as an opposition party, we are happy with his style of leadership. He is working for the people but his party is being destroyed, no synergy between his work and his relationship with people and his party members. So this will help me harvest most of them into my party before 2019. As my brother, I want to advise him to know that party is supreme, he is not an independent candidate. If your party is not happy with you, you are like a man who is marrying a wife that is not happy with you. He is a gentleman I know but he should learn from his predecessor Oshiomhole. Oshiomhole was able to bring him because Oshiomhole was nice to the general public. He cared for them like his own people, eat and drink with them and that was why when he told them I prefer Obaseki to succeed me he was able to pull it through. Oshiomhole was nice to people and he still worked to the admiration of many so I think Obaseki should strike that balance too. I always hear him say he is not a politician, I don’t think that is right because you benefited from the politics of others, when you say that you make your people look like they are fools. I speak with APC leaders everyday they are all in pains, infact most of them have taken their complaints to God. It is not really good but it is good for us in the opposition because I believe that the governor’s thinking now is that the war is over so nothing will happen. But he should go and ask Oshiomhole how he (Oshiomhole) was able to conquer. He used people inside PDP to destroy PDP who tells Obaseki people cannot use his members to destroy APC. As a Benin governor we pray he succeeds but he must be careful not to ruin his party.
My advise to him is that he should not allow the College of Education Ekiadolor die. The UPN regime in Bendel inherited that college and the College of Education Abraka from the military. He should also ensure that the Tayo Akpata University is functional. Ekiadolor can be relocated to Abudu along with the staff. I also want to urge the governor to liaise with the University of Benin and the Federal Ministry of Education to make the St Kizito College now Elaiho Grammar School Eguaeholor-Isi, a campus for the Agric department in UNIBEN or alternatively hand over the College to the original owner, the Catholic Church.