Honourable Godfrey Ali Gaiya is a two-term member of the House of Representatives. The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) chieftain, who represented Jabba/Zango Federal Constituency of Kaduna State between 2007 and 2015, in this interview by TAOFEEK LAWAL, speaks on the chances of the party’s presidential candidate, Atiku Abubakar, in next month’s election, among other issues.
Despite attempts by the leadership of the PDP and its presidential candidate, Atiku Abubakar, to bring the G5 governors back into the fold, they have refused to return. Is this not a threat to Atiku’s chances at the poll?
To start with, all the G5 governors are still active members of the PDP because they even have much more at stake than most of us. If you start from [Samuel] Ortom, he is a senatorial candidate of the PDP in Benue State, same with [Ifeanyi] Ugwuanyi and [Okezie] Ikpeazu in Enugu and Abia states respectively. Governor [Seyi] Makinde is also seeking reelection on the platform of the same PDP save for Wike who is not seeking reelection. Virtually all the others have something at stake. Now it will be difficult for you to be an active party member and say you will not support the number one candidate of the party who is the presidential flag-bearer. The two do not add up because we operate a system where in one day, there could be a ballot for three separate offices. If you go to the first election that will be held on the 25th of February, there will be presidential, senatorial and House of Representatives elections. It would require more than a miracle for me in the PDP than any other in the G5 to say that when it comes to the first ballot (presidential), do PDP or do any other party, when it comes to the Senate, do PDP and the third, do PDP.
Even though [Nyesom] Wike is not contesting, he has from governorship to the House of Assembly candidates, all of them in the PDP. I think there is some ego issue with somebody not willing to say ‘I have pushed my cause to a logical conclusion. I may not have had it my way 100 percent, let me retrace my steps so that I can join the majority’. Unfortunately, it is not all of us that have that mindset. Having seen the futility of your efforts, you still want to go to perdition. Now it is obvious that some of these G5 governors would prefer perdition to reasoning. And I can assure you that the sympathy which they got in the past for the thing they said they are fighting for has gradually waned. The PDP has met every other condition except the insistence of the G5 that [Iyorchia] Ayu should go.
Ayu’s position is not in isolation from any other positions. All the other positions have been carefully zoned in such a manner that everybody is carried along. Removing one person will mean that every position will have to juggle up. I am simply saying, let us face the election. Then in August, the national convention will come up when there will be allowance for adjustment. But for five out of millions of the PDP elders and supporters to insist that it is the five of them that must have their way in what they want to do in the party even though the time is not ripe is a very difficult thing. Sane minds have gone all the way to ensure that they bring them back to the fold but sometimes if somebody is hell-bent on choosing the path to destruction, you cannot stop them. But I can assure you that the PDP is still very intact. Atiku has been going about his campaign; he has visited almost all the states. The testimonies you have at the various venues are sufficient to convince you that Atiku is on the verge of victory.
Have you given up on them (the G5 governors)?
Certainly, the doors are open because nobody locked the door on them in the first place. Our doors are ajar. The day they feel they want to come back and do the needful, they are always welcome. We can never close our door on them. We can never give up on them because like I said they are still 100 percent active members of the PDP. It is when somebody has been suspended or is under any form of punishment that you can say you are bringing them back or permitting them to come back. Nothing like that has taken place between the party and the G5 governors. They have always enjoyed free access to the party. They have always been invited to every party function. The choice has always been theirs. The choice to come back or not to come back is theirs.
There have been opinion polls that put the presidential candidate of the Labour Party, Peter Obi, ahead of others like Senator Bola Tinubu of the All Progressives Congress (APC); Atiku Abubakar of the PDP, NNPP’s Rabiu Kwankwaso and others. At the same time, the 16 years of the PDP government and the eight years of the APC have not really added value to the lives of the average Nigerian. Don’t you think Nigerians will want to take their destiny in their own hands by not voting for either the PDP or the APC?
Let me put it this way: The 16 years of the PDP, from 1999 to 2015, were the years that laid the foundation for democracy to continue to exist and be sustainable. Nobody believed in 1999 that democracy would survive the next few years but because of what the PDP was able to do, there is no longer a doubt that democracy has come to stay in Nigeria. The PDP was the first party to declare that we were willing to hand over to another party that was seen to have won election.
If the PDP was not so concerned about continuity and sustenance of democracy, they had the opportunity at that time to scuttle democracy but we didn’t do that. For doing that alone, there is enough for us as Nigerians to say that the PDP, as a party, succeeded in its first core mandate of running a democratically elected government well.
If you say the APC did not sustain the tempo of the PDP, I will say yes. Between handing over in 2015 and today, there has been deliberate attempt to reverse the gains of the PDP which we cannot say is enough reason for anybody to say both the APC and the PDP have not performed. We all have our indices for judgment. History is not our key subject, otherwise nobody would have judged the PDP unfairly. But opinion is different from facts and figures.
The Labour hype, as you said, is more on opinion polls. If you look at the opinion polls, it is a sample of the people. The sample of the people is not a reflection of the general public. I may select my target sample from a specific group that may not trickle down to the larger majority and the rural areas that have no access to even be interviewed. If the Labour Party is social media-driven and more media-friendly, it does not translate to the total number of people who really believe in what they (the Labour Party) can do. When it comes to noise making, analyses, good speeches, good talks, let them have it. But when it comes to what people can do through leadership, through the experience of previous leadership, through who knows the road, through who knows Nigeria, through who can give us the proper leadership we so desire, of course there is no sub for Atiku. He was vice president for eight years and if I commend the period of Obasanjo as being the foundation of democracy, it is only good to choose somebody who was part of that to build on it.
We believe that Atiku is the best option. You can have your hype while we have our votes. Nigerians still believe that the PDP government is the best to have happened to the country.
Do you think Atiku has what it takes to defeat Tinubu, Obi and Kwankwaso?
If you look at spread, the PDP and the APC are the only parties that have spread and structure in all the states, including Abuja. When it comes to a general election of this nature, you are not limiting it to a state or to a zone but talking of 36 states and Abuja. The laws of the federation are clear. You must win the largest or highest number of votes. You must secure 25 percent victory in at least two-third of the 36 states, including Abuja. For anybody that does not have the prerequisite spread to be able to say ‘I can get 25 percent in 25 places, including Abuja, is a big problem.
You talk about the NNPP. Outside Kano, Kwankwaso has no assurance of getting any 25 percent anywhere. He may sweep the votes of Kano which is just, maybe, three million. He has to have the highest votes and get the 25 percent, as I said, which I am not seeing, the same thing with the Labour Party. Let me be frank with you, if you count the fact that Obi is more comfortable with visiting churches where he thinks he will be endorsed but that doesn’t translate beyond that. Go to the North-West where I am from, where is Obi’s base there? I cannot see one state out of seven, the same in the North-East. Go to the South-West. Well, maybe some parts in the North-Central. Outside of that, I don’t know where he (Obi) intends to get the highest number of votes in Nigeria and still be able to get the 25 percent. It doesn’t look possible. So, when you talk about spread, you talk about the PDP and the APC.
Unfortunately, the APC have shot themselves in the foot. Nigerians believe that every government must be inclusive. In a democracy, you must carry everybody along. And in Nigeria, whether we pretend or not, religion is a dominant factor. It could have been wise to choose a Christian northerner. I think the battle would have been a very close call between Atiku and the APC but the Muslim-Muslim ticket, no matter how you downplay it, is a very strong factor in today’s politics. At the end of the day, that will affect the chances of the APC in winning some core Christian states in the North. As it is now, they have virtually paved the way for Atiku’s emergence. Atiku’s popularity is soaring by the day. Those who thought it was too tentative now believe he is a material. While others’ popularity is going down, Atiku’s is growing. If this is sustained for the next two weeks when the election will be a few days to go, the PDP is sure of coasting to victory.
In the last eight years, Nigerians have gone through a lot, economic downturn, security challenges and others, which have affected them negatively. What do you think is the way out of these, notably the security threat?
Nigeria can be secured. Nigeria can be well protected. The lives of the citizens can be protected but you need a leadership that knows what to do. If the leadership is at fault or is not good enough, then it is difficult to control the security situation. Most Nigerians believe that there is so much ineptitude and a high degree of nepotism in the present government. They believe there is so much sectionalism. Unless these issues are addressed, there will be divisions, there will be grievances; there will be notions that can snowball into security challenges.
When Nigerians are hungry with no one showing any sign of responsibility, things are bound to fall apart. Everybody is a government to themselves under this administration. Sometimes they will tell you that Mr President is not aware of some critical issues in the nation and you ask yourself how? Nigeria needs somebody who is coordinated, calm, who will call a spade its name and put the proper civilian apparatus where they should be. It is not just because you are my brother, you become the Chief of Army Staff and I keep you there for five years when you are failing. We need a president who can look at things purely on merit, on the impact that a person can make and on the fact that if the person is put there, he will perform.
What we have here is something that can be controlled in two months. We are fighting a ragtag, disorganised army, yet they are overcoming a military that is close to one million. If we have the number and we cannot contain a simple ragtag force like Boko Haram, then there are critical questions we need to ask ourselves. We are not outnumbered, we are not outweaponed, we own the country and we own the government. Then how is it that for nine years, we are seemingly not achieving anything. What we need is a good leader and I believe that a good leader like Atiku, who has been there because of his experience as vice president, is what Nigeria needs. And don’t forget that his home base, the North-East, is at the crux of the battle. He knows what to do to get us to the land of freedom.
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