‘South-West voted for Jonathan, not PDP’

The National Vice-Chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party (North-East), Chief Paul Wapana, in an interview with journalists, bares his mind on the problems facing the party over its zoning arrangement and insists that the position of the chairman of the party must go to the zone. FIDELIS SORIWEI was there. Excerpts:

What is your take on the recent development in the House of Representatives, where members elected Speaker and Deputy Speaker from the North- West and South-East, respectively, contrary to the position of the leadership of the Peoples Democratic Party?

The leadership of the party has taken a position on that and I can’t take a position different from that of the party. Politics is about interest and if you remove interest from politics, there is nothing left. So, there have been conflicts of interest among those who have something at stake; because the PDP is being run by politicians, they have to accept the new speaker. They agreed that that was democracy in action. When the Speaker and the deputy speaker came to the PDP headquarters, confessing that they had violated the PDP guidelines and they were expecting the PDP to disown them, the PDP didn’t disown them. They sought the forgiveness of the party.

Now, if you look at the Bible; I am a Christian, in the Lord’s Prayer, the forgiveness of your own sins by God depends on how you forgive others who apologise. So, the party pardoned the Speaker and his deputy, the party agreed to work with them and I can’t take any different position. I agreed with the party. How the party will work with these people is our business.

So, what is the relationship between party discipline and party supremacy in PDP?

Both can’t be separated. They are interwoven. But like I have said, we have a position in place, but because of conflict of interest somebody violated it. The person that violated it came back to say, “I have violated it, but I am grateful that you didn’t disown me.” He has come to apologise and said he remains a loyal party man. If you were the party, would you behave like a hooligan and say, “I will not forgive you?” Would you do that to your children?

If they are not reprimanded, don’t you think you would be setting a bad precedence?

How do you know that there was no reprimand? We don’t go and wash our dirty linen in public. How do you know? After addressing the press, do you know what transpired at the executive session? We have said, don’t do that again and they have apologised and assured us that it will not happen again. So, do you want us to go on air like children and start fighting? That will not be in the best interest of the party.

But the PDP has never wielded the big stick?

So, you want the party to do that so that it can be seen as wielding a big stick? You want us to be seen by the general public as a party that is intolerant?. These young men in the National Assembly have done what we considered not right, before we summoned them, they came to confess that they had done wrong, they have apologised and there is no reason why they should be punished.

The South-West that should have taken the position of Speaker is squealing that it has been shortchanged by the party. How do you react to that?

Well, I don’t want to comment about the speakership again, because we laid that to rest when we picked the speaker and his deputy. I am not going to go back to that. Everybody knows in this country that the South-West didn’t vote PDP, but the South-West voted for the President. Please, they must be given the credit for voting for the President and it follows and that’s why I talked about appealing to reason – it follows that when the President is looking at how to run his government , he can’t forget the South-West. They voted for him. He can’t ignore them and even we in the PDP who had put up Dr. Goodluck Jonathan as candidate, despite the fact that they voted for a different political party, we are grateful to them for having voted for our own presidential candidate, thereby making the PDP have the presidency.

I don’t want this interview to carry any impression that the people of the South-West have been run down. Please, it shouldn’t carry that implication. I am saying that the President must always remember the people of the South-West, when he is running his government, because they voted for him.

But what about the running of the party structure, the platform that produced Jonathan?

They can’t lay claim to the leadership of the party, because it is the body that carries the head.

But the Board of Trustees Chairman of the PDP is from the South West.

[cuts in] These are individuals, we are saying that the South- West didn’t vote for the P-DP as a party, therefore, those that should run the PDP and head the PDP should be from the zone that voted for the PDP. I don’t know what these people are looking for. I say these people, they have voted for the President and, therefore, the President has to carry them along in his government. What is wrong with that? What are y ou looking for? What is anybody looking for? These people must be rewarded by the President for voting for the President, is that wrong?

What about the party and power game over national chairmanship slot?

The party must also reward zones that voted for the party. Is that wrong? It is like the proverbial saying that, you can’t reap where you didn’t sow. That’s all I am saying. That people shouldn’t ignore the fact that the North-East voted for the PDP and as a leader of the PDP in North-East, we voted for PDP massively. So, my zone deserves to head the PDP. The people of South-West voted for the President, they deserve to reap the benefit of their voting for the President.

But the President contested under the platform of the PDP.

And that’s why the PDP is grateful to them for voting for the President, because we are the people who put up the man for the Presidency. But if you abandon your own and voted for us, we should be grateful to you and that’s why I don’t expect people in the PDP to make derogatory statements about people in the South-West, but you don’t also expect us to say, okay, South-West should carry everything including the birth right of the North-East.

What is the birth right of the North-East?

It is the birth right of people that voted for the PDP to get the leadership. I repeat for the umpteenth time, it doesn’t appeal to reason, to abandon the zone that voted for the PDP and take away the head and give it to the zone that didn’t vote the PDP. It doesn’t also appeal to reason for Jonathan Goodluck to abandon the South-West that voted for him massively.

But chairmen of the PDP and secretaries in the South-West states are insisting that the chairmanship should come to the zone.

They have the right to express their views. The people of the South-West have every right to demand everything they want to demand. It isn’t wrong, that’s democracy. It wasn’t the thinking and the wish of the PDP that happened in the National Assembly. So, if South-West gathers the chairmen, and they come to Abuja to complain to the national chairman of the PDP, they have a right to do so, unless we are no longer practicing democracy. Agitation is free. I don’t understand democracy from that point of view of suppression. In a democracy, the majority wins.

But the North isn’t in the majority in the PDP

Definitely, when it is between the South-West and the North-West in the PDP, what is the majority?

But the voting pattern didn’t give out the North- East as having produced the President.

Okay, let us look at it this way. Everything that doesn’t appeal to reason, it isn’t good to do it. If the people in the North-West say they wanted speakership, their reason is simply because South-West didn’t vote for the PDP. If South-East has Secretary to the Government of the Federation, deputy senate president and deputy speaker and they still want to have national chairman, it doesn’t appeal to reason. And if South-West that didn’t vote for the PDP wants to head the PDP, what are you going to say? We have been deprived of virtually everything, we aren’t expressing sentiments, but this isn’t to say we shouldn’t say what is correct. What I am saying is correct, but we can go again, because democracy is not built on suppression and I am acknowledging that these people can clamour for chairmanship, but it doesn’t appeal to reason if it has been zoned to North-East that voted for the PDP and somebody that didn’t vote for the PDP wants to take it. That one will not happen.

But has it been zoned to the North-East?

Don’t forget that I am a member of the PDP National Working Committee. But anything can still happen. Obviously, Speakership was never zoned to the North-West, deputy speakership was never zoned to the South-East, but it has happened.

Yes, you just have said anything can happen

(Cuts in). Yes, anything can happen but the one that applies to reason will prevail. If the South-East got away with what it got, we know that South-East voted PDP; if North-West got vice-president and speaker, we know they voted the PDP; the only zone that voted PDP and is empty is the North-East. So, let us not be overwhelmed by sentiments, let us be governed by reason. In politics you don’t go fighting, abusing people, insulting people agitating over what doesn’t appeal to reason.

You have said, anything can still happen; what if there is a pronouncement tomorrow ; that to compensate the the South-West, the national chairman has been given to the zone.

Statement by who?

By the National Executive Council of the PDP

The NEC of the party is the NEC that zoned it to us. It can’t come and violate what it has agreed to do. No, it can’t work. I know this is what you want to see happen. As far as I am concerned, I am not quarreling with anybody in the South-West, except you want to be unfair to me. But certainly politics is a turbulent work, the terrain is difficult to survive, but I am never governed by sentiment in any way. So, as far as I am concerned, both North-East and South-West remain partners in progress. We are the zones that have been deprived and they have to look for what to give us to go home with.

So, the President can give the South-West juicy positions in his government, you can’t question that one, because if you do, you won’t be fair to the people of South-West. This is a man that is the President of this country, they abandoned their own party of choice (ACN), and voted for him. Then other people are saying we are the PDP, we voted for the party’s candidates and Goodluck Jonathan.

But the argument is that the South has produced the president of this country and the SGF which is at the discretion of the Presidency is also from the South; but the North has the vice-president, the senate president and the speaker. Don’t you think the North has appropriated everything?

Well, when Obasanjo was the president, the senate president also came from the south, you find it convenient to forget that one.

But the Speaker was from the North: Ghali Na’Abba

That is it, the speaker could have come from the South-West. The PDP as party didn’t ignore the South-West, despite the fact that they didn’t vote for the PDP. Please, don’t whip up sentiments that will not help this country and don’t forget that the PDP is running the government of this country and if it is being governed by sentiments, this country will have problems. I don’t want to associate myself with leadership that will be run by sentiments. We can’t run this government with shallow thinking, many things happen abnormally, but with time they are sorted out.

So, what we are saying… politics is like turbulent water; sometimes it comes down. It is like when you are in an aircraft. Sometimes you enter turbulence, sometimes you are stable. So, there is nothing new if the PDP has problems, because of conflict of interest. When the PDP has crisis, some think that’s the end of democracy, but we will not see the end of democracy in our time.

My zone is the most deprived now; the secretary to the government was from my zone, but it is no longer there; the deputy speaker was to go to my zone, but it is not there even as we speak, some have begun to argue that they can remove the national chairman of the party zoned to us.

But the Speakership, that was to go to the South-West, didn’t also get there.

Yes, they are deprived and nobody is saying what happened was right. We are all human beings and we know that life is about ups and downs. We believe the PDP is experiencing turbulence but it will survive because we don’t want this country to break in our hands.