‘It’ll be difficult for PDP alone to challenge APC in 2027’

Former National Auditor of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Ray Nnaji, in this interview with LAWRENCE NJOKU, spoke on why the crisis holding down the party is still festering and offered solutions. He also believes that the party must form alliances with other parties to oust All Progressives Congress (APC) in the 2027 general elections.

Your party has been in crisis since after the 2023 general elections. Is there any solution in sight?
PDP is the major opposition political party in the country that was in power before 2015. The party in power at the moment has all along been very jittery, that is why they have not allowed PDP to have its footing. They know that if there is peace in PDP, they would be in a big dilemma, because the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) has completely failed in delivering the dividends of democracy.

The level of disenchantment in the land speaks volume of this failure. The way things are, the people are even regretting having allowed APC to come into power. That is why APC on the other hand will not let anything that would make PDP become stable. Once PDP is stable, they would be focused to take over.

The policies of this government, especially having too many ministers, are not helping matters. They have failed to cut the cost of governance. The economy of the country is not smiling at all and as such the cost of governance ought to have been reduced to the barest minimum. You see many of the Ministers riding bullet proof cars for their own safety. It is very wrong.

The promise that the money realised from removal of fuel subsidy would be used to cushion its effects on Nigerians have not been implemented. But I must commend them for allowing Dangote refinery to come on stream, and the repair at Port Harcourt and Warri refineries.

When the ruling party came into office, they did not have more than five states. Now in order to shore up their support, they imported several tactics into the game including harassment and intimidation of opponents. With that some PDP members began to identify with the party. The current minister of Federal Capital Territory (FCT) Nyesom Wike is one of the people employed to destabilise PDP and it is working for them.

If APC is doing well and there are no economic crises such that Nigerians are going to bed hungry, it would be an uphill task for PDP to take over, but the reverse is the case. I am yet to see the section of the country that has improved since APC took over power. In the next few months, it would be ten years of APC rule in Nigeria. We are yet to see those promises they made.

However, we must admit that crisis is normal in any human existence and relationship. PDP is not immune to the crisis, but I know they have always resolved their crisis, especially whenever election is coming. At the moment, if we are able to convene our NEC meeting, every other thing will fall into place.

The problem is not too bad as people portray it. The party has been conducting primaries where there is election and fielding candidates to contests in off-cycle elections held so far.

But now, there is a crisis of who is the National Secretary between Udeh Okoye and Samuel Anyanwu. So far, the matter is at the Supreme Court. I am convinced that the apex court will resolve it and either of them will occupy the office. When we had a problem with Ahmadu Sheriff, which was even bigger than what we have now, it was the Supreme Court that came to the rescue. So, by the time the issue of National Secretary is resolved, NEC meetings and
Convention will be held and several issues of anti-party will be resolved.

Is there evidence to prove that APC is behind the crisis in PDP?
I have not seen a situation where somebody is in opposition and working for the ruling party and creating a crisis in his party. If APC is not delighted with what is going on, the President that appointed him would have called him to order. You cannot be in PDP and working for APC at the same time. They want to snatch Rivers State and that is why they cannot call Wike to order. He is doing everything humanly possible to deliver Rivers State to APC come 2027.

When you come to the party, it is the same Wike that brought Samuel Anyanwu and at the same time supporting Umar Damagum. You can see that by the time convention comes and Damagum is removed, PDP will be strengthened to take over.

Can you say that the elders of the party have failed in this regard?
The elders are doing their best, especially the Board of Trustees (BOT), but there are certain things they cannot do because of constitutional provisions. I believe quite sincerely that the crisis is nearing resolution. If Anyanwu had resigned when he went to contest the governorship election in Imo State, we wouldn’t be here. But he kept it in abeyance, so that in case it did not work out, he will come back as if the office is his family inheritance. That is not how it should, though the constitution gave room for that. If the constitution had indicated that one should resign if he is going to contest in such an election, we wouldn’t be in this mess.

I have not read the Court of Appeal judgment on the matter, but I know that the matter is before the Supreme Court. It was at the same time that the Southeast Caucus of the party came together to pick Udeh Okoye and the battle started. We are praying that the matter is resolved, because presently we have two national secretaries. Again, the national chairman has failed to do what he is supposed to do. He cannot call any member of NEC to order, because he has some questions to answer with regards to what is happening in the party.

It appears none of our leaders is capable of wrestling power from Wike with regard to his grip on the party. He is holding the party in a jugular and the party has not been able to do anything because most of the members are his sympathisers.

Wike will stop what he is doing against the PDP if APC gets back to power in 2027. What he is doing now is to consolidate the office he is occupying. After 2027, he will be looking for the next thing to do and this is either to retire from politics or scheme for another higher office. My only worry is that with the way he has played his politics so far, it might be difficult for him to become the second in command to any president. There will be this fear that he may not work well with his boss.

How about the hold of Atiku Abubakar on the party?
I condemn his lukewarm attitude because he has the capacity to checkmate Wike but he has tried to make him look untouchable. Atiku’s influence at some point got some of us worried but when you remember that the party must run and that you need funding in all your operations, you allow certain things to be. As it is now, it is going to be difficult for the PDP alone to wrestle power from APC. That is why I commend the discussion Atiku is having with Peter Obi and Mallam Kwankwaso.

That is the only thing that can pull APC out of power. If Atiku can succeed in getting Peter Obi and Kwankwaso to his side and they form a mega alliance, it will pose a big challenge for APC. Such an alliance can only come under the PDP but whether they would change the name of the party is what I do not know. On the other hand, Tinubu is a clever politician, he would not allow them to come together. He understands the implication.

The past two years have witnessed a lot of movement out of PDP to the ruling APC. Are you not bothered?
That is part of the challenges you have in a growing democracy – fair weather politicians everywhere. Nobody wants to suffer. Some people don’t have principles. There are people who made it through PDP and the question will be what else are they looking for in another political party? They are running into APC and someday, they will run back. What worries me is that they are not running into these parties for the betterment of the masses. They are doing so for their personal gains. I have not held any government appointment since 2007, but I have remained with the PDP. I keep emphasising the need for politicians to have a second address. If you have a second address, it will make you see your philosophies in politics.

PDP still has one state in the South-East. The way it is, do you see the party improving on this in the next election?
The way the only governor produced by the party in the South-East is playing his politics, it will be difficult for the PDP to survive next election in the region not to talk about expansion. Governor Mbah of Enugu State believes that politics should be business. Nobody is against that but you have to balance it. He is doing well with infrastructure. He has improved security and is doing much to restore Enugu as a prime state, but he has to realise that it was sheer luck that made it possible for him to survive the tsunami of the Labour Party in the 2023 elections.

He is incommunicado. It is when the people can access you that you can feel their pulse. There is this sense of belonging that people have speaking and discussing with their governor. It is not about money and what they will get from you.

The level of taxation by his government leaves much to be desired. Taxation is good when the payers do not feel the impact but that is not so with us. It is a negligible percentage of people’s salary but here, we have put it where it is becoming difficult for people to pay. So, it is no longer tax, it is levy. His public relations as governor are very poor. The essence of governance is to open your horizon for people to come in contact with you, to know the feeling of government.

If you allow power to possess you, you will definitely crash. Don’t be intoxicated by power. Don’t make people afraid of you; they can respect you but once they are afraid of you, you will not get the truth from them. This is the point that Governor Mbah has failed to realise.

Another problem of his government is centralisation of the local governments such that everything about the third tier now comes from government houses. It had never happened before even as a local government chairman under the military, it was not so. Under the military, we were guided on how to spend money and the limit expected of us. But this is not what we have in Enugu today. They said there is autonomy but what we have is theoretical autonomy. A situation where the government house appoints Secretary to Local Government (SLG) and supervisors have not been appointed leaves much to be desired.