Consensus, Not Election Was The Only Way To Keep APC Together – Tajudeen: Hon Abbas Tajudeen is representing Zaria federal constituency of Kaduna state and in this interview with Ruth Choji, he commended the National Executive of the All Progressives Congress (APC) and their state governors for using the consensus method at the party’s congresses and national convention As the deputy chairman, house committee on legislative compliance, most Nigerian thought by now, the House would have enacted law that will compel the executive to implement budgets fully, what is happening? I think the major problem of the 7th National Assembly is party loyalty and losing of focus on so many facets. People in the house don’t look at issues from partisan point of view. Most lawmakers want to explore issues for their own advantage. If for example, a motion is moved on the presidency lapses that are visible and real, the APDP member’s will try to suppress it. Like when we are supposed to meet with the minister of finance, we couldn’t meet because some PDP members were saying that if we invite her and embarrass her, they will come out in the open to condemn us. We had to decide to go back and educate ourselves on the truth. Nigerian interest, not party interest should always prevail. That is why I think today, to a large extend, we are not able to compel the executive to do certain things. But most Nigerians are of the opinion that speaker, Tambuwal seems to be sympathetic to the opposition, APC, what is your take on this I do not think so, at my age, I have seen leaders in my life, but I have never seen anyone like Tambuwal, he is a just leader and is accessible to everybody. Why People think he is being sympathetic to the APC is because he gives members room to express themselves. And I think that is the kind of leader Nigeria needs at this moment in time. Are you satisfied with the just concluded APC congresses and convention that took place in Abuja Recently? If you know how the congress were done, particularly in states with sitting governors, you will lose fate in Nigerian politics. What happen in those states goes completely contrary to what we have been preaching as opposition party. We had lots of unholy congresses. To this date, so many states as I am talking to you, some are yet to complete their congress. If we go by that, we now understand why the national convention was allowed to be by consensus. Most states governors just wrote down the names of their cronies, some without governors just pick out people from the legacy parties and presented them as winners of the elections. If you go to Sokoto, nobody can tell you that there was any contestant for any position, from the ward to other levels. It was more or less a consensus issue. The issue of consensus is in the constitution, it is advisable that candidates should go for consensus for every position, but if you cannot get the people to agree, then go for elections. What is going to be the effects of that on our nascent democracy? If you look at where we are coming from, parties that were merged, the ACN, ANPP and others, I think members first look at themselves, considering where they are coming from, if you are coming from the PDP, you will want to protect your people that came with you. I think it is the best thing for now. If we go for elections, from what happen during the congresses, then we will have problems. But some of the party faithful are not happy over the issue of consensus, don’t you think this will bring a division with the party? If those people are coming to the party because of what they want to get, because we all know that, it is not all that join the party that has the interest of Nigeria at heart. But I will advise such people to think and really appreciate the precarious condition the party is and change their ways. What are those precarious condition? Like I said earlier, when you have two or more parties coming together you will not expect unity to be entrenched at once, it will take time to solidify and people will forget where they are coming from. In situation where that is not achieved, elections will further separate the parties, that is why I must commend the action of our leaders in states with sitting governors who went for the consensus and I can tell you, most of our members are happy because no election took place. They pick who they felt is best for the state. So looking at the stage we are now as a party, consensus is the best way for us to go … Do you think this consensus will work out in the presidential elections? I will love that at the end of the day, that there will not be presidential primaries because I know that many who join the party see it as a platform to fulfill their personal ambition, they didn’t come because they believe in the ideology of the party. So if you allow election to take place, you will definitely lose more than you will gain because may be the wrong candidate will be the one that will emerged. Some people have come with lots of money, waiting for the right opportunity, they will use their wealth to hijack the party. We also know that there are some people who are seeking for that seat without money, they have only the goodwill of the people. So if you allow them to contest along those money bags, the wrong candidate will emerge for the party and all that has been built so far will be destroyed. There has been this talk of muslim-muslim ticket, how true are these reports That is mere speculation because the party has not come out officially to say that this is the person that will represent us as president or vice president. We must understand that in country like Nigeria, if we continue to play the politics of religion, then we will have problems. On the other hand, the plan is to take the presidency to the north and the slot of vice presidency to the south. Even in the north, there is this understanding that, it is the north/west that will present the president and the south/west will present the vice president. If you look at the composition of the executive, the north/east was not given much. The positions given to them was not much. The North is under siege, do you harbour any fears on the fate of the region Absolutely. I think the federal government to a great extent are not using the right solution. The right solution as Mr. Speaker said recently is to get this people since we cannot conquer them. You cannot conquer a faceless enemy. Even America that has spent years in Afghanistan have not been able to conquer them. First you to issue threat, you are only adding fuel to fire. The way we solve the problem in Niger/delta through dialogue, I think we should toe that path again. We need to understand their ideology so that when we know what they stand for, we can come up with constructive solution to the issue. It was once predicted that Nigeria is likely to disintegrate by 2015, with the crises we have on ground, do you think this is a nation that is heading towards disintegration. If you look at the indices of a failed nation, how many of them have Nigeria not passed through? A failed nation by the definition of the word, look at what we have on ground, you will realize that we are already a failed nation. My fear for 2015 is the issue of PDP, trying to always describe the APC as a religious and tribalistic party. If that kind of notion enter the head of the average Nigerian, it will have far reaching consequences for the2015 elections. People will now begin to look at their next president along that line. There is a need for the parties to watch their utterances and think of national interest first, we need to be careful as leaders so that we will not worsen an already a bad situation. 2015 will be difficult but it is entirely in the hands of the parties. There seems to be relative peace in Kaduna state, what will it take to sustain it? People have been praying and reaching out to each other. If you look at the genesis of what brought crises in Kaduna state, it is nothing more than ‘sharing of the national cake’. Where you have a state where 50% are Christian, another 50% are Muslim, as a leader, one has to be very careful. Any action you take will be misinterpreted by any of the parties. I will also attribute the peace to what the last governor and the current one is doing even though they are the PDP government. There is now equity in the distribution of resources, if it we maintain it, I think this problem will disappear in the future. The vice president, Namadi Sambo is from Kaduna state, has that fact brought any positive impact to the state I want to believe that, there has been some dividend, some of his aides are from the state and once they are empowered, they will go down and empower others. But politically, the vice president does not have that influence because he is coming from a constituency that has always been known for its opposition. In the first republic, we had NPC, and if you look round, there is no constituency that has benefited in that republic than Zaria. There was ABU, College of Aviation is there, Institute of Management is there, Nigerian railway is there and many other goodies, but in the history of NPC and even the second republic, no ruling party has ever won any election in that area. So being the vice president will not make the PDP stronger there because of our ideology. Stay up to date, follow us on Twitter; @LeadershipNGA Original link Read More goo.gl/WFSgrW (y) ✍comment ☏share
Posted on: Sun, 06 Jul 2014 03:06:31 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015