The Peoples Democratic Party, or PDP, has continued to erode its position as Nigeria’s principal opposition party. After losing to the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) in 2015, the party has struggled ever since, losing some of its states to it.
Segun Sowunmi, former campaign spokesman for the party’s 2023 presidential candidate, Atiku Abubakar, and former governorship candidate in Ogun State, says the PDP would not have lost the 2023 presidential election if Atiku and the current Minister of the Federal Capital Territory, FCT, Nyesom Wike, had run. He is also considering a 2023 ticket with Atiku-Peter Obi or Atiku-Wike. Excerpts:
Peter Obi was seen around Atiku a few days ago; is he rejoining the PDP, and what are his chances of becoming the party’s flag bearer?
Anyone who wishes to become president of Nigeria must first pass through party primaries, followed by the general election.
Party primaries have different customs for different parties, but in the PDP, which I have been a member of from its foundation, we do not believe that individuals will not participate; anyone who wants our ticket must engage in primaries.
Yes, your argument can be very persuasive, and we can rally people around you to persuade others. We could be persuaded that yes, we have a Southeasterner, especially now that we are hearing that the South should do eight years; there is a bet there for the PDP in the South, and nobody in the South-South can tell us that we have not given him the ticket.
We gave Jonathan, who completed Yar’Adua’s tenure in 2007 and received his own free ticket in 2011, we gave Obasanjo a ticket in 1999 and he received a second term in 2007, so as far as the presidency is concerned, we have never given the Southeast ticket, and the Southeastern part of Nigeria cannot be cheerleaders for other zones in PDP, but if they leave it open and everyone is free to come and compete for it, may the best man win.
Opposition parties must be more realistic in their search for votes. That’s my stance. If anyone says, ‘o you got to be contesting, and every political party has a rule that a serving governor and president have the right of first refusal except if they are not going,’ so you now have a Yoruba man in President Bola Tinubu as the potential presidential candidate of APC, and you will be saying you can come to a Yoruba man’s land to beat him, that’s an exotic calculation, and I may be wrong.
Which of the following candidates, Atiku-Obi, Atiku-Wike, or Atiku Saraki, best positions the PDP to dethrone Tinubu in 2027?
You’ve asked a valid question; if we’d been prudent and chosen the Atiku-Wike ticket in the 2023 election, we could have been extremely lucky. You understand that an untested theory is still a hypothesis.
In terms of the Atiku-Obi ticket, we tried it in 2019 and know what happened; some like to argue that the number Peter received in the previous election and the number Atiku received can be combined to reach the desired outcome. I put too much effort into this election-related analysis to buy that kind of jargon; some of those numbers are mutually exclusive; there are people who will get up for Peter Obi and will not get up for anyone else; there are people who will get up for Atiku and will not agree with Peter; and, of course, there are people who will get up for both of them; how large will that number be? I am unsure.
I usually tell people that every election is a fresh start. You sew a clothing for me, and if you are wise, you must re-measure the individual every four years to ensure that the garment is fit-for-purpose. If you believe that it is just a combination and that everything will be the same as it was in the previous election, you will suffer the misery of a lazy person who does not want to deal with the hard work of listening to the electorate to know exactly where they are.
The dynamics and challenges could be radically different. If Tinubu is having problems, which I am not saying, he may be looking at the North, where they may have some serious issues with the votes they cast last time, even from his APC, and how they are likely being handled. I’m not sure you can find that level of hostility anymore in the South, let alone the Southeast. When you go to the Southeast now, you will be fooling yourself to say that you don’t understand that they had more space than they ever had before, and you will be deceiving yourself by saying that they don’t have a bigger political gladiators, and it will be foolish and foolhardy to think that if they take a position that the South wants to do eight years, it will be foolish and foolhardy to think that if it becomes a game between a North and Southern man, the South will not go with their South
These are simulations and assumptions, but I’m just saying that anyone who wants to run for office in 2027 should be busy doing polls, benchmarking, deep diving, and going around the country listening to where the people are. Social media isn’t the best way to assess people because we haven’t seen a commensurate vote on the ground, as you can measure during the off seasons.
The ticket between Atiku and Saraki…
The truth about the Atiku-Saraki ticket is that it is really tough because it technically requires you to remain in the upper Niger to select two candidates, one of whom may be a candidate, while we hunt for someone to back up the candidate in the southern half. But we can’t put a Southwest and Southsouth man because it would be impossible. Instead, you might say Atiku can be a candidate and then back him up with someone from the South, or Bukola can be a candidate and we back him up with someone from the South.
I never thought of it that way, but we can bring back Bukola Saraki and Peter Obi; and, as I previously stated, my view is both clear and ambiguous; there are 220 million people in this nation, and you can’t be shouting the names of only three persons for president. Our problems have gotten to the point that we have to look further into what they are delivering beyond rhetoric, since it appears that we are dissatisfied with any president.
For political parties, there is no assumption that just by popularity they would win elections; elections are far more scientific, deeper, and penetrating, and for anything they want to say, they have to contend with the fact that Tinubu knows whatever they think they know in politics, whatever they think they can do and scheme in politics, he can also because he’s a politician; and it would be the dumbest thing to think that the only thing they have against him is tribalism. As a result, determining who should be the candidate requires a far more detailed, intentional, meticulous, and in-depth examination of what the citizens are saying.
Do citizens want a president from the South? Are they prepared for another Fulani four years later? All of these issues must be explored, and anyone who believes they will win the general elections without conducting a thorough study and benchmarking is mistaken. Some of us, the younger generation, are becoming concerned; they should not believe that we cannot advise them which way to go; if they want to be angry, let us all be angry together.
You recently offered some recommendations on how the PDP should deal with Wike and Atiku; do you think the party will follow your suggestions at the next NEC?
To be honest, one of the challenges with a democratic institution is that everyone can come together and express their thoughts and ideas; my prayer and hope is that they will be able to sit.
I do not agree that a recurring problem will be handled simplistically; I do not accept that in order to solve a problem, you must be blinded or deafened to what you consider to be one or the other side; and I do not accept that you can be so self-righteous or fraudulent as to see that neither is all good or bad. I usually say to people, if you are to build institutions that would last, you must stay in the big middle because when you sieve it down, you see the extreme here and there, that would be an area that is difficult for people to operate.
But for you to be in the middle, it will be compromising here and there, a desire to forgive some issues, and it will mean the need to be practical in the things that would work. I believe those are very well-considered opinions, and thankfully, for someone who has never left the party, has never stopped pushing, and believes that we Africans can build a democratic institution that will last, I believe I am correct, regardless of whether people want you to be their cheerleader or if they just want you to go out every day insulting the people they disagree with without checking to see what point they are making. I want to lead the party if they allow me and anyone who wishes to lead must be prepared to be fair and balanced.
Will the PDP BoT meeting with Wike bring about peace in the party?
I have never imagined the consciousness with which the men calling themselves BoT now caused the problem in the country and this democracy, that they can solve it with the same consciousness. In the first instance, we will begin to ask them, why are they singling Wike out of the situation. Why haven’t we heard from them talking about other people who are more aggrieved? Is this the first, second, or third time they are going to visit him? Why haven’t we seen that they have the courage to scold him harshly given that most of them are older than him or are they in their illustration that as the conscience of the party are so unwilling or afraid to tell him that certain things are not acceptable?
We have styled them as the conscience of the party, so hopefully they have an institutional memory of where the party is coming from but I doubt if they have any idea of where the party is going. I wish them well and I pray they are able to come up with something that is reasonable but let’s encourage any effort in any direction that would bring help, though I would have preferred that they had a direct approach to the whole issue.
What approach do you think is most appropriate in resolving PDP’s leadership crisis?
I believe an early convention is the most appropriate; with an early convention, they can begin primarily with the sense of the excos, because I do not believe that focusing on the conversation of replacing just one person on the exco is a smart way to solve a problem that has eaten deep into this particular executive. So I would have preferred that they be able to say that we are giving time from this time to this time to prepare for an early convention that should take into account that you have reformed the party to some extent, listen to the citizens of the country who decide who gets the ticket, and draw a clear line where this type of thing would not be tolerated.
The reason why I said that is – the issue that led us to the 2023 challenge had its root in 2015 and it’s almost as if an invisibly do-me-I-do-you in, you know, in our local language is on the table. There are those who believe that some people left the party, causing the party to lose an election in 2015, and those who believe that 2019 should have been zoned to another part of the country, so what are they talking about? There are also those who believe that one man, the former Governor of Rivers State, is the issue, with whom I disagree.
I feel that our issues are a bit more systemic; I started noticing it in 2011 when I was the Director General of Jonthan-Sambo’s campaign. I saw clearly that as the person in charge of the presidential campaign in Ogun State, where the challenge of the party is, and I have been screaming on the needs for reforms, but ironically, what they have always assumed is that they should just manage to be a ticket bazaar platform so that anybody who gets their ticket will just
And of course, they tried it in 2019 it didn’t work, in 2015 we lost, in 2023 it didn’t work and I marvel at how they think the conversation on the table now is a ticket, which I don’t agree with.
The conversation on the table now is how they could reform the party to an extent so that there would be an introspection to what exactly is the party all about now, and how do they differentiate their own position and their programmes from their rivals. And how do they ensure whatever it is that they are calling their desire either to get a ticket or be a candidate is in tune with the Nigerian people?
Do you see February’s NEC meeting as a catalyst for resolving PDP’s crisis?
It depends on what the NEC is meant to answer, if it’s that the NEC is meant to be a test of who has the better number to force that position, even forcing that position wouldn’t solve the problem. If NEC becomes something that does not allow the status quo to remain without a commensurate understanding of everybody coming to the table, it will not solve the problem. What can solve the problem like I said is for us to be clear in our mind that the injury done has been too much and we should be willing to say let’s start afresh.
For instance, if you want to discuss Damagum, what about the others, have you accepted the lies of all the others without mentioning them, lest they think that I’m criticizing them for being inefficient? I do not accept it.
So, I accept that whatever the argument for and against Damagum is, it does not solve the challenges that I see. We need a people’s purpose executive when we are in opposition, we need to find new energy, we need to find something that will bring us upstream, and that does not include those who make difficult-to-prove statements and label others simply because they have the opportunity and the might.
People who make unprovable allegations are the worst kind of fools because they risk having the person they are accusing drag them to court to show cause, and when you make claims for which you have no evidence, they start calling the party comatose and using some of the most inappropriate adjectives to describe the party; I believe those people deserve harsher punishment.
Because, at the end of the day, what exactly was expected of the PDP that it has not done? It has held about five or six primaries for the off-season elections, and none of them have been contentious with candidates emerging; it has held ward elections, LG executives, and state government executives, and the majority of them are not contentious; and, at the end of the day, the one sticking point does not reflect the totality of the matter. I think Nigerians must be a little bit sympathetic to PDP for democracy is noisy because everybody is trying to push their own interest and agenda.
And it’s in that context that you hear all these arguments of going to court and in organizations where all these things are not allowed, where when one person barks, everybody agrees without complaining, that would not be democracy.
As noisy as it may appear, this is evidence that the party is democratic, which is why some of its issues require a higher level of understanding. If someone feels aggrieved and is a member of a democratic party, he has the right to go to court, and if you have a case in court, can you now pretend that it is not in court?
If you do that, you risk having your case subjudiced; so you can see how complicated it is, which is why I believe they should put more effort into determining whether an early convention is possible so that we can use that early convention to go through the entire process of horse-trading, including some of the issues of where you want to zone to. Who is the best man to do this? Some of those issues will be settled and if they do it well and all-encompassing, and do not use exco positions just to favour weak people who they consider to be their friends or those that would listen to them, everybody will be better for it.
Is Wike’s grievance with PDP due to any hidden presidential agenda?
I’m not his spokesperson and do not have the power to speak for him but the truth of the matter is that Wike is not a pretentious character. He is even so unpretentious which is part of the problem, so I don’t think that if Wike wants to run for the presidency he will be hiding; that’s not who he is. At the very least, I’ve been in this party since he’s been here, and we’ve seen ourselves, we’ve had the benefit of many good positions in the party, and he’s not made of pretentious material to say he wants to be president when he doesn’t want to be or to be afraid to say when he wants to be president.
At least, for the 2027 circle, I have not heard anything to that effect and if he wants to be president, he will obviously say it at some point; but certainly, you can’t be accusing him of such because it will be uncharitable to do so.
What I think is going on is that everybody has a way they react to what they consider to be a hurt or an injustice for the breach of their right. And if people have the ability to fight or react to the breach of their right, you may not like it but it will be a bit too much to say they don’t have the right. When you injure people, you can only be sure of your own action and not predict the action of the person who feels injured.
When discussing this issue, people expect you to follow their narrow prism. The truth is that 2023 became complicated as a result of what we call the Delta Accord – Asaba Accord, in which governors of Southern extraction traveled to Asaba, hosted by former governor Okowa, and issued a communique claiming that Nigeria’s presidency should go to the South in the next election.
If you followed me or searched the internet, you would have seen me on television the same day screaming and shouting that the PDP should not be forced into zoning that will not benefit them; after all, for a political party to be able to run, it must run where it has an advantage and numbers.
And, as I previously stated, if it becomes necessary to zone South, they should simply say we are going to the Southeast because, at the time, I stated that we had gone Southwest with Obasanjo and South-south with Jonathan, so no one should pretend to the PDP that we do not know where our liability is; and I stated that our liability as far as the Southern presidency is concerned is with the Southeast. I said that very clearly but you know people like to think that they are smart and at the end of the day, they create a complication.
With its plethora of issues, can PDP withstand Tinubu in 2027?
We must reinvent ourselves, and in doing so, we must go back to the drawing board, and some of the problems we are experiencing will simply disappear. Why are people scheming to insist on controlling the exco? Is it not because they believe that whoever owns the exco completely owns the ticket? Atiku was not in the country when they were putting together the 2018 exco, but he won the ticket in 2019. Those with the power to put the exco together – the Secondus exco – fought all the Western leaders to install Secondus, but that didn’t stop Atiku, who was not a part of that exco scheming.
I’m not sure why people don’t learn from their mistakes. I believe that for a political party, anyone who wants to be president must make himself so presidential and appealing that by the time you get to any party, it’s almost done as long as the party primaries and process are clean. When they open up the forms, people will buy and crisscross the party. All those thinking that they can eliminate or joke with Atiku’s political capital by the time he gets to the primaries again and he beats them all the case will be settled once and for all.
What are the chances of Tinubu winning in the 2027 election?
There is a pathway for anybody who wants to win, if you want I can show you the pathway for the president which is easy. For the path of Tinubu’s victory, first count all states he has governors in, especially in the North; then count all those who are first-term governors looking for a second term; then count the ones who are second-term looking for successors; then discount it by asking yourself if there is anyone the opposition is bringing that can stress them to the point that they would subject their own election to the risk of losing their party’s election, which would in
The biggest loss that happened to PDP was in 2015 and the reason was that a lot of our governors and senators lost their seats due to people claiming that they wanted to prove a point, some of those people who proved a point have not recovered till today. What makes you think that the governors on APC’s table would be so childish to prove that point and lose their own ticket?
Have you asked the younger elements, I can list them if you want – the NSA of this world, the Vice President of this world, the Zulum of this world, the El-Rufais of this world, and such younger elements who may be interested in becoming president after the turn of the South, if they are willing to push their presidential date back more than the worst-case scenario another four years?
So, what I’m trying to say is that anybody who rules out Bola Tinubu that he won’t win the next election is a fool, these things are not as easy as that. To beat him, you need to get down to the drawing board, running helter-skelter won’t work.
For instance, by now you need to start settling platform issues, platform issues are why we are talking about the PDP. If you are going to do a merger, you must all come to the table now without the overarching assumption that someone will take the ticket, because no one will sit in a merger to’merge’ themselves for their own benefit if you have already determined who will get the ticket; these are all practical political issues.
When you look at the economy for those shouting when it was good, did you give the poor Northerners money? Did you give the poor Nigerians money that you will now say when the economy is bad they would leave, you don’t know that. That you are stimulating tribalism in the country does not mean that others cannot stimulate something else, others forget that he’s the Commander-In-Chief of the Armed Forces of this country, within now and the next one-and-the-half years; he has enough opportunity around.
What if the economy picks up and people can see the tangible things, how would you be able to beat him? What if we get to election day and it becomes an issue of money? What if you can’t mobilize enough money like the president? He can be beaten but not by this melody of misdirected activities where those working hard to give us strength are being disrespected, while others are sitting in their houses drinking Fura thinking that the presidency will fall on their laps.
