From Romanus Ugwu, Abuja
The National Chairman of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Chief John Odigie-Oyegun, doesn’t actually need much introductions having been in the public glare for ages now.
Appraising the journey so far after leading the ruling party for the past two years, the former governor of Edo State catalogued the seen and unseen battles he has fought to keep the party together and retain his seat.
He equally chronicled the good, the bad, the ugly and the most beautiful in the moulding of APC into a vibrant party and urged Nigerians to pray against the return of an ‘evil’ party like the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).
From the feelings of the APC national leadership over the future of President Muhammadu Buhari for the 2019 Presidential race, the projectiles many Nigerians are hauling at the party, to the ineptitude of the party to manage the economy and his attempt to resign at the heat of crisis in the party, Chief Oyegun speaks to Sunday Sun like never before.
How has the journey been for APC since President Buhari emerged two years ago in terms of managing the affairs of the party, what are the challenges and prospects?
It has been challenging, it has been delicate but I think at the end of two years, I can say that I have largely succeed in moulding a party ready to do battle. I personally think we are stronger today in terms of the broadness of our support and even if you discount the core following of the President, I think we are still stronger today. We are in a good position and more broadly based now.
We have been able to get support from lots of significant players in the South-east and we are working on the South-south now and the support is yielding up that if we have an election in Cross River today, we are likely to win and quite a few other places. I think the only place we have had tremendous problems in the South-south is Delta State. The PDP has managed to infiltrate the APC ranks very deeply. So, there are moles and agents all over the place but we are also working on that and we are trying to strengthen the party in that state. So that is the party as it is today.
We are still building it, spreading its support base and creating a kind of party where every leader has a kind of sense of feeling of ownership, of belonging, of participation and we don’t have people whose dictate must be obeyed otherwise the party collapses, we have gone past that point.
Since APC is an amalgam of different groups don’t you think there is likelihood of any of these groups pulling out of the party?
There is no likelihood but should it happen, the threat and damage it will do to the party will be very minimal today. Which part of the country, the South-eest? Who controls Ogun State, who controls Ondo State. Who will control Osun State, who is likely to control Ekiti State in terms of who will be the next governor? So, the mainstream of the party is now well placed and the point has been proven clearly from Ondo State that in a free and fair election nobody’s word is certain.
Is it free to add that APC has been completely democratised?
Totally! People don’t see it but APC is a new party, totally new and stronger party.
How do you mean when you said Ondo State election marked the turning point in the challenges the party had faced? Are you implying that it reunited the party leadership with the Presidency and if so would that give credence to the allegations that the Presidency and the party worked together to dislodge Bola Tinubu in the South-west in the Ondo State elections?
We didn’t work to dislodge anybody. We worked to establish permanently that the party is supreme; there are two different things, one is negative by working against an individual why? When any part of the party wants to prove they are larger than the party then the party has to stand and fight and of course the President has always said that the party is supreme. When he came back from his first medical trip I welcomed him and all his courtesies before his statement and when he described me as ‘our oga pata pata’ he meant it. The supremacy of the party is one thing he has always hammered on. I heard the question somebody asked the Publicity Secretary concerning the relationship between Mr President and I. Yes, he went a little too far in some aspect but he was correct. You have to work with the nature of the man you have as President.
He is quiet, he is a taciturn, I know what he likes and what he doesn’t like. He is the kind of man that doesn’t like crowd, he would prefer a one on one relationship. The minutes he sees five people and he doesn’t know two out of them he can trust, he cramps up and so you won’t get value.
So, he was wrong in his nature of description that Mr President wants to meet with the whole members of the NWC. We have worked together from my civil service days and I know him better than lots of people. We get on very well. He complained about lack of funding in the party, again that is the nature of the man, he won’t call the Minister of Petroleum to say make sure you give money to the party. He won’t do it. He doesn’t want to be involved in anything that has any dent and possibility of being shady. That is our President.
We elected a symbol, we elected someone whose personality we want to use as a light house for the rest of the country. His major contributions to the change agenda are his integrity, strength of character but for we politicians, it is now left for us to tap on the strong point which I have pointed out.
Part of some of the things we hear is that the divide or the crisis between the Presidency and the party leadership after the National Assembly tussle got to a point where it became practically impossible for the party chairman to meet one on one with the President and up till now that he is having health challenges, you have never been with him one on one. How true could that be?
We saw when he came back the first time, he is gone back now and I know he wants to be left in peace. Again, that is my nature; I am not someone that gives in to every photo opportunity. Once people know there is going to be a group photograph with the President they dive, but I don’t do that; that is me. I have done lots of things with the President in the past, so for me it isn’t a big deal, I don’t need all those courtesies. Of course that is me. I was always talking to the President during campaigns and we were together every day. We gist, we talk, we laugh and he would say ‘John how can we satisfy the yearnings and screaming of this massive crowd.
So, I have known him from the civil service days, I have known him during his days as Military Head of State, I was one of his close aides. So, let them enjoy themselves and pose for photography. That isn’t the issue. The issue is that we communicate and the relationship is cordial.
It is surprising when you said you have a cordial relationship with Mr President because what we heard while he was in London the first time was that he totally refused your coming to see him in London?
You are right and wrong! I was to go to London but he said ‘look there is no need’ because he knows the people he is dealing with. He knows those that have to see him because they need to see him but he knows between us that there isn’t that kind of pressure and necessity. I asked him do you think I should come and he said don’t worry I would be coming back soon and to me that was good enough. I know maybe from the point of view of PR, maybe once you go there, you sit there and get photographed. Yes, if you look at it from that point of view, you have a point. What is important is that when he finally arrived he personally arranged that I was one of the very few people to come and welcome him. What more do you need?
Let us shift gears to the reward system and finances in the party and I want to ask why haven’t there been this robust reward system that will firstly show off your authority and bring this cohesion that hasn’t been there?
I think you have asked the most difficult question and I am not too sure from which angle to answer it. But, firstly, I must be very honest and frank in admitting that the reward system and appointment has not been as pleasant to the party as it ought to be. Part of them has not been well thought out as it ought to be. We have cases which wouldn’t have happened where individuals currently in court with our elected officials, one case of a governor which is right now at the Supreme Court have been given appointments.
We have cases of at least one or two where known current appointees of the PDP have been given, we have cases where in a particular state from the same local government I think going to the same ward where three people have been given appointment. These things and many more especially the more important one was cases where faces not known to the party during the most difficult part of the struggle of this party have gotten appointments. So, it has caused a lot of disquiet within the party.
I have been abused, I have been called names, I have received text messages of all nastiness, I have gotten petitions in writing and there is a general sense in what is going on in the practice of the party all over the country. We have brought this to the attention of government and we hope and pray that what remains will be devoted to rewarding those who really, actually are the faces I saw, the faces my state chairmen saw working, taking risks during the long and hurdles period of the campaign. I think more than that I should say that one has to be brutally honest sometimes in matters like this.
Is there any iota of truth in the impression in many quarters that certain cabals have hijacked the presidency and the APC as a party is helpless to break the ranks of the Presidency cabal?
I am more concerned about the economy of the country and in any case, we are still looking for the cabals and when we find them I will let you know.
Sir you have a major crisis in the 2019 presidential election, what are the strategies you are putting in place since it isn’t very certain that President Buhari will re-contest.
Why build bridges where there is no river to cross? Why don’t you wait until you come across a river before you build a bridge? With all due respect for what it stands for, what is critical today in our prayer is for our good Lord to restore the President to robust, good health; that is the first thing.
Thinking whether he will be the President after 2019 is really not doing him any good, his need today is good health and when we get to 2019, it is for him to decide if he wants to run or if he doesn’t want to run and to consult the party on his decision. If he wants to run, good and if he doesn’t want to run, the country, the party isn’t bereft of capable hands. But the prime thing he will be wanting today isn’t to think of 2019, but to have his health restored fully and I can assure you he will give anything just to have his health restored. Let’s terminate it at that point. When 2019 comes we will deal with the issues that arise.
In the spirit of the celebration of APC’s two years in office could it be that APC as a party underrated the quantum of problems facing Nigeria before you took over power?
No, we didn’t underrate it neither did you nor anyone else unless those with the gift of prophecy. None could have known what was coming; if I ask you to describe the situation in 2015, I am sure you wouldn’t have added that the crude oil market was going to collapse. Did you foresee that? We knew we were going to take over a battered economy, but we were glad that oil was still coming at 2.5 million barrels a day, we were glad that prices were still hovering around a $100/ per barrel occasionally. During the years of PDP, it was going between $100 to $120 a barrel and we took over a totally ravaged economy and we were prepared for that because we also thought since we didn’t have the gift of prophecy that Nigeria will continue to be blessed with oil resources, 2.5 million barrels sometime three million at $80 a barrel, sometimes 100 dollars a barrel, we were ready to get the nation moving quick.
When we took over, as if that wasn’t enough with a battered economy, the very next week or two, crude market collapsed at a stage that the price of production of a barrel and the price we were getting from the world market was almost the same; about thirty something dollars a barrel.
You are a man; if today you get out of employment and you don’t have a job your wife has to understand that things are different, that things are hard and we will shoulder through together. These are what happened in the country, it is always good to look at the background. If you don’t move from the background you will think that we are so incompetent. In fact it is the opposite praise that you should be singing, that this country didn’t collapse economically; that is the reality.
I am a trained economist, I am a development economist. You should look at the reality; forget the hunger, there is hunger in the land but you should wonder why this country didn’t collapse with virtually no income, no foreign exchange; nothing! And we are still here today, that is the reality and it has nothing to do with incompetence. We had no revenues, we had no foreign exchange, and we were an economy that exists to function. When President Buhari managed and painfully, I know the pain we went through to allow the price of petrol to go up. If you could remember the news were still on and off but there was no other solution than to let go, you can’t continue that regime of subsidy which was one of the things that almost bankrupted this nation.
We had to bring in the Treasury Single Account, had to make sure every kobo was accounted for, had to go abroad and the press started telling everyone that he lives in an aircraft from one capital to another to draw up resources to keep the nation afloat.
Then came the recession and in a situation like that was inevitable, we had to spend to get out of recession; we had no savings. Honestly, if you people want to do this country a favour you should tell anybody who was a main person in PDP that they ought to hang their heads in shame and you should pray that we never have a government again like what the PDP did to this country. The signs were there. They fought over oil blocks endlessly. Nobody ever thought that this resource is one that will finish one day. Nobody ever thought giving those 16 years of PDP rule that every day they were talking of renewable energy resources they were planning no longer to be dependent on this war ravaged areas for their own industrial fuelling.
Our government for 16 years just kept importing petrol, export crude, sending away ship load of crude that was not accounted for, individuals appropriating the money that belonged to me and you; to the nation. So please be a little bit softer, kinder and look at the details of how we got to where we are today.
I am not going to abuse PDP or anybody but this is the reality. This is the truth of how this country is where it is today and we are labouring, the president is labouring now to diversify the country. It is a foundation that totally cracked and collapsed. Crude was no longer relevant as a propellant for growth in Nigeria, what other thing was available to diversify the country? What had our previous government put in place to propel the economy of this nation? You don’t know how close we were to collapse. When I read some of these things I am pained to the marrow. This country was almost destroyed and whatever people are saying it is good that President Buhari came at the time he did. That is the reality. It’s not that we weren’t prepared, we were very prepared.
Will it be right to say that APC for two years did not know what to do with Nigeria and the economy and only realise where to start after two years, which resulted in the economy hitting the ground?
I think the answer I gave earlier basically covers this one. We all have those boreholes and tanks and if a tank has two or three leakages what do you do? Do you just let the water run up or do you say please try to block those holes while you buy a new tank subsequently and get it replaced? I said we had an economy in a state of collapse, will you then gather economists and order them to write a blueprint within one month on how we will save the economy? You have to do things to ensure that we don’t get deeper in the mud and when you have stabilised, which we have, all these fancy about blueprint comes because now we are able to look further.
It is a matter of everything having its time, the economy has levelled up, the indices are getting much better whether poverty level, inflation rate, prices have stabilised even though they are still high not low, they have stabilised, they are calming down, they haven’t gone anywhere near what they used to be and eventually we have gone through that stage and we are now constructing. We have stabilised the economy and now we are constructing; we are building roads, we are trying to take care of this terrible electricity situation where again, the past government signed all the undertakings to the DISCOs all over with people who knew nothing about electricity.
We have started the construction of new railway systems that have been on the drawing board. I am not saying we originated it but what I am saying is that in time of plenty they couldn’t start, they couldn’t pay the counterpart fund. The Chinese loan has been available for years. They were so busy sharing national patrimonies, which really didn’t mean anything to them.
They could not put our own counterpart fund in place but just blocking all the leakages in our system alone was enough to generate resources for this Buhari administration to pay all the counterpart funding that was needed to approve the new railway standard gauge system.
Agriculture is totally like a revolution. In two years we should be self-sufficient in rice production because I know they are the ones bringing the thing in. Just imagine the kind of military we would have had today if our military is going in the direction it was going when the military became part of the sharing party.
So President Buhari not only succeeded in taming Boko Haram he also saved our military. There are so many things to be grateful to God for that we just ignore because yes the people are hungry, we see them and it is unfortunate. It is sad, it is bad, but believe me we are building a better nation.
What is your take on the perceived selective anti-corruption fight?
The debate over selective arrests and trial of corrupt persons is now a recurring one and we keep saying that there was no APC four years ago. Since there was no APC, it is only those that were in office and in power that dealt with our patrimonies as if they belonged to them that would be inevitably tried.
In any case, those who come to join us thinking they would get cover are being affected. Some of our own original left or centre governors and public functionaries are being affected. There is no protection, but, of course, it is the preponderance that is the issue you are raising. Where there are 10 from the past they may be one or two only and not as dramatic of the APC.
So, these things don’t exist, it is natural that it is those that commit the crime that have to do the time. If this government wasn’t conscious of its image, why would the APC go through the financial constrains that it went through?
We are the government in power, a minister or official can just be told to take care of the party but they are not doing that. The minister who is a politician who knows how these things were done in the past is even afraid to do it because how does he account for it?
So you should give us some credence and like I said in an interview forget this politically based red hair, we are not getting the degree of convictions that we should have. I think what the problem is at the moment is the procedures of the judicial system.
It is simple; we found N200 million in your bedroom, you bought houses for even unborn children, you are a government official, tell us how you got them? It is a very simple matter. But we will start to quote the law that the man has headache so his passport must be returned because it is only in London that his headache can be cured.
We are applying British tradition that doesn’t exist here. My point of view is that the only way we can fight corruption is to take a more practical and simple way. As far as I am concerned, first you strip the person of his/her possessions, make an example and that is the only thing that can cure corruption.
That is what I said you should be talking about; why are we not getting a lot more convictions at the speed we are seeing the evidence deserves?
Two years have gone and as a ruling party that will expect to be re-elected what plans do you have to prove to Nigerians that you came with a change and this change you have given to them?
Yes, we have had two hard years, we have had two years of blocking all the loopholes, two years of rebuilding the fractured natural resources, two years of preparing new bases for a new economic take-off for the Nigerian nation.
It has started to bear fruit already but until the ordinary man recognises that we have taken the turn for the home stretch. So our expectation is that a lot of things we have being doing will now start manifesting, will now start bearing fruit.
In agriculture, production is being encouraged at such a rate that in one or two of the critical crops we expect to be self-sufficient in those two years. In two years we expect massive implementation, accomplishment as far as the new railway system is concerned. I think they will finish the Lagos–Ibadan end by the end of next year and most of the others people will see them generate income and employment.
In the field of solid minerals a lot of work has also been done and also a lot of interest is being generated by those who want to process locally. Those are some of the things that are happening now; minerals are being shipped abroad in large lumps and blocks.
A lot of these things are going to be processed locally with backward integration into the actual mining activities. So, the fruits are beginning to manifest but the critical area we still have to beat is power and once you can get stable power supply from the low level it is, with increase generation.
The problem today is that we can’t distribute the little that is even produced and once that is sorted out then it is going to give a feeling to the medium and small scale businesses, which are the real employers of labour. So, once power is available as it would be in the next few months, employment becomes real.
All that we are doing today like the social intervention programmes will help because how many people can government employ? If you give the blacksmith, the shoemakers, the welders and all these little industries power, then you have created massive employment within the economy.
Even those coming out of university today that we are teaching various skills and the rest of them, will then overcome one of the major hindrances to their being able to establish themselves. So things are beginning to be better, the rate will accelerate and people will begin to see that after all we suffered, we were in pains, we can now see where we were going all along.
I think that would reshape things and that we have finally delivered on our promises but while they are crying as it is today that people seem to think that the world is over; no it is not! There is progress going on all the time but the media must help us tell them why the country is where it is.
Having admitted that there was turbulence in the party, did it cross your mind to quit?
I mean it is normal for people who face challenges occasionally to say ‘what is all this, is it worth it, what am I getting out of it’. But, look again, you say why not. From a very personal point of view I will take it that I was born at a very wonderful period of the history of this country and I have seen the various phases of this country and I was lucky.
I went to university on scholarship, I went to the place where you can virtually get anything even as a student and when you came out you had a job and a few weeks later you had a car. So, it was built in me that this nation doesn’t have to be different, that this nation doesn’t have to be as bad as it has become and as we have made it.
I went to the civil service and got to the top and left the civil service, went into the industry and went into politics, became governor of Edo State in my first trial. There is no pretence about this that I owe this country something. The country has been good to me and as long as I have breath I should try to give back what I got.
Lots of things are wrong and like I said, I am a trained development economist and I spent most of my career at the ministry of Economic Development and the potential here is just tremendous that sometimes I think oil spoilt things for us because every other thing was thrown overboard due to oil.
By the time I joined the civil service, we were at the same level as Brazil. In fact, we had much greater potentials according to World Bank assessment at that time. Brazil, Taiwan, Malaysia, Korea all those countries we were better advantaged than them.
There are times one feels like quitting but you don’t give up. I have a calling; I have a duty that at 77, God has given me good health, strength and energy. So, why do I want to go and sleep on my bed and wait to be carried out in a stretcher? I don’t have a house in Abuja, it is not as if I want to start building and amassing wealth at 80.
There are times you feel low because sometimes people are very unappreciative and not just that so wickedly, unfair and petty that you say to yourself ‘what is this? Why do I put up with all these idiots and all these insults and abuses’ from people that were not there when I was something?
When will APC hold its mini convention?
I think it will hold. We are almost at that point now and we have to hold it. Let me be frank, the health of the President hasn’t helped. More so because there is a clear indication of the respect he has for the party. He wants to attend, he wants to be there.
Yes, he wants to be there, we are very grateful but perhaps he doesn’t have to be and I think at that point I will and I don’t want to give a date and postpone again but we will have it once all the factors are in place.