National Deputy Organising Secretary of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Nze Chidi Duru has described as untrue insinuations that the party’s same-faith presidential ticket was an agenda to turn the country into an Islamic state.
In this interview with ROMANUS UGWU, he speaks on a wide range of issues affecting his party, the face-off between the APC and the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) over the candidacy of some Senatorial aspirants and the slim options left for the APC South-East stakeholders in the party among other things.
Did the controversy trailing Muslim-Muslim ticket come to you as a surprise?
I am not so sure I am the right person to speak for the party. But if history, convention and tradition are anything to go back, the arrangement is expected. And despite the level of divide in the country today it will not be difficult to think that there will be a repeat of what happened in 1993 to happen in 2022.
In 1993, the question was, why Muslim-Muslim ticket and the concern was also expressed whether it will not lead to the Islamization of the country. If you also recall, there was speculation, at that time, that Nigeria was already a member of IOC through the backdoor even without confirmation or otherwise. And that led, in my view, to Ebitu Ukiwe being relieved or his stepping down as number two in the government of that time. But, over the period, it was understood to mean cold political calculation that determined the nomination of Amb Babagana Kingibe as the vice presidential candidate to MKO Abiola.
So, I would think that the students of history of Nigerian politics would anticipate that similar agitation would trail the nomination of Kashim Shettima as running mate to our presidential standard bearer in a single faith ticket.
Are you saying that there may not be consequences concerning the ticket arrangement?
There are concerns and those concerns are legitimate. What the party owes the electorate is an understanding and an explanation of the reason behind the nomination of Shettima as the vice presidential candidate of our party. And that understanding cannot be anchored on the matter of competence and capability, but the fact that we have found one who would provide the missing link to the ticket as we have it. What the party will do, and has begun to do is to show empathy, understanding and then explain that this ticket will, in no way, subordinate one fate to another. It will, in no way, be a harbinger to an agenda to Islamise Nigeria. We will explain that the ticket is one that will bring hope, help the party to win the election and a ticket that will put food on the tables of Nigerians.
It is a ticket that will bring employment to Nigerians and a ticket that largely will give Nigerians standing in the committee of nations, in the days that Nigeria was respected, our green passport was among the most sought after across the international community. That is what this ticket will represent.
Again, I believe that we have good enough time to do this and also show Nigerians that unlike the other party, APC respected the zoning of political office in Nigeria, in that it is always the case that when the north holds office for a given number of years, it will move to the other part of the country. APC did that. We respected our tradition. And we hope that Nigerians will understand.
The third condition is what we have as charter of demand. It means whether we actually want to assuage all these feelings? One of those demands is to have a presidential ticket and a Muslim as number two. But then, there are also the other arms of government, which is the National Assembly. Reality and tradition have always shown that the Senate President will then come from the South. And if it comes from the south, as it has happened in the case of the zoning that took place within the party, it will also mean that there will be a flip in positions being held.
So, the leadership of the National Assembly will therefore be in the hands of either somebody from the South-East, or from the South-South to give coloration and show that Nigeria is a secular state.
You alluded to assuaging the South-East with Senate president, but do you think it will be enough reward after denying them the presidential ticket?
I am not talking about South-East or consideration that the office of the senate president will be zoned to the South-East. The point I am making is with respect to balancing the issue around the Muslim-Muslim ticket. I have also made the point that in the article of demand, in showing empathy and understanding, the concerns raised could also be the consideration that an important arm of government, in this case, the legislature, will then be in the hands of a Christian and could come from South-East or could come from South-South.
Reality remains that until the party meets and stakeholder consultation is done, the issues around zoning of offices will then take place.
Then to the questions around legitimacy or otherwise, or whether it is justice or equity in the sense that South-East was denied the presidential ticket of our party. The jury is out, and the case can be made that it would have made more sense for somebody from the South-East to be made the presidential candidate of the party. However, tradition has also shown that in the last eight years of APC in power, when it was formed in 2015 as a political party, the South-East has always belted their weight with the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP). And if there is any political party the people in the South-East should be upset or angry with, it should not be the APC. It should be the PDP, and that would have been a natural expectation that since they haven’t turned their lot with PDP, it would have reciprocated in giving the presidential ticket of its party to the South-East. But what did we find? Not only did PDP fail to give the presidential ticket to the South-East, it also went against sharing political office and wants to retain power in the north, eight years after the government of APC would have served out its tenure.
It shows a complete lack of regard for the South-East that has always given PDP 100 per cent support until very recently. But of course, even in the consideration of its presidential candidate, the subterfuge of not considering the South-East as willing as able and having the right human and material resources as running mate was also sabotage.
The position was taken away from the four corridors of the geopolitical zone of the South-East. So, I would think that in terms of bitterness, that should be extended to the PDP than it is to the APC.
How difficult will it be for APC to sell the single faith ticket arrangement to Nigerians when the presidential campaign starts in September?
Politics is all about winning elections and about engagement with the electorate by meeting them at their point of need. Then, of course, where there are grey areas, we will try to smoothen them. Before that decision was made, there must have been lots of consultations and stakeholder engagements. The political class was spoken to in order to arrive at an understanding of how the ticket will be the most feasible for APC to retain power beyond 2023.
And the messaging around it has been crafted. And by the way, looking at the person of Shettima, you will find a man who is urbane, who is well read, well-travelled, and who understands, in my view, what I always consider cause and effect. He is somebody who knows that Nigeria is a secular state, and who does not think in terms of religion, ethnicity and gender. He believes in letting the best man get the job? He possesses the quality of the right leadership we are looking for and that is the kind of message we will sell when the campaign starts.
We will tell Nigerians not to look at the religious aspect of it but the personalities of Asiwaju and Shettima. Nigerians will raise the issues around the ticket, the party will explain and show understanding of the need for the ticket and reassure Nigerians that the ticket will not, in any way, lead to an agenda for one religion to dominate another religion. Imagine what it would be if there is religious crisis in Nigeria where you have in all parts of the region, people expressing and professing their faith engage in a religious war in all parts of Nigeria, and there will be a civil strife of such an incomparable dimension that the world cannot even contend with let alone Nigeria.
How did the APC resolve the battle with INEC over the senatorial candidacy of Senators Akpabio and Ahmad Lawan?
It is important to make the point clear that APC fielded candidates in all the 109 senatorial districts in the country. It is only with respect to one senatorial zone, the Abia Central that for some logistic reason that has to do with IT infraction, we could not field a candidate in that particular district. The matter is before a court of competent jurisdiction.
With respect to the particular question around the ticket of Senator Akpabio and the Senate President, Ahmad Lawan, in respective to Yobe, I can confirm to you that we have uploaded their names to INEC and the commission for some reason and in its considered wisdom, issued a statement that it is only a court of law that will resolve the issue of these two candidates of our party in the two senatorial districts.
With respect to Akpabio, we are very clear, the name has been uploaded, and then as already enjoined by INEC, the matter is before a court, and because we are law-abiding institution, as we believe INEC is, we are waiting for the pronouncement of the court. The party will abide by the decision of the court.
Is the NWC now united after the crisis during the presidential primary?
We have always made it clear that the National Working Committee (NWC) of the party is one indivisible entity. We are as united and as strong as the rock of Gibraltar. We have always worked together. We have always competed with ideas within the NWC and our position has always remained one.
Yes, during our presidential primary, views were expressed as regards to preference, which by the way, every member of NWC, including the chairman, is entitled to have a preference for a particular candidate, but all of that was the decision of the NWC that we would have an atmosphere that engenders trust, create an enabling environment for a fair, transparent primaries, and which was what we gave Nigerians.
And it is on that basis that the current presidential candidate emerged. Regardless of our individual preferences, we had to come out to reassure Nigerians that the June 7, 2022 primaries would be free, fair, and transparent without any encumbrances. That anybody who had bought the form of the party to contest and compete should feel free to continue to converse his views and opinions and then continue to woo the electorate to choose between any of them on who to vote for. At the end of the day, that was what the party offered to Nigerians, party members who exercised their franchise on who becomes the standard bearer
If the South-East vote for Peter Obi, would they still have a stake in the APC?
APC has not always been the party of choice for the South-East. What I mean is that it is not necessarily the primary party of choice, but APC has always had some support in the five states that made up the South-East. We believe that influence across the zone has continued to grow over time. Don’t forget that APC used to have one state but we have gained an additional state in the last two years and we are very confident that APC will win additional states to control three states after the next election. That will show the level of confidence in the acceptance of the party in the South-East. We believe that the margin of support for the APC will increase especially as the traditional support base of PDP failed to show the level of reciprocity. We think that the South-East will sit back, reflect and come to the conclusion that perhaps they need to divide their votes across the parties so that if APC retains power, they will engage in political and national space to offer our people an opportunity to make a demand for office, appointment in deciding who gets what in the basket.