By Chinelo Obogo
Former national chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) Bamanga Tukur has said that the current national leadership crisis in the party has vindicated him.
He made this known on a television programme, monitored in Lagos. He said that any political party that subverts the will of the people and the constitution would fall like ‘a park of cards’.
What are your views on protectionism in an economy?
I believe that protectionism is negative in terms of development, because when there is protectionism, you are depressing competition. We should allow competition. When people compete, naturally they will perform better, and when they are challenged, they would be stronger. In protectionism, there is the tendency of cherry picking, where you don’t want to share but you take the good things and eat, then wait for another season to come. Protectionism is not good for the growth of an economy.
In the paper that you presented at the UN Economic and Social Council round table in 2006 , you said ‘economic growth occasioned by high commodity prices without giving cognisance to the creation of different jobs, has tended to impoverish a large number of the population, while making a few super rich’. This aptly fits Nigeria’s situation; how can we rebuild the middle class?
It is important to do so because development means adding quality to what you want to become and benefits to what you believe you have achieved. Understanding is very necessary between the players themselves which includes the government and the private sector, or else there would be no economic growth. Both the private and the public sector need to come together and pull the same weight. This is what we need to do. We have always cried about marginalisation, but the moment you feel so, see it as a challenge and ensure that things are balanced.
You announced your retirement from politics when you turned 80, but do politicians really retire?
Yes, politicians retire from what is called partisan politics. I am an active politician but I am not in partisan politics. An active politician is someone who looks around himself and believes that there are certain things that he can help improve upon to affect the lives of others positively; in that respect you can never retire. So, I retired from partisan politics, but I remain an active politician.
Still talking politics, tribalism, ethnicity and religion are still major factors in Nigerian politics. How much has this cost us in the past, and how can we rise above these sentiments?
These issues are the worst of all evils and they have hindered development in Nigeria and also in Africa, but unfortunately, there are things you cannot change except you want to begin a revolution. Things are already out of place. So don’t use religion, tribe or ethnicity to gain anything or to complain about anything.
You once attributed the problems in the PDP to the loss of power. How do you mean, are you insinuating that the foundation was weak?
The slogan of PDP is power to the people; and that is a promise that it made at the beginning. The agreement was that it was the people that had the power, but when we say we want an election, but some people in the party say that what they would have is selection, then, power does not belong to the people anymore. The foundation of the party was supposed to be built on equity and justice, but once you start tampering with the things that you had agreed to do at the beginning without the consent of all the members of the party, it means that you are drifting and people would leave you.
The PDP governors were the ones who ensured Ali Modu Sheriff emerged as acting chairman, and they are also the ones bent of removing him. Why do governors feel that they are above the party and can get away with anything?
When these governors found themselves in power, they could distribute favours and positions to people, so they felt that that alone can make them hold on to power and do what they like. When I was told that the governors were accusing me of wanting to take their structures away from them, I asked the President where the governors felt I was taking the structures to. My job as the national chairman is to win elections at the center; therefore whatever I do to achieve that does not amount to taking a structure from anyone. I cannot sit down and allow a governor who wants to bring in his successor to do it without going through the necessary election. But, doing my job is to mobilise this family unit and make sure that they go to give their own mandate to whoever they want. It is the aggregate of that mandate that makes the president a president or the senator a senator. If we do not do that, we would not be able to succeed.
With the benefit of hindsight, would you have resigned before the formation of the new PDP by some of the then governors who later went on to join the APC?
I would not have resigned at all. I always insisted that everything be done according to what is in the party’s constitution, but they wanted to select people into positions instead of electing people. I told them that if they do not want the constitution, we should change it instead of subverting it or derailing. PDP could have been winning and winning, if many of them had agreed to follow the constitution and do what is right.
One of the issues at the time was whether ex President Jonathan had promised to spend only one term or not. To set the records straight, did the ex- president make a commitment to spend only one term in office?
I do not know and I was not privileged to be at any meeting where Jonathan said he wants to spend only one term. When I came in, Umaru Yar’Adua had died and Jonathan had taken over according to the constitution. My own emphasis has been to follow the constitution and I want to make it very clear that there were people who wanted to take his position. In politics, we can sit down and agree or disagree, but not to go behind and try to subvert the decision and believe that by doing so, you can get what you want. Under my watch, I ensured that I do what I know is in the constitution or whatever is agreed upon by consensus.
Do you think that the current crisis in the PDP has vindicated the position you took at the time?
I believe so. If they had followed my advice, PDP would still be ruling, no doubt about it.
What is your advice to the party that can bring an end to the crisis?
Any party that does not uphold the principles of democracy and practice ‘one man, one vote’ will fall like a pack of cards. If you rig elections, the courts are there to upturn your election, and if you veer from democratic ideals, in a matter of time your party would collapse.