Kamaldeen Adeyemi Ajibade is a Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN) and the National Legal Adviser of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP). In this interview monitored on Arise Television, he speaks on the internal crisis within the party and the reconciliation efforts by the National Working Committee (NWC) of the party, among other issues

You said the PDP has to unite for it to make any impact in the 2027 general election but how can the party unite without discipline?

I can see that your question is bordered purely on the issue of Nyesom Wike, not talking about any other person. I think in addressing this issue, I think it’s always good to take it holistically and not look at the aspect of Wike. The role of Wike was in the aspect of the G5 that everybody believed made the party to lose its chances in the 2023 election.

But the G5 was not just about Wike alone. So issue of discipline or not discipline, I can tell you that the party has stepped forward to discipline erring members.

The most dangerous member of the political party is a member that will be PDP in the daytime and will be somewhere else in the night. So for Wike, we’ve known the position of Wike, and Wike has come out to state his position as clearly as possible, so aspect of discipline, the party is taking a step and we’re working on that.

Why is PDP disciplinary process slow, snail pace that after the election the people that worked against the party is still determining the fate of your party?

With respect to you, you are not a politician, and you will not understand what it takes to put a political party together. You talk of discipline and you are not talking of reconciliation. There are aggrieved people, and when they are aggrieved, they state their grievances. And what we do on the ground to make sure that we’re able to reconcile the differences might not be known to you, but certainly give it to us.

You should know that by now, PDP has made a lot of effort, a lot of strides and a lot of steps have been taken. And many of you and the naysayers, I’m sure many of them are surprised where we have gotten the party to today. You can’t compare where we were four months ago with where we are today.

If a party, we can be talking of a convention to deal with what our NEC has stablised, the issue that we had has to do with the issue of secretary that became an issue that irreconcilable people and all this. But at the end of the day, that issue was not meant to take the period it took for us to resolve it. At the end of the day, we resolved that issue, and the party has moved forward.

But certainly, let me tell you, how many people will you expect from the party? It’s everybody that you expect from the party, then it’s difficult for you to move forward. We have to reconcile. We have to talk. We have to listen to them with their grievances, and we have to see how we can come in to correct some of this issue.

And that’s certainly what the party has to do for today. And I’m sure if you have been fair to us, you will know that a lot has been done, and the party has moved forward better than where we were about four months ago.

What does reconciliation look like in light of everything that’s happening in the party and the division even with regards to who is going to be a presidential flag bearer comes 2027?

And I want to take on one particular aspect of this, your question, which you talk about the zoning of our presidential candidate to the south.

The zoning has to do with our own internal democracy, and that has to do with our constitution requiring us to do zoning, to do balancing. But that would not preclude any other person to run if they didn’t feel to come up to run because purely, we cannot do things that would run against the constitution of Nigeria itself, which is a grand norm.

Whichever way, and whatever happens, going forward in this party today, I can assure you, the experience of 2023 is there to guide us. We will not make the same mistake

So even if we zone our presidential candidate to the south, it does not preclude anybody showing interest from any party going to say, okay, we want to, it’s our right, so we are not agreeing, we want to test our popularity. Fine, we will not stop that. We cannot stop that because the constitution of Nigeria itself gives everyone the right to come up to run for office.

Despite even if our constitution says we can do zoning, yes. So the aspect of reconciliation that you talk about, what I preach most of the time is issue of unity. And you know one thing with anybody, a politician, every politician has an ambition, and you know what ambition can cost most of the time. We have different ways of approaching our ambition.

Some might approach the ambition in a manner that creates a lot of problems, not looking at the impact on the party. My call most times is that certainly a politician, once you’re a politician you must have ambition, but don’t let that ambition be above the party itself. That is the future of the party.

So that has always been what we’ve been preaching. We know ambition has created a lot of problems. Even the issue of G5, it was issue of ambition, certainly, but today I think we’ve taken a giant stride and everybody has been on deck and everybody is prepared today to move the party forward.

So how are you dealing with the fact that each part of PDP right now seems to be adamant that they can have their way, because in the past a precedent has been set that if you are stubborn about having your way, you can make everything scatter for everybody else. How are you resolving that?

When we get to that, we’ll cross it, but I don’t see any problem going forward. What Senator Abba Moro has said is purely from his own perspective, looking at it, and he’s entitled to it. He’s a leader in the party, and he can come up to say that this is what we are looking at. But if you say the party, if you are telling me now that NWC has come up and said that they have shortlisted or listed names, then that will call for concern.

But all the members of our political party coming up to raise issues, that this is what we are looking at, certainly in a political party, just like I said, we have ways politicians play this game. You from outside might not understand it. Politics is a matter of interest, issue of politics.

People go out, people has interest. I’m not against you observing, the observers we observe, but politicians, we have a way of resolving some of this issue, and we have a way of talking to each other. Politics is about give and take. It’s only where you cannot really go into the aspect of give and take, and do the talking itself that leads to crisis.

Whichever way, and whatever happens, going forward in this party today, I can assure you, the experience of 2023 is there to guide us. We will not make the same mistake. That is my assurance to you.

If you say PDP is embarking on reconciliation, why couldn’t you reconcile Atiku Abubakar and Nyesom Wike and where is the reconciliation when a fraction of your party is in the ADC today? How do you measure the important part of our party? Is it only Atiku that makes the party?

If Atiku leaves the party, it means that the party is dead? I think I beg to disagree with that position. We have NWC that is intact. Even the division, when you talk about division of a party, it starts from the NWC. As long as the NWC, they are still intact, can tell you that the party is still intact and they are together. A member of the party leaving a political party, it has nothing to do with whether it is the most important.

There are very important people in the party, remaining in this party. And certainly, I can tell you, going forward to 2027, you’ll be surprised, and that’s what I told you. Going forward to 2027, those that left, I can assure you, some of them have even returned back.

And while we are going forward, I can tell you, even from APC, even from ADC you are talking about, they will return back to this party, I can assure you that. So forget about the fact, it’s about politics, it’s about interest, and people will go about to look for where they can actualize, if they are looking at it, it’s a political calculation.

If Atiku looks at it that, oh, okay, most likely, this was the issue that created the issue on 2023, issue of zoning, and likely the party might decide to zone this year, it’s possible, okay, let me take, move to where I can actualize my dream. But who told you that ADC cannot even zone their presidential candidate to the south?