Umar Sani is a chieftain of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP). In this interview monitored on Arise Television, he speaks on the recent national convention of the party, expulsion of Minister of FCT, Nyesom Wike and 10 others, among other issues, ANAYO EZUGWU reports
The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) stayed away from the PDP convention in Ibadan despite the ruling by an Oyo State High Court, and the party expelled some of its members. If they all committed anti-party infractions, why are they being expelled now?
We were at the stadium and the master of ceremony brought some people, displayed them, and said these are INEC officials. Immediately, I tweeted that the INEC officials are here.
Moments later, Bala Mohammed, the governor of Bauchi State, came on stage and collected the microphone and said they are not INEC observers. He said they are national election observers.
In order not to be caught in the web and to avoid people to begin to say I lied, I quickly issued out a statement to say that Governor Bala Mohammed corrected it by saying this is what he said, so that I will not be accused of complicity in issuing my statements on X. On the issue of whether INEC’s presence or absence will put to question the convention, I want to say that is not correct. The Electoral Act is very clear.
It says INEC may attend. If you look at the convention that brought in Julius Abure of Labour Party, INEC did not attend and they said they were not going to recognise Abure. He went to court, got an order, and INEC said in obedience to that order, we are recognising him. And as I’m speaking to you now, Abure’s name is on the portal of INEC as the duly recognised chairman of Labour Party.
These are to put the perspectives for people to understand that the coming of INEC will not validate or invalidate the convention. The statutory requirement for the convention, which was to give INEC 21-day notice, was given and we have gone ahead to hold our convention in compliance with court orders.
The last court order that was issued was on Friday around 2.30 by Justice A.L. Akintola of the Oyo State High Court, who has a jurisdiction to entertain the matter and who has been entertaining the matter. You know the principle of last in. So, it gives us that leverage to conduct our convention. Secondly, on the issue of Nyesom Wike and the rest carrying the party on their shoulders, and that the actions we took was coming a little bit too late, I want to say that it is better late than never.
And even when we were saying that we were going to resolve this thing as a family, it became very clear that there was no way we could resolve it as a family because the Board of Trustees (BOT), in their resolve to settle the matter, set up the Amb. Hassan Adamu committee for reconciliation, which had Mike Ogiadome as the Secretary. The committee was charged to try to broker peace and reconcile the two camps.
I don’t want to call them factions. A faction has been described by the Electoral Act, and a court must recognise one of the two as a faction before you can call it a faction. So, it’s just an internal dispute within us and I think Wike almost said so in his interview on national television, where he said it’s a dispute among family members.
Now, the committee approached Wike and one of his conditions is that we must agree that we are not going to field a presidential candidate in 2027. He said that is only under that condition that he will allow peace else it will be a fight to finish. That was what he said. So, we cannot wait for a fight to finish.
We have to end the fight. Beyond Wike and INEC absence from the convention, there were also some state chapters of the party that didn’t send delegates. How is the PDP going to survive the deluge of court cases and dissents from members of the party in the days ahead? Let me first and foremost address the issue of the delegates.
The expected number of delegates from our delegate list, which the accreditation committee verified is 3,131 delegates. But a total of 2,745 delegates were present. This is excluding Taraba State delegates who came late.
They came into the stadium late, after the accreditation had been done and voting had already commenced. So, there was no way they could have been accredited, and so they could not perform their statutory responsibility. However, the number of states from the accreditation committee report that didn’t show up is only two, Jigawa and Sokoto states. All other states were present.
The statutory requirement for the convention, which was to give INEC 21-day notice, was given and we have gone ahead to hold our convention in compliance with court orders
Was Rivers State present?
Yes, Rivers State was present. Maybe, your conclusion is that because Wike is in charge of Rivers, but there are delegates in Rivers that are not with Wike.
We have a lot of people like Senator Lee Maeba is a delegate. We have Uche Secondus as a delegate. We have Celestine Omehia as a delegate. Austin Okpara is also a delegate. They are all from Rivers State. And there are other such delegates under them. So, they are most likely to come there and they were there.
It’s not all the delegates that were there, but some delegates were there from Rivers State. On the question you asked about heavyweights dragging the party to court, I want to remind you that in our party, everybody is a heavyweight if you can help us to win election.
We do not believe that there is anybody who is not important. Everybody has his areas of importance and how he can play it. Now, we cannot accept people who will openly disparage our party, try to kill it and then we say we cannot do anything because they are heavyweights.
We have to do something to salvage our party. And our party is the largest party in Nigeria with all the structures. It is a party that has not changed name. It has not changed logo. It has not changed anything. It is the party that is still subsisting and it is not a carcass.
You said your party is the largest party in Nigeria, do you have empirical proof for that and is it bigger than the All Progressives Congress (APC) and how many governors do you have?
The APC is making the claim but that a governor who was elected under the PDP left for another party and transferred our mandate to that party, does not make him popular or does not make the other party popular. It is called poaching. When you poach our members; that is not to say we are out of circulation with the people.
The people who voted for him because he was PDP are still there. They have not followed him to anywhere. So, our popularity is measured by our acceptance by members of the public and not by the governors or by the president.
Do you people still even consider Governor Siminalayi Fubara of Rivers State as part of your party and how would you react to the defection of Taraba State governor, Agbu Kefas, to the APC?
For Fubara, you know the situation. He has been caged and you know it. You know that all the landmines that were placed before him to make him not be interested in participating in politics.
Fubara is neither here nor there. He has not come out publicly to say he’s no longer a member of PDP. That was why in our programme of activities at the convention, his picture was there because he’s still a member of the PDP unless he says otherwise.
Now, you just told me that the governor of Taraba State has completed his medicals, going on transfer to APC. That makes him an outgoing member of the PDP. He has already made a declaration.
Fubara is yet to make any declaration, so as far as we are concerned, he’s still a member of the PDP. And there’s nothing we can say other than to say he’s still a member.
Did anybody in the PDP spoke with Fubara ahead of the convention to know whether he would be there or to ask why he was not there after the convention?
I don’t think there was that need for us to do that because invitation was extended to every member of the party. You are at liberty to come or at liberty not to come. So, we don’t have to call him on phone or do anything other than to invite him.
