Mallam Umar Sani is a former spokesman to former Vice President Atiku Abubakar and a chieftain of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP. In this interview with OLAOLU OLADIPO, he talked about various issues, the crisis within the party and the way forward. Excerpts:

You are a big stakeholder in the PDP. Are you in any way worried with the turn of events within the party?

Of course; any reasonable member of the PDP should be very worried about what is happening within the party because this is one of the greatest parties in Nigeria. It has now been reduced to a shadow of its former self.

People are leaving the party in droves because most of them can’t use the platform of the party to contest elections. They are afraid that the platform of the party may not be available in view of the intra-party squabbles within the party.

So it is something very worrisome and this sometimes informs my opinion on certain issues that I try to express, which may not be palatable to some, but may be agreeable with others. But I still hold the opinion that these squabbles can be brought to an end if there is commitment and love of the party by the critical stakeholders.

You expressed optimism for reconciliation before the 2027 general election; don’t you think the time is too short for the party to reposition itself to participate in the election?

The time is not too short. You know, the election timetable stated that the primaries will take place from 23rd of April to 30th of May, which means that there is sufficient time for the party to come together, put all things behind, and then put a candidate forward for elections.

If you are to hazard a guess as to who the critical stakeholders are that can bring peace within the party are; can you tell us who you believe are key in resolving the logjam in the party?

When I say critical stakeholders, we have members of the National Executive Council, members of the Board of Trustees and our governors, although we have two governors left. These are the critical stakeholders of our party. Once they put heads together, then everything will be back to normal.

It is because there is a division in their respective pursuits that’s why we are having the problems we are having now but if all heads come together and we rise above sentiments to the position of party, I think it will be resolved in no time. More so an opportunity has been provided by the Appeal Court in Ibadan which stated that members of the PDP ‘are all members of one family fighting before us.

It is not within our jurisdiction to entertain such matters, you know, which is internal in nature. What we can do as a court is to say, okay, go and reconcile. Whatever you reconcile and you bring to us, we will pass it as consent judgment’.

This gives us latitude to now try to reconcile without necessarily having any convention or any NEC or what have you because this type of reconciliation moves straight to court and then the court will now make pronouncement and that’s what it becomes a resolution by both parties, consenting parties.

The critical issue at stake is whether the party should endorse President Bola Tinubu for a second term or to have its candidate; where do you stand within this division with regards to moving forward?

Well, I think each political party should pursue its own agenda. I don’t believe that a political party should endorse the candidate of another political party. Whoever is involved, the PDP has never endorsed the presidential candidate of any party. It is in our own tradition that we field our own candidates and we support our candidate to the end.

So it is completely not in the spirit of our founding fathers that we should now refuse to field a presidential candidate because we want to support the incumbent although we will not close our eyes to the fact that at some point President Bola Tinubu once supported our party in 2011 and President Goodluck Jonathan was able to win Lagos overwhelmingly. I’m not going to say that opposition parties have never assisted us before.

They have but it is the spirit of our founding fathers that I’m talking about. Our founding fathers have never envisaged what is happening now. They have never contemplated that our party would get to some point where it would be supporting another candidate during elections.

As an insider within the party, what do you think should be done to bring people with divergent views on the same page on the need for the party to field its own candidate?

Well, the issue is, it is a step-by-step approach. We have so many candidates who want to be candidates of our party. One of them is Gbenga Hashim who has been going up and down within, the other side that I want to refer to as splinter group because we are one family.

He has been going in between to try to resolve the matter. He has already declared his intention to contest the Presidency. He is the only person who has declared as a presidential aspirant. So we have a presidential aspirant on the ground, maybe subsequently, if these issues are resolved, we will have more presidential aspirants, and whoever emerges at the convention becomes our presidential candidate.

You talked about the incumbent president assisting your party to win Lagos and by extension the South West in 2011…

(Cuts in) No, I didn’t say by extension the South West because we didn’t completely win the South West. I said Lagos because we won Lagos over a million votes.

Some people argued that maybe for peace to reign and that because of the problem on ground, the party should support President Tinubu’s re-election bid and use the opportunity of his remaining four-year tenure to reposition itself and come back in 2031. Do you share this view?

For me, that is against the spirit and letter of multiparty democracy. In multiparty democracy, each party has its own manifesto and each party wants to achieve certain things and certain targets.

The target of the incumbent may be completely different from the manifesto of the PDP and so, if we say we are going to concede, it means we are also conceding our manifesto, that we are saying that our manifesto is not good enough; that the manifesto of the APC is superior to our manifesto.

That is not what I want to see. I want to see that spirit of competition is engendered. We don’t want a situation where the incumbent wants to be coronated or he wants to be crowned as the president and commander-in-chief. Let him contest elections. Nobody should be afraid of contesting elections.

He contested before and won. So, I think that he has no fear. Since he has won before, he can do it again. Why do you have to suffocate other political parties before you come in? You can allow them to breathe. Let them have fresh air.

Then you can use your superior performance, what you have done, what you can campaign with in the Renewed Hope Agenda. You should tell Nigerians what Renewed Hope has done, how it has penetrated every nook and cranny. What achievements have been recorded and so forth and allow Nigerians to take the final decision. The people should be allowed to vote and make their choice. This is what I believe.

Some people argue that there is more like external influence fueling the crisis in the party. Do you think there are some external forces destabilising your party?

You cannot rule out the fact that there are external forces, and one of such external forces, like I always say, is Mr. President himself because when he went to the National Assembly to deliver his budget speech, when he was asked, he said, ‘it gives me great pleasure to see the PDP in disarray and I’m not ready to help you,’ which means he will allow the destabilisation of PDP. So that is a statement that has led other people to try to manipulate our party and try to destabilise it.

Let’s now leave your party. Let’s talk about the government. The general election is about a year from now. Looking at the current government visà-vis what your party achieved in 16 years in power, if you put the two side by side, how would you rate the current government in terms of performance, in terms of delivering on a democracy dividends?

You see, you cannot compare. If we are talking about only this government and not an APC government, the basis of comparison is not there because (President) Tinubu’s government is only three years old and you can’t compare achievements recorded in 16 years with achievements recorded in three years. However, what I can say about the government is there are areas of interest where the APC has always relied upon.

The argument as propounded by former President Muhammad Buhari was in three thematic areas, one, insecurity; two, the economy and three, anti-corruption. These are the three areas which President Tinubu is also leveraging because he said he would continue where Buhari stopped and so, if he is continuing where President Buhari stopped, the issue is we look at those three areas.

How far has he gone in the area of security? How far has he gone in the area of the economy? And how far has he gone in the fight against corruption? These are the areas we will rate him high. When you talk about the economy, it includes infrastructural development and so forth and so on.

These are things that form the basis of the economy. Now, the issues that are clear for determination are when you look at the projects that have been done, the major infrastructural projects that have been done in the country, most of them are located in Lagos. They start from Lagos and they are expected to end somewhere else.

The coastal road, this is the first time in the history of Nigeria where a contract of 15 trillion naira for construction of roads was ever given. 30 kilometers of the road was done in Lagos out of 700 kilometers. I have not been following up to see the extent of the improvement in the construction of the road, but at least 15 trillion will be used.

There is the contract for the rehabilitation of the Third Mainland Bridge, which was placed at about N3.6 trillion. Again, a contract will soon be awarded for this because the FEC had already discussed the issue and had taken a decision on the matter.

Again, the issue of the Fourth Mainland Bridge, which is also on the table, which is being discussed, which is valued at about N3.8 trillion, will be constructed in Lagos. Again, there is the renovation of the Murtala Muhammad International Airport, which is expected to cost N712bn. Of late, there is the CCTV hub, which is also to cost about N40 billion.

What I’m trying to tell you is that on most of the roads, there is a superhighway, which starts from Badagry and is expected to end in Sokoto, which is worth about N2.4trn or N2.8trn. When you look at the expenditure within the infrastructure framework, then more money is spent within Lagos than within the whole country.

Then, we look at the health sector; only 36 million naira, if the news from the newspapers are anything to go by, a paltry 36 million naira was said to have been budgeted for health in the whole country. I don’t know whether it’s an arithmetical error, whether it’s N36 billion and it was budgeted at N36 million or N3.6 billion or so. I don’t know which one it is but whichever it is, you can see that the priorities are not right. The priorities are not placed adequately where they ought to be.

Then, when you come to insecurity, I rest my submission on the statement credited to President Donald Trump on the current insecurity in the country and the decision of the President to undertake a state visit to the UK. Then look at corruption.

I’m not saying that there is no fight against corruption, but it’s selective. It is selective. It is only targeted at the opposition. What I’m trying to say is that in these three thematic areas, I think the government is not doing well. If I may offer my own opinion.

What’s your view with regards to the recently promulgated Electoral Act? I learned that the opposition party has been up in arms against the government with regards to provisions in the Act. What are your views?

The new Act has so many areas of contention. Number one, it is against the principles of natural justice. For the National Assembly to promulgate a law that will define how political parties make their internal choices is unfair and undemocratic. Most times, you can’t tell people to do consensus or direct primaries. It is important for us to know that indirect primaries are used by other political parties.

So, for anybody to say that you must do direct primaries or consensus is unfair. Then, again, the same Electoral Act has removed a very fundamental aspect that one can be sued for forgery. Now, if your certificate is forged, you cannot be removed. So, anybody can go and forge a certificate and use it to contest elections.

The courts cannot listen to that because the Electoral Act has committed that as part of the Act and some other very critical issues which cannot be discussed entirely here but just to let you know that these two examples are what the opposition is hammering on about the Electoral Act, that the Electoral Act should take cognisance of the generality of the interests of the people.