• ‘Nigeria is in need of a reset’

Chief Dele Momodu is a chieftain of the African Democratic Congress (ADC). In this interview, he speaks on how the party has overhauled its political structure, removing membership barriers and boosting inclusivity to attract experienced leaders and grassroots supporters, among other issues, ANAYO EZUGWU reports

The ADC just set up a constitution review committee and many Nigerians are wondering if that was to rejig the party ahead of the 2027 polls or to give a political advantage to some people in your party. Could you clear this air?

When there is a coalition, it is assumed that it’s a coalition of people of co-joiners. So, everyone at this stage is equal, even if you have the National Working Committee (NWC) that organises and regulates everything that goes on in the party.

What the party seeks to do is to be different from other parties. They want to be able to know what is going on where and how it is supposed to go. It’s a reset. Nigeria right now is in a state of anomie and everybody agrees, even those who are in government agree that we have too many problems.

So, a relatively new party that wants to operate at the highest national level must be seen to be different from the ruling party, and in the coming weeks and months, you will see the discipline that the party will bring on board. So, it’s not just going to be a party for just anything goes, which is what we see in the All Progressives Congress (APC) at the moment. Anything goes.

Tinubu is not someone who will go down easily, so you need people who have been tried and tested… otherwise we should forget it

One man can wake up and hijack the party in any state and that is not going to be able to happen in ADC. ADC is a very serious party. We’re learning from the past mistakes of other political parties. When APC itself came into being between 2014 and 2015, we thought a lot of things were changed. Some of us supported APC at that stage.

I wasn’t a member of APC. I’ve never been a member of APC. I don’t plan to be a member of APC but APC has taught us that it is not enough for you to fight for power.

What do you do with the power when you get it? So, it’s obvious that we have to do a lot better than what APC is doing right now and that is why you can see that a lot of things are being put together in terms of constitution, policies, and so on and so forth.

Tell us more about the ADC’s national structure. Do you think it is solid and is the footing solid?

There is no question about that. Any party that currently has two of the top three presidential candidates in the last election must be a serious party. Tinubu was declared winner, followed by Atiku Abubakar, followed by Peter Obi, and when you add Atiku and Obi’s votes together, it tells you that there is something voluminous in ADC and anyone who takes such a party for granted does so at its own peril.

Coming on the posture of a national rescue party, you’ve promised Nigerians a lot of things. What’s your view and are you seeing what is happening in Rivers State as a political advantage for the ADC?

I was hoping that this cup would pass over me. I didn’t want to go into the Rivers State brouhaha. It’s not something that is pleasant. But I won’t run away from reacting. So, a party where a federal minister can abandon his job in Abuja and is openly campaigning supposedly for the president, though I know he’s fighting for his own political life.

He said it openly that if he does not fix Siminalayi Fubara, the governor of the state who once upon a time was his anointed godson, then his political burial is coming very soon. So, that’s why he’s fighting. He has now abandoned Abuja, campaigning all over Rivers and saying all sorts of things. It is lack of discipline. It got so bad that the national secretary of APC had to tell him, resign if you don’t have better things to do with your assignment in government.

So, that’s the peak of it. And we can see that APC is thoroughly embarrassed today. But unfortunately for them, they brought in this bull into a China shop and they will have to live with it. I’m very excited because we forewarned them that this is one man that you will not be able to handle. People thought Atiku was stupid when he didn’t pick him as running mate. A lot of people called me, saying Atiku is not a good politician. He should have pretended and just appoint him and win and then deal with him. Atiku tells us every time that he’s not desperate.

He will run according to the books. If he wins, he wins. And if he doesn’t win, that’s fine. He does not disturb anybody. He does not carry thugs around. He does not control any state where he’s taking money from and living fat on the resources of the state. So we can see that APC has become a Fuji house of commotion. And I wish them the best of luck.

How would you say the ADC is managing trust issues amongst coalition partners?

At this stage, what you expect to happen is what is going on. Everyone is fighting. Atiku believes he deserves the right to get a ticket. Obi believes he must get a ticket. Rotimi Amaechi says the same thing. That’s what you expect from them. Why would anybody want to contest election if you don’t think you can win? In the last primary of APC, Amaechi came second.

So, it tells you that he’s solid. Obi went ahead to be the candidate of Labour Party, and he came third as a first-timer. The first time he was on the national platform was when he joined Atiku as running mate. But he decided to take on his own destiny the last time.

And he did well beyond the expectations of many of us. So, you have a lot of juggernauts. You have Malam Nasir El-Rufai, a presidential material any day. You have my brother who just celebrated his 60th birthday, Aminu Tambuwal, a senator who has been governor for eight years.

He’s been Speaker of the House of Representatives. You don’t get them any better than that. So, there are many men of timber and caliber in ADC, who want to run. And of course, one of them will get the ticket. And by the grace of God, others will support them this time because Nigeria is in need of a reset. We cannot continue like this.

You’ve mentioned some personalities; Rotimi Amaechi, Atiku Abubakar, Aminu Tambuwal, Peter Obi and some others. From your own position, who should step down for the other between Atiku and Obi?

There is no question of stepping down for anybody. They will fight it out. That’s democracy. If you ask me today, one of the things I have against President Bola Tinubu is this attraction to dictatorship. A primary is an election. Consensus is where you step down. We haven’t reached that stage.

The party will have to determine the option it wants. You know my choice already and my choice would be Atiku based on the mathematics. That’s number one. Based on the experience, that’s number two. Based on the exposure, Atiku is the most experienced man we will have in the race. This man has meticulously worked his way since 1993, when he stepped down for Chief MKO Abiola.

Today, if you are looking at someone who has the national formidability, it’s Atiku. If you now combine that with either Amaechi, Obi or any other person that we can find from the South, Atiku will be a candidate of necessity. The necessity is that the first thing on the card in 2027 will be this issue of ethnicity. Everybody wants to be for himself and God for us all.

Every region right now is aggrieved. The North is aggrieved. The SouthEast is aggrieved. The SouthSouth people are aggrieved. Even the South-West, where Tinubu comes from, there is no peace. That’s why you have Rauf Aregbesola, who was at a time one of Tinubu’s closest allies in the ADC fold. When you have a situation like that, then the political mathematicians must sit down and compute where the numbers are because it’s a game of numbers.

And when you look at that, I will tell you, and I keep quoting Isaac Newton’s third law of motion, actions and reactions are always equal and opposite. To tackle Tinubu, you will have to come from the opposite direction. That is with due respect to everyone contesting. So, let them pick the ticket. If they decide to go for consensus, then they will have to sit down and look at where the numbers will come from.

I’m very convinced that the numbers will come from the North-West, NorthEast, and some parts of the North Central before we now cross to the ‘Nigeria is in need of a reset’ Momodu South. And I believe Atiku is the only one who is ready because there are so many variables you have to consider when you are looking at the presidential election. I’ve contested once in 2011. I tried in 2022 and didn’t make any headway. But I know the mathematics involved, and I know it’s not going to be easy for any southerner to take on Tinubu.

You’ve spoken about Atiku being your candidate of choice. Are you saying that power should return to the North and how do you respond to concerns of Atiku’s age?

I don’t see much difference between age of Atiku and Tinubu, and I’ve not heard anyone complain about Tinubu’s age. That’s number one. Number two is that the Atiku that I know today is a very disciplined man.

When you see him, you see that he remains presidential, even years after he left as vice president. Then, in terms of whether power should return to the North, power is currently in the hands of the South. So, that question does not arise.

The man who is there now is not a northerner, and there is no automatic qualification because you are a southerner. Some people will argue, oh, he must do eight years. There is nowhere in the world where you make age or where you come from the sole determinant of who should be in power. And if you look at it from 1999 to date, we have never had a time when we insisted that one zone must complete its tenure on power.

When President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua died in 2010, we did not insist that a northerner should continue. His vice president, Goodluck Jonathan, continued from where the boss left it, and the contested for his own tenure in 2011. That was when I contested. He won, which means he had done a minimum of five years, thereabout.

There is nowhere in the world that age or where someone comes from are determinants of who should be in power

Then he contested again, which would have given him a total of nine years. Nobody stopped him. It was because there is nothing in the constitution of Nigeria that says you must do eight years here, eight years there. But people have been clever by insisting they believe that the only way they can get a ticket is if they zone it to them.

If you look at someone like Nyesom Wike, who is fighting today, he and his guys, members of the G5, threw the PDP’s ticket open. That is why everybody contested in the last election. So, my advice now to ADC is to throw the ticket open, get the best combination, and you will see that Tinubu is defeatable.

A lot of people ask me, are you sure anybody can? I say, yes, he’s defeatable. It’s about removing emotion and sentiment, go by the raw mathematics, and when you do that, you will see that it is very possible. But if we all insist that it must go to a particular zone when the votes are going to come from an opposite direction, we should realize that we need a candidate that if he’s on the ticket, his people will be ready to defend the votes.

If you pick someone from a zone that you don’t have the numbers, and you now expect those from the opposite direction to come out, it may not work because the next election, trust me, is going to be a serious battle. Tinubu is not someone who will go down easily, so you need people who have been tried and tested like Atiku, Tambuwal or E-Rufai. One of them must be on that ticket otherwise we should forget it.

Wouldn’t there be a replay of the PDP crisis if ADC fails to take serious consideration about some internal demands and realities of the party and the country in terms of an equitable and fair zoning structure?

There is nothing to learn from what happened. We must abide by the constitution of Nigeria. The constitution of Nigeria is superior to every other constitution, whether party constitution or association constitution. The constitution of Nigeria allows everyone to run. That is why Omoyele Sowore will continue to run.

That was why Muhammadu Buhari continued to run even when had given up. That’s why I said there are candidates of necessity. Buhari continued to run.

That’s why he eventually made it. If after 2011, he gave up and he did not run in 2015, nobody would have known that it was possible for him to run. In fact, President Donald Trump was sacked from the White House.

No one ever expected that he would come back. But his party realised that he is a candidate of necessity they must make use of if they want to go back to the White House. So, what I’m saying about Atiku, forget about my personal choice, of course, I was the director of strategic communications the last time, and I remain loyal to him.

That is me. If I wanted easy way to power, I would run to Tinubu. Those who ran to him, he didn’t chase them back. So, I am telling you that don’t worry about my personal choice because I have only one vote.

But I’m talking about the mathematics of winning election. And I’ve given you names of at least three formidable northerners who can be on that ticket. It does not matter whether Atiku is on the ticket or not.

The mathematics of it is that for anybody to take on Tinubu, he must come from the opposite direction. So, don’t blackmail me because of my choice of Atiku. I will continue to mention Atiku because that’s my personal candidate, but I have only one vote in the party. But for our party to make progress, I believe it’s a lot easier for us to pick one of the great candidates from the North and pick a formidable candidate from the South as running mate, and you will see that they will coast home to victory.

Why should Nigerians trust defectors who keep switching from one party to another?

Because there is nothing in the constitution of Nigeria that stops people from defecting, and even the provision that is in the constitution, it has not been respected by the ruling party. You can see what happened in Rivers State; some members of the House of Assembly defected, and they were supposed to have automatic disqualification from that moment onwards.

It never happened. So, there is nothing in our constitution discouraging it. In Ghana, I think it would be almost impossible for you to defect and then remain in power. So, there is a difference between Nigeria and other places.