Victor Umeh is the senator representing Anambra Central Senatorial District at the National Assembly. In this interview monitored on Arise Television, he speaks on Peter Obi’s recent visit to Rotimi Amaechi and the leadership crisis in the African Democratic Congress (ADC), among other issues, ANAYO EZUGWU reports

You were part of the meeting between Rotimi Amaechi and Peter Obi. Was that an attempt to negotiate the ticket ADC presidential behind closed doors?

Well, this is the season for political consultations, and it will not be unusual for people who operate in a political party to begin to talk to themselves, particularly those who are aspiring to run for the same office. You cannot stay away from others and expect a miracle to happen. There must be the need for an approach, breaking the ice, looking ahead and thinking about what will be the future of your party in the unfolding political season.

But that’s a fairly broad sort of assessment. What was the nature of this particular meeting?

If you call it a meeting, I don’t even call it a meeting as such. Obi decided to reach out to Rotimi Amaechi as one of the presidential aspirants in the ADC. He has been talking to virtually all of them before he went to see Amaechi. He had seen Atiku Abubakar in his own residence about two days earlier, and he’s been talking with every other person who is in this race.

So, Amaechi’s own cannot be unusual. And when he was going, he thought that we should accompany him. In fact, we left a wedding to go there together. And when we came, Amaechi welcomed us. The reason for coming was obvious, to open up communication. You don’t stay in your house saying this is what you want to be. You must talk to some people and you must have to build bridges.

Nigerians are often wary of elite deals being struck in private. Was that meeting about consultation or was it calculation because the reports making the rounds suggest Obi was begging Amaechi to support him, and that Amaechi bluntly refused?

You see, that is what is offensive about what the whole thing has turned out to look like. It is not. Going to see Amaechi was a noble visit with good intention. You have to talk to your opponent and Obi had to go with people. He went with me and Achike Udenwa at least to make sure that there are people who will be there when they will be looking at each other.

So, what you said is a misrepresentation. Some people called me and said that we went there for Obi to beg Amaechi to step down for him in the primary election. The word ‘beg’ is very condescending. Obi is not someone who can go and beg you for what he thinks that he wants or that what he thinks should be done or what is right. We were all there and Obi came and, of course, exchanged pleasantries.

We exchanged pleasantries and then, of course, there’s no way the issue of the presidential election will not come up, and Obi, in trying to give him the honour, told him that he has come to tell him that he’s actually running for president. Obi has to go and break the ice and Amaechi said, oh I’m running too and that was where the conversation ended. From there, Amaechi took over, Obi rarely said anything anymore. He was one who started analyzing everything in Nigeria and all that and we were listening. And the word has been given out that he’s also running.

Obi never told Amaechi to step down for him. If I tell you that I want to run for an office, probably you want to run for the same office,that does not amount to asking you to step down for me. So, that was a wrong spin of that visit. I know that Amaechi knows that Obi never asked him to step down for him. He never did.

At the heart of all this is, of course, a bigger question: Can Nigeria’s opposition truly unite ahead of the 2027 elections or personal ambitions making that impossible?

Well, you have to start. That is why I said that Obi making up his mind to visit Amaechi in his house to see him was a step in the right direction, because there is no way all of them will become presidential candidates or all of them become president of Nigeria at the same time.

There must be some level of discussion and consultations to open up a line of decision making. And one thing that is amazing is that when you see people who want to run for office, they will continue to tell you that they will win.

If the law says that no court in Nigeria shall have jurisdiction to entertain any matter or suit concerning internal affairs of a party, there’s no way that interference by the court will not be stopped

They don’t even say that the other person will win. So, when it comes to the point that I will win. I stand the best chance to win, what do you say again? You take the position and go and continue your work because you have other people to talk to. You talk to a lot of people and the person insisting that he will win has to talk to a lot of people.

You need convergence of understanding for you to be able to break the ice and go through because the first prediction when the coalition came together was that they will scatter, that nobody will step down for each other. It has played on for one year now. It hasn’t gotten to that point but people predicted it will not work. And whether you like it or not, it is the same situation that people are talking to each other.

But the real challenge is going to be when the talk of a consensus candidate begins. Is the ADC still a viable platform for 2027 or is it merely fighting for survival?

I should think that looking ahead; the timelines have been released by INEC. The primaries must end by May 30, if there’s no court intervention. That being the case, it is very strange that at this stage, the presidential aspirants have not started developing spirits of consideration and patriotism to see the ADC go to the election and win.

If every person is holding on to his own ground, there will be no consensus, there must be a primary. Then, you are preparing to kill the party’s participation in the election. That is why it is very important that everybody will tell himself the truth.

I watched your interview with Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, and he said this will be the last time he will run for the presidential election in Nigeria, so this one will be his last. So, he’s running but having followed the discussions and debates across the nation, i think we should be getting to a point where we’re thinking about leaving the stage for younger people to contest, but he says he’s contesting. It means that everything everybody has said in the past months did not resonate with him.

And if he holds on to that ground that he cannot build the younger ones to succeed him and make him a father, he’s supposed to be a father at this stage and at this age., it means that nobody is to concede an inch at all. So, if they go all out to wrestle, it may get to the point that some people will have bloody nose in the end.

And the thing that will suffer will be the party and this effort to bring a viable platform that will contest the election against the ruling party because if you’re not strong, then you’re not making any sense.

The truth is that this thing has a historical perspective. He’s been running since 2003. And we respect him. He’s a very strong character and politician with influence.

But there’s a time you will say, oh, I’ve done it. Let me prop other people. Those people you are saying should also step down for him so that he will go are coming with ideas that will promote a change which Nigerians are looking for. Let me tell you what is very critical at this stage. You have to take a look at the ruling party they are trying to dislodge. That ruling party is entrenched and the president that is in office is not making any pretenses about it.

He’s not in a hurry to go. So, if you want to challenge this kind of situation, there must be something that is different that you offer Nigerians. If you are guided by what Nigerians want, it will be very easy for you to now say let me take this way or let me take that way. It’s not about I want to be. It will be: Will the people take me? Will I be that change agent the Nigerians are looking for as an alternative to the ruling party? What you cannot take away is the movement of time.

Time is never static. As time moves, things change. Somebody who contested the election in 2023, by now, will be three years older than he was in 2023 and that will also begin to change a lot of things as you move up. And the people who are making these choices will be looking at the state of the nation. What do we want? How do we drive ourselves away from these problems we are facing today in the country? And they are entitled to make their decisions.

The ADC is in a leadership crisis. How can you credibly claim that you can govern a country like Nigeria, when you are mired in that kind of crisis?

Those who are claiming to be factional leaders of ADC are not running for presidency. And there are just two names that are being mentioned. Nafiu Gombe, he’s not running for any office. The other one is the one in the House of Representatives, Abejide is not running for presidency.

He’s rather supporting the candidate of another party. So, if you look at them, you’ll see that the seeming crisis we have in the ADC is not orchestrated by the members of ADC, those running for presidency and things like that. These people are injected to cause problem.

If by chance the ADC project collapses, the Peoples Redemption Party (PRP) is now inviting your key figures, Peter Obi, Atiku Abubakar, Rabiu, Kwankwaso and Rotimi Amaechi to unite under its platform. What’s your reaction to that?

Well, I think that ADC has garnered the momentum to drive this project. And if you abandon the ADC and go to a party that does not have the structure, no matter what they claim, it will be very difficult because inviting the same people over to your own platform, they will come with their own ambitions.

I don’t believe that we will not overcome it because the matter is in court and what is in court is a simple issue, whether the court has jurisdiction to entertain a matter concerning internal affairs of a political party. Once that is answered in the affirmative that they don’t have jurisdiction, the whole crisis will end.

A lot of hope was placed on the ADC and now the party, for whatever reason, is mired in crisis, while the APC remains firmly in power. Are you handing them an advantage?

If we let the parties to run and function, there will be opportunity to give them a run for that office. But we have a situation where things are put on the way of the partues, not only ADC, the PDP is also in court.

Even though they think that they are stable, some people have been brushed aside, major groups of the party have been brushed aside. The matter is also in court and the group that is holding to the party today, they’re not preparing to contest the presidency against the ruling party.

Then it’s the same thing. The Labour Party, I have just read the other day that they are not going to field the candidate against the current president. So, it means that all the parties that you can go to and contest this election, they are all gagged. So, for the ADC, I strongly believe that we will cross the hurdle unless the laws of Nigeria do not mean anything again.

If the law says that no court in Nigeria shall have jurisdiction to entertain any matter or suit concerning internal affairs of a party, there’s no way that interference by the court will not be stopped, particularly as the apex court has ruled severally that courts have no business getting into political parties’ leadership. And now that we are before the Supreme Court, I don’t want to be pessimistic. Everybody says in Nigeria anything happens.

I don’t believe this one. I’m living and I’ll be alive to see it play out; to see how the Supreme Court will now change and confer jurisdiction on the high Court when their case laws and decisions have forbidden that. And the Electoral Act has forbidden that expressly. So, I’m not one of those who believe that anything is possible. I don’t think that this one will be possible. But where it happens, there must be a way to move on and that way to move on will come.

There are 19 registered political parties. Not all of them are active, but they are recognized. So, anybody who is serious to continue with the race, if this one is stopped, which would be a tragedy of very monumental proportions, can still move on. But I think that the whole thing that is important in all this will be to secure our democracy, so that it will have meaning that is given to it. Democracy is a government of the people, by the people and for the people.

And if the people are removed, because what I’m trying to see now is where the people will be denied a chance to say yes to the ruling party, to continue, or say no to them, that they want to try other people. If you foreclose that, then you don’t have democracy anymore. So, what will be agitating Nigerians will be, how do we protect this democracy? It’s not even about the presidential aspirants, what they want to be, because people are ambitious.

They want to be the people that hold the sovereignty, the power to create a government, and the power to remove a government. And if we don’t prepare the grounds for that to happen in Nigeria, it will be goodbye to democracy. So, that’s why I think the greatest thing that should concern us will be to ensure that the rule of law is upheld. If we uphold the rule of law, the seeming mess or the ongoing mess in the ADC leadership will not exist. The law will deal with it.

Then you go to the conduct of election itself. You can see that by the action of the electoral umpire, the chairman of INEC, in interpreting the status quo ante bellum, was wrong At least he’s a Senior Advocate of Nigeria. His colleagues in the bar have all disagreed with him. Senior lawyers in the bar have disagreed with him. For him to create the impression, it shows that where we are rushing to may not be an easy place to go to.