Former Minister of works and chieftain of the People’s Democratic Party, PDP, Sen Adeseye Ogunlewe has described the composition of the principal officers at the National Assembly as the best that has happened to the country. In an interview with Saturday Vangaurd at his Ogudu, Lagos residence, Sen Ogunlewe stated that whether people like it or not, the development would benefit the President and the country more.
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| Adeseye Ogunlewe |
Excerpts:
What is your view on the crisis rocking the governing party sequel to the emergence of the leaders of the National Assembly?
Well, I have been there before. I am not surprised. It is only those people who have not been there will be surprised at what happened. In a presidential system of government, the influence of the party with the members of the National Assembly or congress is very minimal.
Once they are elected and they now follow the principle of the separation of powers, they will remove the toga of the party immediately and become national assets. You can see the oath of office they took; there was no mention of party.
They have sworn to defend the constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria and that is what they must do and they have done the right thing. The choice of who leads them, who presides over the chambers, depends on the legislators themselves. If you are not a member, you don’t have any right. I was only miffed by the party’s mock primaries. It is unheard off, even if you have it in your mind, you don’t exhibit it. It is okay to lobby or canvass. But, where you believe because you have money, you are the leader of the party, therefore you can dictate to the National Assembly, then you are making a mistake. The drama is just starting.
Right now, they are bitter about the position of the Deputy Senate President . As a party leader, do you agree on the supremacy of the party as being canvased by APC?
President Muhammadu BuhariYou are talking about opposition party with 49 senators as against 59. Is that a bad minority? There is nothing they can do in that senate that would not require most major decision which is the 2/3 majority. So, how can you have a 2/3 majority if you don’t carry the 49 along.
So, it is the most reasonable thing to do. Whether people like it or not, it will pay the country. There will be little conflict, but there will be progress in the nation. They will look at things dispassionately and arrive at a decision because they are all in the game.But, if you say 49 senators are not relevant, only 59 should take everything. It is actually the 49 that will be against the 59.
And where they require 2/3 majority for any major decision, it will not happen. But, now things will go on smoothly to the benefit of Nigeria and Buhari himself. If he has the two of them on board, it is the policy he has for the country that will serve the country and not the policy of APC.
It is the policy of Nigeria, so it is the best thing that has even happened to this country. And with that kind of cooperation, I can assure you that you will marvel at the level of achievements the country will record.
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It is so easy for us to determine what is going to happen in 2019. The defeat of the 2015 election was caused by Jonathan. If not, it is impossible to defeat PDP. Look at all the people that are playing games now including the governors, the Senate President, Speaker and others, they were from PDP. So, it is the majority party and it is going to come on board. We need Buhari now, no doubt, to straighten things out. And let us have a new direction to governance in the country.
How did Jonathan cause PDP defeat?
I was a member of the presidential campaign team in 2011 and this sentiment of the North being short-changed was discussed extensively by the Northerners.
The supporters of PDP said they were finding it difficult in the North to campaign because the Northerners believed they had been short-changed. They said, it was their turn to be President. So, if it were possible, Jonathan shouldn’t have contested and it would have been easy for PDP. This sentiment will never happen again in this country.
When you are zoning, let the zone bring the candidate. We will never have North and South dichotomy in an election again; we will never have a Christian-Muslim division in our election again, because we barely escaped catastrophe. If there was no zoning, the situation would have changed.
That was what Obasanjo enjoyed in 1999 when two candidates came from the South-West. The people of North conceded despite the fact that Obasanjo lost in the North-West, he became the President. I think they have conceded enough. Is it proper for them to be short-changed this time? They wanted the power back and they got it.
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But, the leaders of the party should have waded into the situation and prevailed on Jonathan not to contest?
Senator OgunleweAs we are saying so, some people disagreed because they were benefiting from him. It was a cabal that surrounded him telling him what was not going to happen. People that stood their ground to defend PDP and Jonathan saw hell in the North.
It was a total movement in the North. They brain-washed them that the South was already using their turn and they needed to take it back. We have learnt our lessons, if it was the turn of the North, let them have it. And if it is the turn of the South, let all the candidates come from the South. If we can marry that, there will be less friction.
The issues of ethnicism, religion are critical to the political decision of this country. And it can never go away.In England, the Scots have their own party and they vote en-mass for them. Why do we believe that some people will not vote for their own people?
It is self-determination and I praise their courage. The same thing played out in national assembly leadership tussle.
They said they wanted it for the North central because of Saraki and Akume. Immediately Akume stepped down for Lawan, a North-East person, I knew, they had lost it because Dogara is North-East.That was why Gbajabiamila was defeated. I believe and I thought Tinubu was a clever politician until recently. He did not show any sense of political prowess.
It is very easy to catch him. When your profile is rising, you are bound to have enemies and you must be careful not to believe that you can have it your own way all the time. Some people will want to cut your wings and that was happened. The man should learn how to be a team player. Everything in politics is not money and national politics is not Lagos state. He must sit down now, make more friends and concede a lot.
Is this part of the change Nigerians are yearning for?
The change was for Jonathan to go. It was the personality that they wanted to change and they have achieved it. The man that has benefited from that change should perform. There is nothing new that he will do that we don’t know. We don’t need change other than to do what is right. Are we changing in Lagos State where corruption is at its highest or changing for not paying salaries for seven months? It is all gimmicks. The only change was between Jonathan and Buhari.
But do you agree that PDP is gaining from this development?
It was not a loss to PDP, it was Jonathan phenomenon. PDP is a solid party, PDP can hardly be defeated. 49 out of 59 senators was not a defeat. Before, it was a personality issue and it was a matter of time and we were seeing the handwriting on the wall that the battle would be lost and it came to reality. I am not surprised at all because I knew the pain of the people from the North.
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You cannot throw away the baby with the bath water. Because you lost election, then heads must roll or the PDP must hold new congress or national convention, it is not going to happen that way. What everybody must do now is to sit down and strategies and bring people that are fit into the position so as to work for the party and safe the party.
The election was lost because of the configuration of the country. Even if PDP were angels, they wouldn’t have stopped Buhari from winning. That was a man without structure, without a campaign from the South. In Jigawa state and other few northern states, Jonathan did not campaign. All the campaigns you saw on the television were last minute campaigns.
All the emirs and other people had already made up their minds that they were going to take their mandate. We were lucky; they did not go to war. I can’t blame them because they can’t be chased out of government for sixteen years.
The crisis in Lagos chapter of your party is yet unresolved, why is it that leadership at all levels seems to have disappointed the people?
Leadership in this country is critical to development and that is why I believe Buhari should be the right person to govern this country, not people that are still struggling to send their children to school or build houses or build mansions and you are saying they should not be corrupt.
If you are fulfilled, you want to serve, then, come and serve as President of Nigeria. It is not a training ground. We must establish that in this country and that is when we are going to make progress because there will be a lot of distractions. People that will be dealing with you all the day are businessmen who will entice you with money in order to gain favour.
So, you are vulnerable to influence, but if you are like Buhari, what else do you need in life that somebody will want to lure you into signing a particular contract. So, I have told them, that if they want a chairman that is reliable, then, they must bring a comfortable person, someone who is fulfilled and not desperate.
But, if you bring somebody who is not comfortable your chairman, we will lose the election because politicians will bribe him. In the same way, if PDP wants to present a presidential candidate in the next election, it will belooking for somebody in the calibre of Buhari.
A man who is not in a hurry and he will not allow anyone to distract him. People like that are available, there are credible Nigerians that can rule this country and I believe they will come out.At least, we have the first experiment, Buhari does not have the money and that is an albatross.
There are so many people that have done so much in their lives and cannot be distracted with money anymore because governance is difficult in Nigeria.
In a poverty-stricken country where everybody wants to take advantage of you, where somebody wants to build mansion for you in England, your children also want to go to school in England and you are a younger person; the pressure on you will be so much and you can be easily swayed. But let’s see what Buhari will do, I believe he is going to be a torch-bearer.
In the light of current development and based on your experience in government and in partisan politics, how would you advise the President ?
Muhammad Buhari, listen to me. There is nothing you can achieve if you rely on Indians, Lebanese or Chinese to do your construction work.
There are enough Engineers in Nigeria to construct anything you want to construct in this country. That is the way to develop. You don’t rely on Lebanese or Chinese to develop your infrastructure, you will be a failure. So, get Nigerian Association of Engineering, Nigerian Academy of Engineers t do your constuction.
That was what they did in China, India. Engineers drive the economy of the country not the economists or the Minister of Finance who is a manager of funds and who does not create wealth. It is only the engineers that can create wealth.
Mr. President, call them. I tried it when I was a Minister of Works; they frustrated it because I knew from my experience that there is nothing a Nigerian Engineer cannot do.The only thing they lack is equipment. But, because the expatriates will give you more money as a Minister, they will build houses for you in England; politicians will say our Engineers are not good. Anybody who feels otherwise can challenge me, I have been there, we have the best brain here with P.HD, Masters in Engineering but they are never allowed to do our work.The second aspect is food. Never again should Nigeria rely on any country to feed itself. That was the proclamation of Indians and Chinese, Indonesians, Malaysians, Thailand; “Never again should any country in the world feed my people.
” If you say that, then, you are making sense. It means you must grow your food by yourself and that is our policy. No importation of food and that is how to develop. We must have a benchmark.
We should not think of growing rice and giving waiver to supplement. It is that waiver that Indians will cash on.You must have a benchmark for your country. We will not import petroleum again even if heaven is going to fall. All you need is to call Nigerian engineers to design refineries for us and in another two years there will be no importation. But you see, everybody believes once democracy is fine, the economy will grow.
There is distinction between democracy and national development and they don’t go together. There are countries that are more developed than Nigeria, yet they don’t practice democracy. But, we believe that once we have free and fair election, our country is growing. It is not true.
Why didn’t you give former President Jonathan this piece of advice?
I advised Jonathan to engage Nigerian engineers and it was agreed, but they went behind and did another thing. We can employ the service of consultants abroad for trainings and they will go back. It is not for our children to work under them. They will make mistakes but it will be corrected. A leader must make up his mind.
