How PDP plans to come back — Mimiko

How did you feel emerging as the Chairman of the
Peoples Democratic Party Governors’ Forum?
I feel humbled and challenged at the same time
becoming the chairman of the 13-member body. It is an
expression of confidence by my colleagues. It is a new
season for the PDP. It calls for new ways, methods,
results and outcomes.
The PDP governors played a major role in the ‘coup’
that led to the emergence of Senator Bukola Saraki as
President of the Senate and Ike Ekweremadu as his
deputy; why did you do that?
I don’t know what you mean by coup. I know that the
senators under the constitution have the right to vote.
Incidentally, in this case, for the senate president, it
was a unanimous decision and for the deputy senate
president, two senators got nominated and Senator Ike
Ekweremadu won the election in line with the rules and
regulations of the Senate. Therefore, I don’t see it as a
coup. Rather, I see it as a welcome development that
even as a minority party, we are able to have the
deputy senate presidency.
But there is this general belief that it was the PDP
governors that struck the deal with the pro- Saraki
senators. Is this correct?
In politics, a lot of things happen behind the scenes. A
lot of people would now start to conjecture what and
what happened at where. But every political party tends
to strategise to advance its position. When the
opportunity arose for the PDP to advance its position,
we had 49 senators who all voted for Ekweremadu.
Thus, what about it?
What are you doing to ensure that the PDP makes a
good showing in the next general elections?
The hope of every opposition party is to bounce back to
the forefront. For now, our strategy is to reposition our
party as a very credible opposition party. Our strategy
is to ensure that we transit from the mindset of a ruling
party to that of an opposition party because the
strategy as a ruling party is different from that of the
opposition. The first thing for us to do is provide a very
credible and responsive opposition. Moving forward, if
we are able to do that properly, if we are able to
criticise constructively, each time providing credible
alternatives that would prepare us very well for 2019.
You held a marathon meeting of the Nigeria Governors’
Forum today (Wednesday), should Nigerians expect a
united NGF this time around?
One of the very important decisions that we took today
was to ensure that all the governors subscribe to the
very inherent advantages in our coming together, acting
together and being united.
We also ratified the earlier decision, electing the
Zamfara State Governor, (Abdul’Aziz Yari), as the
Chairman of the forum and that was well taken by us.
We also decided that we would be dispassionate, try
not to bring partisan politics to the forum and that we
should be concerned essentially about what affects our
people. Talking about development; we discussed how
we can benefit from the best practices of each of the
states, through a very credible peer review mechanism
and to comport ourselves in such a responsible manner
that will be very impactful, moving forward in terms of
the economy of this country.
Some Nigerians believe that the NGF is too powerful
and that the governors are using the forum to put the
Federal Government on its toes. What is your reaction
to this?
I don’t share that view. In the type of federation that
we run, the two federating units are the Federal
Government and the states. It is important for us, in
critical areas of commonality of interest, to move
together. There is no doubting the fact that,
occasionally, the Federal Government would want to
make incursion into areas of state domains limited as
they are in the constitution. It is important for us to be
together, to ensure that we also protect our special
areas of interest prescribed and affirmed by the
constitution. I don’t subscribe to the belief that the
NGF is too powerful. I just think that what has to be
done has to be done. For example, one of the issues on
which we have been consistently disagreeing with the
Federal Government is the area of revenue allocation.
We believe that this (current) formula should be
reviewed so that a lot of resources can come to the
states and local governments. It’s all in the interest of
development.
What intervention are you expecting from the Federal
Government over states’ inability to pay workers’
salaries?
More than 80 per cent of our deliberations today at the
NGF centred around the dwindling revenue and the
state of the economy generally. What we decided after
very thorough consideration of all the issues involved is
to meet with Mr. President, share with him some of our
own perspectives on the state of our economy and
what needs to be done to move forward. I think it is
only appropriate for us to discuss with Mr. President
before we put it in the public domain. That decision
was aptly captured in the communiqué read by the
chairman of the forum after the meeting.
Your deputy governor alleged that you impeached him
illegally, what do you say?
To start with, if you look at the constitution as it
affects the issue of impeachment of the chief executive
or the deputy governor, it lies essentially in the domain
of the House of Assembly. Therefore, I don’t think he is
correct if he said that I impeached him. He was
impeached by the House under the terms of the
constitution but fortunately, he has the opportunity to
seek redress and he is seeking redress in the court of
law. I am sure that if there is any illegality involved, the
court will do justice to his case. If there was any
breach of the law, I probably would not have
participated in the swearing-in of another deputy
governor. Again, if there is any breach in the
impeachment process, I think he is taking a proper
course of challenging the whole exercise in court.
Are you not worried that there were no elected
representatives at the local government level in Ondo
State throughout your almost two terms in office as
governor?
I am not worried because the situation was imposed on
me. Interestingly, it was the opposition that took us to
court. As we speak now, the case is in the Supreme
Court but the interesting turn of events now is that
litigants, plaintiff and the defendants are now in the
same party. It seems as if the door is now open for us
to conduct local government election based on the
advice of the Attorney General.
There was a protest when your government presented
the instruments of office to the new monarch of Akure,
what actually went wrong?
That is not correct. There was neither a revolt nor
public outcry when the new Deji of Akure was
announced. The town was peaceful. As a matter of fact,
the people had wanted it earlier but the truth was that
there was a court case. Although there was no
injunction, the Attorney General advised that it would
not be sensible so that it won’t be tantamount to us
pre-empting the court. But as soon as we passed that
stage, we went ahead and did the proper thing. Don’t
forget that Obas are elected by kingmakers and in this
case, 16 of them, unanimously, elected their king. All
we needed to do was to approve the election of the Deji
by the kingmakers.
What are the steps taken to reposition the PDP?
Part of the post-election prescription or activities put in
place by the PDP is a committee that has been set up,
and headed by Deputy Senate President Ike
Ekweremadu to look into the totality of the 2015
outing. They will look at the run-on to the election,
events during the polls and post-election activities to
be able to know exactly what happened. I am sure their
findings will be in the public domain at the appropriate
time.