In this second and concluding part of this interview, Congressman Bimbo Daramola speaks to 365Daily’s Victor Afam Ogene and Adesuwa Tsan on party politics, discontent arising from the All Progressives Congress (APC)’s membership revalidation exercise, zoning, among other political issues.
Let’s talk politics. You are in the APC and your party is currently undergoing registration and revalidation. Have you done yours?
Well, they said we should go and revalidate and I have revalidated.
But as the process goes on, we are getting to hear of discontent from particularly one quarter and all the people who have complained appear to belong to Asiwaju Bola Tinubu’s political family. What do you think is going on?
Yorubas have a saying: “When you go to the farm, the man who has a piece of charcoal that still has a little fire that can light a flame never goes to play near the stream.’’ As we speak today, I will also encourage our party to do an audit, a self-assessment, a self-evaluation. I am sure you have heard one phrase going around called ‘lori iro’. Do you know what it means? It means big lies. The video shows APC making promises and they say, lori iro; we will do this, lori iro. When things begin to happen like that, we should self-check. Vincent Ogbulafor, in year 2001, said we will rule for 60 years, that the PDP will rule for 60 years. Fortuitously, that was the beginning of the descent of the PDP. And now, our party people have also started saying we will rule for 36 or 46 years.
Now, back to the question. The party became a special purpose vehicle and how do I mean? You had splinters of the party called the new PDP, some of them have gone back now; the Tambuwals, the Sarakis and all kinds of people from there. And then, you have the people from CPC, you have the guys from APGA and Nigerians felt the PDP, after all, was not living up to expectations and then formed this party.
Sometimes, the politicians take the people for granted. The people are beginning to ask questions; is this all that we are getting? People may not like what I am saying because they want the party painted in green colours. We have been in the lurch and in the cold for this long, heavens have not fallen and it is not likely to fall. I think it was Justice Oputa that said since he has been giving judgement, they’ve been saying let the heavens fall and he wants to say that up till now, the heavens have not fallen. So, a party is not intended to be a personal property. If it was intended to be a personal property, it wouldn’t look for anybody. Now, if members of that party, from whatever section, have issues about anything, I would expect that the mandate to build consensus is the primary responsibility of the leaders of the party.
There must be consensus, speaking with one voice. At least let’s know that a substantial number of party people are already inclined to this, or in tune, or understands. As we speak today, some people still do not understand clearly whether re-registration or revalidation. When you asked me now, I said “they said we should do it” because in actual fact, registration in political parties cannot be time bound. You can wake up today and say I want to join APC and we do not need a marching order to go and do that for as long as the party continues to be an institution of interest.
Okay, now that we have done our revalidation, what next? I want to hear that. For the guys who are just joining, did we prevent them from joining before? Was there a time that we stopped, that we said we had stopped registration, when it is not JAMB? It is JAMB that closes registration at a particular time; a political party does not close. You go to your ward and say you want to join the party and the chairman welcomes you to the party. But now, from the national, Blantyre Street, gave instruction and celebrated it and made it a national, topical issue, at a time when our party in government is presiding over serious issues like insecurity.
Pointedly, why is the complaint coming only from the national leader and his people?
Instructively, these are guys that I know were also very instrumental to the formation of this party. Baba Akande was the Interim Chairman of APC. He said it at the point of registration, or re-registration, that he does not understand what this is all about. And Baba Akande has been managing parties since forever. He was our chairman in AC (Action Congress) for over 10 years or thereabout, to ACN (Action Congress of Nigeria). Baba Akande said that, for instance, if a mechanic is taking a ride in your car and your engine makes a cranking sound, the mechanic will say to you, something may be wrong with this car, check this or that. It does not mean he will get out of the vehicle. He will say let us continue the journey, particularly, he may want to stay in the vehicle to ensure that it’s fine, and takes us to our destination but it will not stop him from remaining in the car. For me, Asiwaju said same thing, Baba Akande said the same thing, Lai Mohammed and a number of people have said the same thing. These are people who you expect have benefit of hindsight about political parties and how they are run. So, for me as a person, I am just asking as a small boy, I am just asking an innocuous question; every action shows an advancement of a purpose or the initiation of a purpose. They said some people have died, do dead men vote? They are dead and gone….
Some people see it as a ploy to take the party away from the Tinubu camp, much in the same way as the re-registration exercise by the PDP in the Obasanjo years when some people were wilfully deregistered.
But you know that registration is at the ward level where you expect like 300 people. How can you deregister 300 people? Or 100 people who are not from your camp? I think the biggest fear that will agitate people’s mind will come down the road during the congresses. It is only at the point of the congress. As we speak today, everybody has been told to go and register. We had a register. Largely speaking, there is no money to waste or throw around. Number two, essentially, apart from the guys who have died or intending members, the register is going to remain the same. So, we have this new one and we now have the chance to say we are cleaning out names of those who have died or moved on to other parties. Okay, we have another list. Now, where people will begin to put on their searchlights will be who goes to the congresses from the ward, to the local government, to the state and ultimately to the national convention in Abuja.
Finally, what is your take on zoning?
People have said it engenders faith and confidence if this country is seen as north and south geographically, not politically. And if President Buhari has done two terms of eight years, I think it is logical and fair – this is my opinion – that the South should have a shot.
And if it comes to the South, would you apply the same logic for the south-west, south-south and south-east?
First and foremost, I believe that the best man should win. I don’t want the presidency of this country to be ceded to any zone on the basis of geographical or political expediency alone.
Should that repudiate your north-south postulation?
There is a bigger context of a section of the country having had eight clear years and of course, in the days of Obasanjo, Abubakar Rimi ran too. In the days of Obasanjo, when they said the thing had been zoned to the south-west when Abiola died and they said they wanted to placate Yorubas and it should go to the south-west, and engineered the thing to go to Olusegun Obasanjo, at that race, Abubakar Rimi was there, Alex Ekwueme was there.
So, you see, it is because our political maturity has not gotten to that point. Assuming it had, all of these considerations, we would have been looking for the best man to take the job. Truly, if I feel that a better man will do the job from the south-east, I will support him. How well have all those considerations served us anyways?