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Sunday 11 May 2014

Call APGA Igbo party, we’ll surprise APC in Lagos —National Vice Chairman
















 Alhaji Tayo Sowunmi is the National Vice-Chairman of the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA). He speaks with BOLA BADMUS on the crisis trailing his party and its chances in the 2015 elections, the role of opposition in democracy, other issues. Excerpts:

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WHAT is your comment on the position that there are too many old people among delegates at the ongoing confab in Abuja?
Yes, the confab is full of old people: retired police officers; retired military officers; elder statesmen; past governors and so on. I wonder why people did not deem it fit to nominate past union leaders, I would have been qualified perhaps. But I would have rejected the offer, because I am too old for such things now. I really think the whole essence has been defeated by the method of appointment of delegates; nobody is elected. They are all appointed. Another defect is that they are saying that the outcome of the confab will be referred to the National Assembly or that it will go directly to the people for a referendum or something. So, we don’t know.

Some people criticised the conference from the outset. Do you think it is necessary?
You see, there is no doubt that we need a confab in this country. It is long overdue. The people who are saying that they don’t want it are people who are benefiting from the poor position of Nigeria, people who are contributing to the prostate nature of the country today. Everybody should support the idea of this confab. It is long overdue. Since 1914 when Nigeria was put together, we have been living as strangers with one another. This is an opportunity for us to strengthen our union, but the way to do it is for these people, delegates, to be alert to their responsibilities.
Well, the appointments, the selections had been done, perhaps there is nothing we can do about it. But the point is that those who are there should represent and should listen to their constituents. They cannot just stay in Abuja and start formulating policies without going back to their constituents.
It is also my opinion that the three months period is too short for them to do this type of things. There should be a meeting point. The delegates at the confab should take a hard look at our educational sector that does not give our children any hope in the future. The content of education today is really appalling. When we were going to school, we had great passion. The government then also had the passion, although I still quarreled with them because then they were preparing us for clerical jobs and so on. But education was very sound then. Today, we need political education, starting from primary school level if possible. The curriculum should be simplified from the primary school level for the pupils to know how Nigerian governments are elected, nobody knows that.
They don’t teach political education. We now use fire brigade approach to carry our millions of illiterates along with us, because these are the people that have been busy electing wrong people into government in Nigeria.
Also, the conference delegates should ensure that at the end of their deliberations, they give us a very good constitution.

Is there anything the opposition in the country can do to save the country apart from merely criticising?
The job of opposition parties is criticism, but constructive criticism. Let me give an example. The United States is running the same system of government with Nigeria. We copied their presidential system. In time of crisis, the Republicans and the Democrats in America would come together to solve the national problems, such as the 911 problem and the Bin Laden case.
At any crucial moment, you see the Republicans and the Democrats coming together as a body to move the country forward. That goes for other countries, including Britain and Germany. But in Nigeria, those of us in opposition always think of ourselves and how to gain undue advantage by criticising government. All we want for ourselves is power.
Frankly speaking, I cannot differentiate between the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and the All Progressives Congress (APC), if you ask me. What I am saying in essence is that these parties that came together to form APC have different agenda. The ACN ruled part of South-West and Edo State. The ANPP was calling the shots in three northern states and the CPC had one state, Nasarawa State. But they came together because they felt PDP was staying far too long in office and wondering when they would get to power at the federal level? That was the main thing that brought them together. But they will tell you it is for the sustenance of democracy. Ask them, are they helping democracy in the states they control? They accuse the PDP of lack of internal democracy, is there internal democracy in APC? So, all we hear is that Jonathan is not doing well, but they are not offering solutions to our problem. They are just causing tension the polity, which is to the detriment of the masses in this country.
Well, it is sad enough that all political parties in Nigeria have no ideology. If you go through their manifestoes or constitutions, it is the same thing you find there. So there is no high hope on the effectiveness of the opposition parties as composed today. But that can be rectified.
Today, everybody is yearning for APC to take over government, because, to them, the PDP has not been effective. But I want to warn Nigerians that we have to be careful, because these people who are now posing as progressives, when they get into office, they may be worse than the PDP.

Can you tell us the current position in APGA, because it appears the party has been factionalised for so long?
In APGA today, I want to say that we have problems just like the PDP and APC. But the only thing is that our own has been enduring since 2003 when we elected our first chairman, Chekwas Okorie, who ran the party as a sole administrator and this was why he was removed by the party. He appealed that decision up to the Supreme Court along with his deputy then, Maxi Okwu and at the Supreme Court, they were pronounced duly expelled from the party. But they have not left us alone. Apart from that, APGA is very stable now and we went to election in Anambra State and won during that crisis too. Today, the governor has been inaugurated and he is doing fine there.

But what is the party doing to disassociate itself from the tag of an Igbo Party?
My name is Tayo Sowunmi. I am not an Igbo man and I am a top officer of APGA as its national vice chairman. You see, it is just a matter of just giving a dog a bad name in order to hang it.
Do we say APC is a Yoruba party because it is headed by people like Tinubu, Akande and so on? In APGA, we have Hausa; we have Yoruba; we have Igbo.
Every party must have different elements in it to quality for national recognition. For example, when APGA was being registered, it was registered because it has this national spread. The rule then was that no party would be registered unless it has offices and followers in two-thirds of the federation. If it was mainly an Igbo party, it would not be registered.
You hear that it is an Igbo party because we are here, because they don’t want us to see the advantages we have in Lagos State and we shall surprise them in the next election in Lagos State. We are going to give the APC a good run for its money. If we don’t win, it will be a magic.
We want to wrest power from them. We are going to challenge them very strongly in Lagos, in Ogun State and in the South West. Before now, we were stabilising the party and mobilising.
We won in Anambra State. We were controlling Imo State, which Okorcha to the APC, but everybody knows that he won the election on the platform of APGA and nemesis will catch up with him in 2015, no doubt about that. So we want to go beyond South-East now, and we are winning. We’ve been winning in Lagos remember. We won about three House of Assembly slots in Lagos State in 2003 but we were robbed of them. In the last local government election held two years ago, APGA won in Ojo Local Government; Surulere Local Government and in FESTAC, but we were robbed. The results were not announced, because they thought it was an anathema for what they called an Igbo party to win in Lagos.

2015 is around the corner and the North is saying that it is their turn to have power. What is your position on this?
I don’t know why the North is in a hurry to get the thing back. When did the South begin to rule this country? Former President Olusegun Obasanjo was the first elected president that the South has produced all these years, apart from the ceremonial president we had in the First Republic, Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe.
Jonathan was an interim president because they wanted to pacify the South-South, but the elected president that the South has produced so far has been Obasanjo and he spent only eight years.
So it is not the turn of the North and I don’t like this word turn. What is turn? If we are going to live as a united Nigeria, let the president come from the people. Let everybody throw in his hat into the ring and let the people elect who they want.

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