Ambassador Aminu Wali is a household name in Nigerian politics, since he contested for the gubernatorial seat in the old Kano State 40 years ago on the platform of the National Party of Nigeria (NPN. A former Nigerian Ambassador to the UN, China and several times Minister and Special Adviser to President Goodluck Jonathan on National Assembly Matters, in this interview with MUHAMMAD KABIR, he gives insight into the actual reasons behind the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) crises and other vital issues
Atiku Abubakar, the presidential candidate of your party, the PDP is having problems with the party since the completion of your national convention. What is the way out of this quagmire the party has found itself?
The problem that people are saying Atiku has is not Atiku’s problem; rather it is our problem as a party. The party is one organization that has its set rules and regulations and its constitution. Whatever we do can’t be outside what the constitution has allowed.
In politics you go into elections, either primary or secondary election, with the acceptance that you either win or lose. I ran for election. When I did, I lost, talking back 40 years ago. But I never blamed anybody for my loss. This is what politics is all about.
We have gone into convention, for whatever reason, first of all, the convention was done and everybody commended what was done there. The outcome of the convention was accepted by everybody immediately at the convention. For any party man that has his loyalty to the party regardless of his contribution, the party is supreme. So whatever it is, everybody should fall in line and accept the verdict of the convention.
If there are differences, what are the differences? Are they fundamental to affect the constitution of the party? Those differences, can’t they be resolved without going to the extent of damaging the party itself?
This is because any member of the party that will prepare to go to destroy the credibility of that party, then that person, whatever contribution he might have made, he is nullifying whatever he did in the past for the growth of the party.
We, as party members, appreciate the contributions of every member. I was a foundation member of the PDP. I was the deputy to Chief Solomon Lar. I was the first Deputy National Chairman and by God’s grace we led the party and we won elections nationwide.
Of course, there were differences and they ought to happen. We went to Jos, Plateau State, there was a Congress, Chief Olusegun Obasanjo won and everybody fell in line. Somebody like Ekweme, who by the way I supported, lost. We never took the protest anywhere. And we knew how it happened that Obasanjo won, but that does not negate our loyalty to the party.
If we were to be disloyal to the party maybe we would have stayed in the same situation that we are in today. But no, we are loyal to the party and we agreed we are loyal to the party.
Now there is a call for Dr. Iyorchia Ayu’s resignation as national chairman. Ayu was there and was elected by consensus even before we went to the Convention.
We met all the stakeholders of the party from all parts of Nigeria; we met in Abuja; we discussed and before we got to that stage, there was a zoning committee that was set up with the Governor of Enugu being the chairman of the. There were strong exchanges and arguments and I said the chairman of the party should remain in the South. And the South said no we don’t want the chairman. It was resolved and agreed there that, okay, we can still have the chairman but that will not affect the zoning of political offices.
Later after Ayu has taken over there was a zoning committee that was created to come and look at how we can move forwards, because of this agitation that we cannot accept both the chairman and position of the president. This is something that was agreed by the zoning committee chaired by Governor Uguayin of Enugu State.
Finally, when we finished from the zoning committee, before the zoning committee, when we met in Abuja, even before we went to the convention, when this issue was raised he said as far as he was concerned, this is not a matter of life and death in front of all of us. He said if at the end of the day, if the candidate of the party comes from the North, we will accept whatever the party decides. That was Ayu, he said so.
He said if the party requests him to do that, he will do it. But what happened is that even before we got there, these convention candidates were elected. One way or the other, this is the result of what happened when Atiku emerged.
And the decision of the running mate does not belong to anybody but it is the candidate himself that can decide. But to avoid accusations that he met back in 2019, he asked the party to set up the committee to look at potential candidates and let me have three names. Three names were submitted, the governors Udom Emmanuel, Ifeayin Okowa and Nyesom Wike.
So the candidate can take whoever he wants. So it’s not a crime; it’s his own prerogative anyway. He did not need to consult anybody anyway. But he consulted the party. But so many things happened during the proceedings. Everybody wanted Wike fine. You may like Wike but your own assessment may be different from that of the person that is going g to pick the candidate.
You should not hold it against him for doing what he can accommodate. I don’t know why people have taken it beyond reason.