In this interview with ONYEKACHI EZE and JOHNCHUKS ONUANYIM, 
Senator Ben Obi (Ojeligbo) is a ranking member of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), and also a member of Imeobi, the highest decision making body of Ohanaeze Ndigbo, a pan-Igbo cultural association. In this interview with ONYEKACHI EZE and JOHNCHUKS ONUANYIM, Obi speaks of the pains of the refusal of PDP to zone its presidential ticket to South-East and other
Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) National Executive Committee meeting last week adopted the Ortom report, and threw the ticket open to every qualified Nigerian. We know that the South-East is advocating for the ticket to be zoned to them, in the spirit equity and fairness. As a stakeholder of the party in the South-East how do you see the position of the party?
The position of the South-East was conveyed at that very meeting by Excellency, Dr. (Okwesilieze) Nwodo at the NEC meeting. That was indeed a painful pure struggle.
We have a group of Board of Trustees (BoT) members that meet here with me regularly, I chaired the meeting. We are going to meet some of our leaders in Lagos to be able to decide on which way to go. That position only happened after the Lagos meeting.
It seems you can only achieve a position of a president on the platform of a political party. Only on that premise you can fly the flag as presidential candidate of South-East extraction.
Do you think that the hope is lost, because there are aspirants from the South-East who are still in the race?
Don’t you think that they can still turn in the table? It is part of what the meeting will resolve. If we are able to look at the aspirants at the moment from the South-East and see which one fits the ball and we would plead with the others to see if they can step aside.
At least we will know that we give our best shot. I don’t want to pre-empt what the meeting will discuss.
But apart from that, I think we have two governors from the South-East and by the look of things they are not supporting the project. Is there anything you can do concerning this issue?
Well, the meeting in Lagos may decide to look into that. But then those of us who are meeting or going to meet in Lagos did not initiate that it is the turn of the South-East. South-East themselves should looked at it and said this is the best option.
For us now, in view of different agitations going on in the South-East, first of all, let us demand for this position as a matter of right, which the zoning has provided for us to see if that would be able to put an end to these agitations.
So what I’m trying to say is that it is not our duty to say this is how we will address the issue of the governors. It is what the South- East as a people as a whole to do, to know if it is right or wrong.
In the meeting, is it going to be across party lines or only PDP members?
It is across party lines. We have met before. We have traveled the whole country. It is not party affair.
Talking about the South-East ticket for PDP, some people are saying that the North is still favoured, because the Ike Ekweremadu Committee report recommended that it should go to the North. Have you people considered that?
That was what led us to the Atiku project in 2019: that was the 2015. There was committee that looked into why we failed the elections in 2015. And it was why most of the aspirants that came up in 2019 were northerners
As a member of Imeobi, recently a decision was taken by the Imeobi of Ohanaeze that no Igbo aspirant should aspire for vice presidential position. How do you look at that?
I believe that in matters of this nature, you can only cross the bridge when you get there. It is only then can one to say this is how we will move or go. I don’t know, I mean maybe that will come up for discussion. But I believe that these are matters that should be taken in stages.
In your Lagos meeting where you may consider for possible consensus among the aspirants, what criteria you may be looking for?
First and foremost, the mistakes which we find ourselves in the country today, we need somebody who is a bridge builder, somebody who can unify the country, somebody the other zones will be comfortable with, somebody who has a track record that you can present; nobody is perfect.
We all have our shortcomings, we have our limitations, but then all fingers are not equal, that is the common nature of human.
So that would be the qualities of leaders we are looking for. Then temperament will count, his courage.
So, in doing all of that, you also have to be mindful of the fact that you are telling people who made a lot of commitment; we would all go to engage them, discuss how they also ultimately will be included in the process of going forward.
Such aspirants like (former) Minister of Transportation Rotimi Amaechi, the governor of Rivers State Nysom Wike, will they also be considered, looking at the issue of South-East presidency?
My discussion is based on South- East. I have not said they are not Igbos neither have I said they are Igbos. Everybody who is in right frame of mind will tell you where he or she comes from. So, I don’t want to go out of my own catchment area to engage
you in this dialogue. I want to restrain myself, because the people we are meeting on Monday, are South-easterners; those of us who are going from here to Lagos on Monday, are also South-easterners . So I would not jump out of that in the public and engage on other discussions.
Are you suspecting sabotage from our brothers from South- South and the South-West, because if you look it at since 1999 these two zones have produced presidents of this country?
Don’t you think they should have joined in making case for the South-East rather than aspiring to produce the president in 2023? Because it is politics I don’t want to say it is an act of sabotage. But I want to say that our brothers from the South-West and the South-South to consider that each of the president that came on the platform of the PDP, we at the South-East gave our best shots in delivering them. Is it Olusegun Obasanjo?
We immediately put to rest the Alex Ekweme issue and give him everything. Is it Goodluck Jonathan? The South-East is being denied this and that, is it not as a result of our support for Jonathan? Jonathan was my principal, I served in his government. I would expect some degree of considerations from them.
But again, politics being a game of numbers, they are free to do what they’re doing; at the end of the day the decision we are going to take on behalf of the people would be taken.
What would you say about the South-East people who are supporting aspirants outside South-East?
I thought I had addressed that when you brought up the issue of the two governors. I addressed that effectively. It is not for us. People are even questioned my attending my friend, boss and ally’s declaration, Atiku Abubakar.
The fact that you go for declaration does not mean you are a supporter. I have a very strong relationship over the years with His Excellency Atiku Abubakar (Waziri Adamawa). I equally went for that of Bukola Saraki the other day because I have also a strong relationship (with him) way back to his father. I was campaign DG for his father in 1991, 1992, 1993. I was a member of board of the Societe Generali Bank. So, the Saraki and the Obi are like the same family.
But then I’m constrained because this is the request our people are making to us. And everybody who knows me knows that I am a very proud Igbo man, I don’t compromise my Igboness.
Do you see any possibility of Igbo people voting against the party that fails to bring an Igbo candidate?
You have to do the political analysis to check if any other political party can immediately translate into a national movement. That is what I presumed eaders of Ohanaeze will sit down and do their calculation.
And when you are doing that, don’t forget, we have the support of PANDEF, we have the support of Afenifire, we have the support of the Middle Belt. So, whatever decision you want to take, as of Ohanaeze, you are duty bound to go back to these other cultural organisations and say, ‘look, this is our enlightenment’, so that we can all be on the same page. That is the way I look at it.
Can we go outside internal PDP politics? Now, looking at 2023 election, how do you think as a party man, the possibility of the PDP winning the presidency?
Well, the answer is straightforward and it is not ambiguous at all. What have you seen in the last seven years compared to what we gave the country in the last 16 years before the seven years?
What was the state of affairs? Use all the indices that you want to use in comparing what PDP delivered and what All Progressives Congress (APC) has delivered. I’m not talking politics. I’m being practically realistic, you know, and anybody who knows me would tell you. I have been in this business since 1978, that is to say about 45 years effectively.
So, one would have not said much about that, until we know who is flying the PDP flag.
If you take them (APC) on their mantra, three mantra which they presented – the economy of the country, the security of the country, the anti-corruption crusade and others; all of that has worsened. I could not even believe my eyes nor my ears that a serving minister or a government appointee will declare his interest or her interest in an elective office, and would be moving around with branded vehicles while still serving. I never see a thing like that before.
There is absolutely no coordination, nobody is in charge. People just do what they like. The level at which they have taken us, in terms of impunity is so scary. That is why we need anybody that will come in 2023 that would have the capacity to work 20 hours to be able to reverse this damage. One man is not government.
Therefore, that person must be visionary enough to identify capable hands. For God’s sake, if I appoint you a minister in one year you didn’t make a difference, what are you doing there? I will immediately bring somebody else. You are not built on that seat because I want result. Anybody I’m not getting result from should go, let me get another person, because you do not have the benefit of time on your side.
So, you must not be lenient, you must be firm by decisive. In the past they said whatever Nigeria sneezes the rest of the continent catches cold. Today I don’t even know which nation you would care when Nigeria is speaking. How did we get there?
All these were canvassed before but yet APC still won the election in 2019?
Go back over to the records. PDP won the election, but we were fighting against an incumbent. In 2015, I organised what is generally regarded as a world acclaimed Abuja Peace Accord where I got the candidates to sign for me a memorandum. I got the APC to bring the attendance up in their NEC meeting and they did and it was unanimously accepted. I went personally to President Muhammadu Buhari to invite him. I met an elder statesman with him, Alhaji Isiaku Ibrahim.
Buhari said ‘look, Senator Obi, I know your antecedents. I know you are a man of honour. I will attend. I’m attending because of you.’ The day I went to present the form before the APC, I met Asiwaju (Bola Tinubu), but then for me, I decided that I have to do something that would be seen clearly as credible. I went to Geneva to see Kofi Annan and I got him to come as a special guest of honour. I went to Lagos to meet Emaka Anyaoku who became the Chairman. I went to Prof Ibrahim Gambari, the current Chief of Staff (to Buhari) as my guest speaker.
So, I brought people from the international perspective so that they won’t come and say this is a PDP man. That was how we succeeded, that was how we had a seamless transition because they have committed by signature. I was advised to set up the National Peace Committee which I did set up and brought General Abdusalami Abubakar as Deputy Chairman. We were 23 eminent and prominent Nigerians with Hassan Kukah. So when you look at these things, there is nothing that is not achievable in this country if you do the right thing.
When I told President Jonathan that Kofi Annan would be coming he said I would come. I was with his Chief of Staff. This thing took place on the 14th of January 2015. The 13th of January in the morning, Kofi Annan arrived. I had already made my own booking so I took him to Presidential suite in Transcorp. Then I went to the villa met the chief of staff to take over the arrangement of everything.
Don’t you think that the incumbency power will still play out in 2023 election?
Well, I am not an insider in the APC government but you see, the temperature of the country was very high in 2014; people were already worried, the international community was panicking, the US Ambassador, the UK High Commissioner, Canada, France, Germany, Israel and European Union, they all sent for me and said we should do something since I ran the interparty. I should do something about it and I got the support of the NSA because I wrote to the President and he approved what I wrote and the NSA gave me the support.
If you are asked to choose between zoning and winning, which one would you go for?
They are completely two different issues. Zoning stands on its own, winning stands on its own. Zoning has an element of fairness, equity and justice. You can win, like they say in battles: victory first, morality later. That is what you are saying by your question. Zoning touches on equity, fairness and justice.
So, if you deny the people this three elements then you must be man enough to say you know something, we must talk, we have offended you, we have done something, we know its wrong, however, how do we move on. It is not for us in the PDP as South-easterners to say this is what we want. No.
There are other leaders beyond the PDP in the South-East, they are the ones to say this is our position and we must respect that, we have leaders. If we say we are governors, we are ministers, we are senators, we are advisers, etc, we are not leaders in Igbo land.
People should learn that and try to understand that fact. There are ministers and governors that when you see them, you wouldn’t even recognise them. So, the honest truth of the matter is that it is the leaders that would decide ultimately where we go from here.
