BREAKING: Despite The Challenges PDP Is Facing, It Remains The Best Option To Face Tinubu In 2027 —Adetokunbo Pearce

Dr. Adetokunbo Pearse, a leader of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), in Lagos State, who served as a member of the PDP National Presidential Campaign Council in 2023. In this interview with BOLA BADMUS and OLUSEGUN ILARA, he speaks about the travails of the party ahead 2027 and declared that forming a coalition against the ruling party would not work. According to him the PDP remains the best vehicle on the push by the All Progressives Congress out of power in 2027. He also speaks on the state police and other national issues. Excerpts:......➡️CONTINUE READING THE FULL ARTICLES HERE.

As a chieftain of PDP, what exactly is going on currently within the fold, the party is really in trouble right now?

The PDP at the national level is alive and well. Note that what we have is that some people have declared themselves as enemies of the party, and that they are going to campaign for him.

The same way they said they will work for him in 2027. Why are they concerned about the PDP? But we are beginning to solve our problems. We had two problems, really one and a half, let me explain. The key problem we have which has been destabilizing the party since 2023 is that our National Secretary was not acceptable to the organs of the party. But the National Secretary, Anyanwu decided he was going to stay in the party. We were doing everything we could to resolve the issue. That issue has now been practically resolved because the court has responded by saying the issue of national secretary is an internal affair of the party. Now let me clarify that. Formally, the National Working Committee has spoken that Anyanwu is no longer the secretary and that Udoh Okoye is the national secretary. The Board of Trustees has said the same thing, the Governor’s Forum has said the same thing. Don’t forget Anyanwu’s was nominated by the South-East geopolitical zone where the national secretary position was zoned, so they nominated him. He left his office for about six months to run for governorship in Imo State. When he failed there and came back and wanted to take a position back, the party said you can’t. You have vacated this position; you cannot come back here. The South-East zone has said they don’t want you anymore, they have given us another person in the person of Udeh Okoye. Therefore, Okoye is legally, technically, by our constitution, the national secretary. He (Anyanwu) refused. The other issue which we had to contend with is national chairman. We had an Ag National Chairman in Ambassador Ilya Damagum, because the substantive National Chairman, Dr Iyorchia Ayu, had been removed from his position. We had to have somebody acting and by our constitution, the Ag chairman had to come from the zone where the former national chairman came from. So the deputy national chairman (South) automatically by our constitution, became the Ag national chairman.

Now some people again basically talking from social media that Damagum must go. Now if Damagum goes, who will take his place? The constitution allows him to stay there until we are able to elect a substantive national chairman. Over the years, and the months that Damagum, there have been various challenges here and there for the party, so we needed a man to be in charge, we couldn’t have a vacuum. People wanted Damagum to go so they can have their person as substantive chairman kept. It’s not that he wants to stay there forever, he can’t stay there forever because once we have a national convention, he is going to go.

Apart from some of the problems you highlighted, people say the way your party has been growing leaner each day, it would not be able to confront the APC in 2027, and they are thinking of a coalition. Any hope for the PDP again?

Let me first state that by the time we have a National Convention and elect a substantive National Chairman to replace the acting, it is likely that the North will retain the National Chairman’s position because it was disrupted in the last few years. If that is done, then the presidency is likely to come to the South. Therefore, when you say the way PDP is gone, I’ve just explained to you we are as solid and as organized as ever. After the coming convention, when the whole issue of the chairman has been cleared, and we have done this issue of the secretary, tell me what the PDP needs to win the election? We are ready. Let me tell you why I personally opposed the merger.

You know that recently, the governors collectively voted in under the PDP said they don’t want any coalition in the first place. Do you believe that these people love us more than we love ourselves? Some people say we should go and merge with anybody to win the election, we want to win the election more than they want us to win the election. Do they want to win the election for us? Or do we want to win the election? Let me tell you first, based on history, no merger has ever worked in Nigeria. When I was at the University of Lagos, I was telling Professor Olukoga, I think he used to be our Dean. You know, he is Professor of History and Strategic Studies, I said we were going to form a coalition and I was going to leave PDP and go to SDP, remember that period? He told me, that has never worked in the history of Nigeria, so it would not work. What did we do? Professors Tunde Adeniran and Jerry Gana, amongst others, went to SDP; they went to join what we called the Coalition of United Political Parties (CUPP). There were about 30 political parties in that coalition, everybody joined to build strength.

It’s like, let me tell you, you want to play football, you say because you want to win, you go and bring a team of 25 people. You are going to fail because those 11 organized who have been working together like a team will be stronger than you by far. You will go to the field, 25 of you, you have three goalkeepers, all of you, you’re going to be clashing your heads there. That is the allusion that I can use, now. The coalition failed drastically then toward 2019. And now towards 2023, Pat Utomi began to talk about another coalition, what happened to the past attempts? Nothing, it collapsed. So historically, we know it is very unlikely to work. Now; put it in the context of where we are now.

But the APC was able to pull through a coalition and it survived won. Haven’t you thought about that?

You know why it worked. Let me tell you why it worked, it is because CPC led by Buhari, coming from the North, had the North; he had about 12 million votes, but he did not have anything in the South. ACN, basically the leader of the coalition from the South did not have anything in the North. So when the two of them came together, that is when they now formed a national spread. Those were the two main parties that formed that coalition, that was why they were able to form a merger. Now you are asking PDP to merge with who? We already have a spread across the country. In every nook and corner, we have representation in every ward, every street and we’ve had it, we are the strongest democratic party in West Africa till today. APC is not as strong as PDP, if it was not for Peter Obi that took away our votes in PDP, Atiku would have won that election (2023) hands down, you know that. Therefore, PDP doesn’t have the problem that people think it has. Now this merger they are talking about, Obi, Labour; Kwakwanso, NNPP; Atiku coming from PDP. Number one, Atiku cannot bring PDP in because PDP is not interested, so Atiku can go and join the coalition and maybe a few people will go with him, of course. Kwakwanso may be able to bring his party into the coalition. I don’t know if Obi can bring Labour into the coalition because Labour itself is so divided that which Labour will he bring? If he brings himself, let us say the three of them are in, now, I assure you they’ll be fighting for who will be president, who will step down for who? You think Obi will step down for Atiku again. Some of Atiku’s people, and some of maybe Obi’s people, will agree in that their coalition that Atiku should go for president and Obi for vice president, and Atiku would do one term and Obi will now run for president after that. If they want to do that, let them do it, you understand me; let them do it, but leave the PDP out of it. PDP doesn’t need that. I mean think about it, so we have to change our name. If Labour wants to change its name, that is because Labour is just starting. What do they have? How many governors do they have? They may change their name because that name doesn’t even belong to any political party so they can change their name. If NNPP wants to change its name that’s its business. It is a one state political party. Don’t compare us to any of these people, if they want to change their names, let them change their names. All these small parties can come to join them and change the name. They will have a new name like APC had done. Let’s see what they bring to the table. PDP is not part of it. Now let me tell you something, I know that some of Atiku’s people are saying that those of us who do not want a coalition are going to make it easy for APC and Tinubu to win, it is the other way round. The only way Tinubu will not win the 2027 election is when there is a strong PDP, that is the only way. This coalition cannot come close, you see what I’m saying. The coalition is so fragile, it will not even happen. I am telling you now; I am predicting there will be no coalition, It cannot work now.

SDP, on the other hand, is emerging, right! But look at SDP, SDP is going to be made up of the leadership of Malam el-Rufai, Atiku and who else? This is a Northern agenda. They are going to come out with a weak CPC. You know CPC used to have 12 million votes, these people will have a maximum of 3 million votes. And then they would still have nothing in the South, you see what I’m saying. So, if SDP emerges, it’s good for PDP to win because SDP will benefit from members of Buhari’s CPC who used to be in APC, and many of them are going into SDP, who would benefit? It is PDP that will benefit. If you want to win this election to tackle APC, to defeat APC, let us have a strong PDP. That is it.

But we are already seeing the APC make serious inroads into the PDP especially considering recent defections. People have said that Tinubu is a master political strategist, and that he has a way of penetrating the opposition parties, and he will keep them weak going into 2027. Is that not becoming real now?

First and foremost, Bola Ahmed Tinubu is not a fantastic political strategist. Bola Ahmed Tinubu has never penetrated any political party, what he has done is to use money to buy people and he had been able to buy them and despite all his buying, he has never won any election legally. What does he do in Lagos? All the elections he won in Lagos have been rigged. In 2023, in spite of the problems that happened in PDP, with five governors going against Atiku and Obi taking a bulk of our support base into Labour Party, Atiku, our presidential candidate, still came up with 12 states. How many states did Bola Ahmed Tinubu win? In spite of all that, Labour Party that just came in, a branch of PDP, came up with 12 states, so where’s the magic that Tinubu has? Tinubu is a Master of Media manipulation. What happened in 2023 polls, 31% of the votes cast came in, INEC announced that he won. Something terrible happened in INEC that made INEC panic to say at that point in time, in the middle of the night, INEC announced and gave it to him. Therefore, Tinubu had never won any election, calling him master political strategist, he does not stand anywhere near that.

So please, the only democratic party in Nigeria today, the strongest political party by far in Nigeria is the Peoples Democratic Party. When you talk about the situation in PDP please, take time to also think about the situation in APC and the Labour Party and even the NNPP. Look at what is going on in the Labour Party. They have already decided, a faction has decided that Obi was their candidate without any convention, without nothing. Is that a party? How many chairmen do they have? Three or four. How many chairmen do we have in PDP? Have we ever had three or four chairmen? That’s just a joke, we never know what we’re doing. We have our internal challenges, and we are working on them, compare that.

You said INEC announced the result of the 2023 election in the dead of the night, Is anything likely to change ahead of 2027 and what should the opposition do?

Whether we like it or not, as the constitution stands, the president will appoint the INEC chairman. The president of the Federation will appoint the INEC chairman. Yakubu’s term is going to be over very soon. Of course, Tinubu is a man who treats the law with levity. Otherwise, the Inspector General of Police should have been retired a year ago. He has kept him. Whatever be the case, the person in INEC will be his person. They rigged the elections in Edo and Ondo states, if the president appoints the chairman, appoints the commissioners, we know they may want to rig. So now, what do we do? Governor Makinde said, the coming election is between people of Nigeria and APC, with its disgraceful record, that’s the next election. It’s not just about PDP, we’re just going to lead it technically. But what I believe we are going to do since we cannot change who the INEC chairman is going to be, we have to confront this issue. We cannot have electoral reform that we need under a president who is not interested in it, who is using the system, flawed as it is, to his own favour. Therefore, we don’t expect the change now, to be realistic. The people have to stand up, they are going to defend their votes. I’m saying this because of the interest of the people of Nigeria, we are going to have in the PDP, our national convention, to elect our presidential candidate. I know that if a Makinde emerges from that convention as the candidate of the PDP, he’s going to fight this election. Whether Tinubu elects the national chairman of INEC or not, he is to going to fight him in such a way that it will be obvious that he has lost the election.

So, how would you assess the performance of the APC-led government in the last two years?

We all know that the situation in the country leaves a lot to be desired. All the parameters that we can use to judge the quality of life, they’re all down. Insecurity is practically in all the geopolitical zones. Recently, the killings and the ethnic fighting going on in the North-West have increased. In the North-East, it is the same thing. Now, in the North-Central close to the North-East area and North-West area, they’re all in confusion and now they are talking about Borgu being attacked by terrorists and bandits. In Kwara State, it is the same thing, so insecurity is ravaging. The point that the Financial Times of London made about a year ago that the way that the country is going in terms of kidnappings, terrorism and cultism happening everywhere, that this country is degenerating into a failed state, that was a year ago and things are worse now. Look at what happened in Edo recently, concerning herdsmen. The local people in Edo thought that they were bandits, and they killed them. Why did they take the law into their own hands? This is because there’s nobody protecting the Edo people; nobody was protecting the Fulani, so what you have is chaos, so we are in trouble, there is no doubt about it.

In terms of security, when you are not secured in your country, the people will say you have no country. We have a country, it’s just an insecure country, it’s a sick country. The president was telling the governor of Plateau to control the fighting going on there, the herdsmen-farmers issue there. The president is not addressing the issue, what is the governor going to use to control the situation?

Remember what happened in Benue when Ortom was governor. The state House of Assembly said they passed a law, banning open grazing, what did the government do? They allowed open grazing. The Inspector General of Police reports to the president. So long as there are no state police, local government police, and community police in Nigeria, there will be no peace, there will be no security. So, for the president to be saying, go and do this or that, what can they do? Until we change the law, until the constitution allows for State Police, nothing can be done about insecurity. And that is part of what we say about restructuring so that a state can have its own police. That is how you can begin to solve the problem.

President Bola Tinubu has often stated that he inherited a very bad situation from his predecessor, Mohammadu Buhari. Do you do you agree with him on that excuse?

The point is that where there is that where there is no security, farmers can’t go to farm, producers cannot move their goods to the market. They are even attacking people in the market now, the one that happened in Perogi’s hometown in Borgu. It was in the market, the bandits came and started attacking and shooting other people. Of course, prices will go up because of insecurity, but even the economy will be affected by the insecurity. Now probably, on a macro level, which investors with big money will come and invest in a country where there is no security. And you should know that where your investment is not secured, you cannot protect your workers, you cannot protect your equipment because of this situation where we have, lawlessness. Law enforcement agencies cannot enforce the law. It is also affecting Nigerians in diaspora. Nigerians in China are now complaining that they are not safe, they are not respected, people are looking at them as trash, what kind of country is this? I believe having failed in the area of insecurity, Tinubu should just government needs to pack up and go. I have always said that Tinubu should just resign. If the National Assembly cannot impeach him and he doesn’t have moral integrity to say I have failed, then the best we can do, the least we can do is to make sure he doesn’t get re-elected in 2027. Four years of his first two years now, you and I feel as if he’s been there for six years. That brings us to the situation raised by former President Jonathan brought up recently, when he said nobody can come and invest in Nigeria because their investment is not even safeguarded by the law. Our inflation is at 35%, in some countries, when they have 4% inflation, they panic. Nigeria now has 35% inflation, that is why anything you bought for N100 before, it is now N350 minimum. That is the reality of what Tinubu’s economic policies have caused.

But the president inherited these issues, that has been the excuse…?

Now talking about inheriting bad situations, every government inherits such. When you want to run, are you not the one that said I know what the situation is, I want to run because I want to improve the situation? I have the formula to improve the situation. Now you are there, your own policies are making things worse than they were under Buhari. Under Buhari, inflation was maybe between 18 and 20%, no it is 35%. So how can you blame Buhari for what you are doing? Buhari failed to secure the nation, you have failed to secure the nation in a worse manner.