Rahman Owokoniran, a former commissioner for Housing and Boundary in the Bola Tinubu administration in Lagos State and currently the secretary of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in the South West, in this exclusive interview with INIOBONG IWOK, spoke on PDP’s chances in the 2023 polls, the disagreement between the presidential candidate, Atiku Abubakar and five governors within the party, among other issues: Excerpts:
The general election is close; what are the chances of PDP in Lagos State?
Yes, I am very optimistic about the chances of PDP in Lagos State, we have been working very hard given the experience we have had in elections in this state this time around, it can only be better. We have never had a campaign like this, but this time around we had a very early start in running and getting ready for these elections. That notwithstanding, the finishing must also be very good; we have been focused on what we want.
What are the chances of Atiku Abubakar in the presidential poll?
I can tell you that Atiku is going to be the next president of Nigeria and that is very clear, that is why the ruling party has been very glittery, creating confusion all over the place. Their assumption from the onset was false; they thought that they were going to make it an issue of North and South dichotomy. That is what they want to play, but they realised that Nigerians are not ready for that card, Nigerians want good governance. If you say that Fulani or Hausa/Fulani man is your problem, but the governor of Lagos State has never been Fulani. The governor of Lagos State has never been Igbo, they have also been Yorubas, and yet our people are languishing in poverty, they are finding it difficult to breathe because things are not going right. You said you are amassing so much money in taxation, where is the money going? How come our schools, even though the sizes of it have gone down to a third of what we used to have during the Jakande era, are still not competitive, we still cannot meet the world standard. We still have hundred students in class, where is the money going into? Is the money not met for those kids to benefit through education? The same thing for our transportation system, everywhere there are lock jams; because we pretend to be repairing roads over time, and why should it take you more than twenty years for us to have functional roads? Something is wrong.
There are fears among some of your members that it is a mistake on the part of Atiku, for not resolving the disagreement with the PDP’s five governors. What is your take?
Atiku has not made any mistake; our party members are not glittery, they are very confident that this election is already taken. Where are the five governors? One is in the Middle belt, one in South-South, two from South East and one in South West. The ones from South East are operating from the PDP stronghold region, so all Atiku is asking for in those PDP states is 25 percent, in the South West, he is looking for twenty five per cent and he is going to do much better than that in those states.
If we now talk about the Middle Belt, Atiku is going to get more than fifty per cent votes, because that is a PDP state and we are only left with our own strong man in River State. From my own perspective, Wike has boxed himself to a corner, Wike used to enjoy the respect of everybody because of the crowd he is leading, but once he made the mistake of walking the rope alone then you have to face all these people because they have their own decision to make.
They would not blindly follow you; you make too many enemies of people within your party and outside of your party. Are you not building a coalition against yourself? Those are the questions confronting him now, he may not want to face it, but he is going to face it on February 25. You can see the drama of going to campaign in his state. For a decent leader, we are not in the jungle, what is in a stadium? It is just going to be an event of three or four hours, if you claim that you are the leader in Rivers State, anything you say is the final, you should not be afraid of what would come in, except you are afraid what would come out will be an eruption. I mean people coming out to show their support and you don’t want to see that, whether you want to see it now or later, you would see it when it happens soon.
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But the national chairman should have resigned to resolve the matter and is it too late for peace?
I hear the national chairman said discussions are on-going, that is their own decision. For me, there are many ways we can come to terms on some of these issues, without escalating it into crisis. As far as it has gone this far, there is still a chance of achieving something meaningful. For me the Atiku’s campaign does not seem to be waiting, because if they are waiting for them to be ready, they would be playing catch up, so now it would be a question of when are you joining us?
The PDP’s gubernatorial candidate in Lagos is backing Atiku, Bode George is with Wike. It does not appear PDP is backing Atiku fully in the state?
I am not part of any camp, Jandor is the gubernatorial candidate, he is not building a group for anyone to be part of and there are so many groups in the party. I can tell you if you take away Bode George who is with Wike, 98 percent of the members in Lagos are with Atiku.
If Bode George is not supporting Atiku he would be alone. It would be funny, he has spent most of his political life campaigning against Tinubu in Lagos that means that Tinubu is the person to beat in Lagos and the only group that is posing a formidable challenge to Tinubu is PDP and you are trying to excuse yourself.
It would be worrisome to ask if he is really interested in getting rid of Tinubu, if you really want to get rid of Tinubu you would be thinking of coalition.
But you have always been close to Bode George, why the dissenting views on Atiku presidential bid?
Well, the support for or against Atiku has separated a lot of people from Bode George. A lot of people have moved, so many of us; Taiwo Kuye, Oluta Koka, even Ogunbambi, Onikepo Oshodi, a lot of people.
Many of the people who used to hold meetings with him, there are some of us that attended because the leader of the party was calling for a meeting not because we want to identify with a group. At that point in time the exco of the party was factionalised and we thought as a leader, he would be able to bring people together that is what brought us together.
But I can tell you today because of this Atiku presidential bid and Wike’s dissenting, a substantial number of the pope have moved to support Atiku. They are still waiting for Wike to tell them what to do, but those people that moved away from him have made up their mind that they want to vote for Atiku and they have been working assiduously.
The leader of the party in the South West, Seyi Makinde is against Atiku; does it mean the exco in the region in which you are part of would be divided on who to support?
No; Seyi Makinde told us, our chairman re-echoed that comment that he does not have anything against Atiku, what he is saying is that; they should give the South the chairmanship of the party and Ayu should resign. As far as we are concerned, even though we believe that the chairmanship cannot be in the North and the presidency in the North, we are of the opinion that when a tree falls on another, you pick the top tree first, before you take the bottom one. Let settle the presidency then we would all join in the big fight to remove that chairmanship from them. They have never disagreed that the chairman should not come from the South, even Wike said Atiku told him that Ayu is going to resign and the chairmanship would come to the South. It was never in dispute what was in dispute is the timing. Is it going to happen before the election or after? Common sense prevails that there is a constitutional provision to that. It is not easy like that, Ayu resigning and you are picking somebody else to take his position. Let me even ask; who is going to take that decision?
Different polls have predicted Peter Obi victory in the presidential election. What is your take?
What is the source of findings? If it was on social media the margin of error would be 98 per cent, because how many voters are on social media? They would call people they have access to, people in the urban areas. Most of the excitement here is because Lagos is cosmopolitan; if you go to Kano State, it is also cosmopolitan. Obi knows he has a slim chance of victory; it is even difficult for his party to field candidates. Secondly, what is the Labour Party about? Are we going to give votes to Obi, an individual going to have possession of our trust because he is Obi? They were asking him his manifesto; he answered that he is going to write it when he gets to office. Obi’s private life is about capitalism, you can say all the negatives about Nigeria, when you go church they tell you that. When you are not a candidates you know all that, you are saying things that resonates about the people and you are not providing solutions. You are saving money, who saves money in the middle of a problem, what kind of economy is that?
What is your take on Lagos PDP’s governorship candidate chances?
His chances are very bright given the mood in the state, people are not happy, things are not going right. I cannot see unhappy people going ahead and vote for the party that is making them unhappy. Everybody is talking about eight years of APC, but it is Tinubu, through the various parties he has been in charge of Lagos State in the last twenty three years plus.
Lagosians are too familiar with the pains in the state. You cannot move freely, health care is not there. Nothing is working. That government has never been identifying with the people of the state; rather they are involved in symbolism. They recently launched a rail system, but it is incomplete, just for looking and you can’t ride on it.
