Now, We Are Set To Re-invent PDP - Baraje

BarajeAlhaji Abubakar Kawu Baraje, the sole candidate for the National Secretary of Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), in this interview with IDOWU SAMUEL, speaks on his plans to reposition the party to meet up with expectations. Excerpts:

What is the situation in PDP now that you have resumed for office as National Secretary?
The situation is calm as you can see. We are trying to settle down and I have a very strong conviction that very soon, members of the party across the federation will begin to understand why God chose us to take over the PDP.

PDP is a party for all, and we have no other duty than to continue to enhance its progress so that every member would have a cause to renew their confidence in the party. We as a party have been through a lot of difficult times. That is understandable, The PDP prides itself as the largest party in Africa and you do not expect a party as big as that not to have problems.

If you look around, you will still discover that the other smaller parties are also grappling with problems. That is why I feel that every right thinking party man and woman should appreciate the efforts by the past leaders of the party to bring it this far.

We have to give kudos to them no matter the mistakes and omissions they have committed, at least for their sacrifices.

However, we are determined to do our best to keep the flag of the PDP flying, and by the grace of God, everybody would be proud of the achievements that we would be leaving behind.

There have been strong impressions that the National Convention that produced your team left many of the PDP members disenchanted, considering the failure of the party to hold elections for the available offices. Indeed, the party settled for the consensus option and not elections. What would you say to that?

There is no gainsaying the fact that what everybody saw at the Eagle Square in Abuja last Saturday was democracy at work. Yes, the general expectation before the election was that all of us would file out to cast votes. To tell the truth, most of us were ready for elections.

But then, you have to consider the factor of the strong caucus of the party which felt that since the major contestants had almost emerged to the knowledge of everybody, the best thing to do was to obviate the cause of straight election just for the party to move forward.

If the elections had held, I tell you the result would not have been different from what we have today in anyway. The PDP governors constitute a strong factor in the politics of the party. Never forget that the governors are the leaders of delegates from their respective states.

They had gauged the mood of all the delegates before the day of the convention and had thus reported to the party what the delegates were saying and whom they would vote for. That was the reason the governors appeared to have tilted towards some candidates that were not particularly hyped by the media.

Take my own case as an example. I got nominated as a candidate for the office of National Secretary by members of the party. The story is that the people said they wanted me immediately they knew that the position had been zoned to Kwara State.

The nomination was done in the open, and even when our leaders in Kwara appeared to have preferred other candidates, the people still chorused that Baraje was the person they wanted. So, the leaders said, okay, let Baraje be if he is the popular choice.

Although I had worked with the government of Kwara State in different capacities, I want to put the record straight that I was not imposed by my governor, Dr. Bukola Saraki, contrary to media reports. Governor Saraki decided to support me on the basis that the people themselves wanted me. That scenario also repeated itself at the Zonal Congress by the North-Central, where Chief Godwin Dabo took the microphone to move a motion that Baraje be endorsed as the consensus candidate. You could see the thunderous response from the crowd.

The truth is that nobody thought about announcing anyone as the consensus candidate until I was openly nominated. Now since then, there has not been a single protest against my nomination. At the convention ground, you saw what happened. It was all about democracy, and democracy is about taking decisions by popular will.

But the other aspirants have been crying wolf that the party imposed the new National Executive on members by refusing to allow elections to...
Who is the candidate that cried wolf?

All of them...
You see? To my knowledge, not one of them has come out to say he was not happy with the outcome of the convention. I don’t think anyone among them would do that, because they all came out in the open to announce that they were stepping down. These are great men in our national politics whose words you could depend upon any day.

I reckon that they agreed to go with the party, having been convinced that the issue of election was secondary to the reality on ground at the convention. Moreover, I have not read about any of the major contestants venting displeasure against the outcome of the convention.

Now that you are in charge of the PDP, what are we to expect from you in due course?
Expect the best from us. On the day we were taking over, the National Chairman, Prince Vincent Ogbulafor, said we would work with Mr. President with 101 per cent loyalty. That, to me, is the beginning of progress. The PDP controls the federal government and that is the more reason why both the president and the party should work harmoniously in piloting the affairs of the country. The president has been reiterating his commitment to the principle of rule of law, transparency and due process.

That is what is expected of us too as a party. We have the seven-point agenda of Mr. President to promote and market as a party. We are going to team up with him in solving the problem of insecurity, unemployment, power, high poverty level, degeneration of infrastructure, poor standard of education and drop in living standard in our country.

Now we are lucky that we have a president who has the passion to change the face of Nigeria for good. We are lucky that he is never a controversial president. Look at the way he has been addressing the problem of 2008 Budget with the National Assembly. That is the kind of President that Nigeria desires.

We are also committed to the plans for reforming the PDP. The chairman believes in that and we shall do it. The essence is to make the PDP the most attractive political party not only in Nigeria but also on the continent of Africa. The essence is to re-invent the party towards deepening democracy and advancing the cause in Nigeria.

We are determined to bring back the founding members of the party who left in the wake of the crisis that rocked PDP some few years back. Already, we have the Alex Ekweme’s Report on Reconciliation as our guide. We are going to dust up the report and ensure the implementation with a view to encouraging as many of the aggrieved party members as possible to return to the fold.

A lot of people have been complaining about PDP, but I have seen many of those who dumped the party returning to it quietly even without being prompted. I am sure that we still have many people out there who are desirous of returning to PDP; we only need to encourage them a little. The idea is that if the aggrieved members were eventually reunited with the PDP, the party will then emerge as star-studded and hence would be very difficult to beat by any party for many years.

I was very impressed when some past ministers visited the party’s national office to express solidarity with the new National Working Committee of the party. We have been receiving such solidarity messages since we came on board. The implication is that our party members are already reposing great trust and confidence in us and hence we could not afford to fail.

I like what the National Chairman said about the score card by his office when he was the party’s National Secretary. He said when they took over from the Barnabas Gemade-led PDP, the party was only controlling 21 states. With much efforts, the number of states increased to 28. And now that we are here, our aspiration is to make PDP take over the entire federation. It is a tall task, yet it is achievable.

How would you react to report that as the National Secretary of the PDP, you are to serve the interest of the governor of Kwara State?
It was a propaganda raised against my aspiration to be PDP National Secretary. The Sarakis should be left out of this. I have read times and times over that it was my state governor who imposed me as a candidate. If you talk about the governor supporting me, I will not argue with you; but to pin it to imposition in a party as large as the PDP? Haba! Sometimes, people say a lot of things just to create confusion.

Rather, I feel that the governor of Kwara State deserved praises for the role he played in making the National Convention a success. I had earlier told you the story of how I emerged as the candidate for the National Secretary and there is no other truth outside what I told you. When I was nominated based on the fact that the position was zoned to Kwara State, it was done in the open and the elders of the party said they were okay with the nomination since it was borne out of popular choice.

I had been serving the party diligently since I joined as a founding member. So, why should I not be confident enough to come out and contest the election with support from my state? If you do your independent investigation on how I emerged as the National Secretary of the PDP, you will be convinced that no one imposed me as being insinuated.