‘Legal battles weakening us as opposition party’

Senator Walid Jibrin, Chairman of Board of Trustees (BoT) of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) is worried about the legal battles weighing down the PDP. In particular, he says in an interview with Saxone Akhaine, Northern Bureau Chief, that the distraction is a hindrance in the party’s main role of opposition. However, Jibrin hints of plans by the party to rediscover itself through an ongoing genuine reconciliation among the different factions as well as measures to wrest power from All Progressives Congress (APC) in 2019.

Judgment of the Abuja Federal High Court
The party has been following with great concern the recent happenings in our party which is characterized by various court cases, culminating into different court rulings, especially the recent Federal High Court ruling in Abuja which has come to us as a shock. I therefore wish to call on all PDP members never to be discouraged, as your great party is taking all necessary steps to solve the problem and restore our glory and maintain our respect.

We are assuring all members that the party is very capable of solving this problem as the party is determined to carry on with its forthcoming national convention. The national convention as arranged will, by the grace of God, take place as planned. Based on our constitution and party guidelines, all that is happening today is internal democracy in action, which is bound to happen after PDP’s rule for 16 years.

Challenges before PDP
Our predicament and challenges are coming from both internal and external sources which will all come to pass. The Board of Trustees (BoT), the conscience of our party is meeting to make an honest x-ray of the situation, after some wider consultations. Thereafter, there will be genuine mediation and reconciliation that will make us come up with agreeable step that would enable us move forward with determination to win the forthcoming elections in Edo, Ondo, Rivers re-run and all by-elections, and be able to capture power in 2019. God would not allow anybody to be used to destroy this party that was built on solid foundation by our founding fathers.

If you are a true party member, you should realize that the party is supreme and above all of us. We must commend all our past leaders, chairmen who decided to take the path of honour and respected the party by bowing out peacefully; in this respect, I would like to thank Chief Okwesilieze Nwodo, Prince Ogbulafor, Bamanga Tukur, Adamu Mu’azu, and General Olusegun Obasanjo who despite the problem within the party bowed out peacefully without any problem.

While we are trying to solve the problem through genuine reconciliation I urge all members with cases in court to immediately withdraw them. All cases taken to court by the PDP members should be taken out and then let us seat down and resolve them without involving the Judiciary. I will advise further that members should remain calm and law-abiding by refraining from all kinds of attacks – personal attacks on individuals and all kind of violence that may be provoked by anger. We don’t believe that violence, annoyance, fighting will solve these problems. And I hope that all the parties concern will pay respect and give honour to the leadership of this party.

Effects on the national convention and the elections in Edo
Some of us are yet to see the actual judgment itself. But, we have heard and seen the papers on what the Judge said. But, I have not seen the area where the Judge said don’t hold your convention.

Secondly, the Judge has the right to give judgment; also it is our right to go for appeal. If we go for appeal and we are given accelerated hearing and with hope of continuing with our convention, nothing will stop us from holding the convention. We are not going to stop any preparation for our convention. I have been reliably informed that the judgment does not prevent us from holding convention as far as I understand, unless a lawyer or a judge further clarifies it for me.

So, we will get the copy of the judgment, study and then take necessary action. I told you that the BoT is meeting to look into this matter; the national caucus will also meet to look at this matter and come out with a decision. So, it is not wrong if we say our convention will continue.

Edo is a PDP State and everybody knows about it. We have almost concluded everything in Edo and suddenly if anybody should come now and tell us that we should not continue with Edo that is suicidal and very dangerous.  We are preparing for Ondo, we have rerun elections in Rivers, also to be organized by INEC. We have to resolve the issue of acceptability by INEC who gave us that right to accept the candidates for the elections. And we have all the documents from INEC. So, INEC also has something to say on all the happenings; we will come out with a statement that will be useful, not only to our members but the people of Edo, and Nigerians as a whole.

The external influences and Sherriff’s posture
It is the attention purportedly shown by some people and individuals who are interested in killing PDP. They laid the path for crisis. And while you are doing reconciliation, you are never tired of it until you reach an agreement. When you are doing negotiation, somebody will bring his point, maybe he has 10 points and, you should be able to agree on two or three. If you don’t agree on anyone of the points then it is not a good negotiation. And we are trying to be good negotiators and good reconciliators.

You know we have a reconciliation committee headed by Dickson, the Governor of Bayelsa State. He has tried his best and he is still trying his best. He left Bayelsa to stay in Abuja for some time trying to resolve this problem and I am sure he is not tired. Like I said, this problem must come and must be expected. We have ruled this country for 16 years. If we ruled and the conditionality’s were different, the conditionality’s this time are very different and we have to cope with the present situation, whether we like it or not.

That is why we want to be good opposition. An opposition that will deal with issues, opposition that will never deal with personalities. We should concentrate on issues that will help Nigeria, than going to be abusing individuals. It will not take us anywhere. That individual we should talk about should translate to developmental issues, the concrete issues that we should deliberate on. And that is what the PDP is all about.

Possibility of yielding to Sheriff’s demands
The reconciliation continues. We have not concluded the reconciliation. I think this question is preemptive. If he brought a condition, maybe the Makarfi’s group also brought a condition, it is not endless. We will continue to discuss. And I said by the grace of God we are going to reach an agreement based on what every one of us brings. Whether Sherriff brings twenty issues, we will look at them one by one and then find a solution.

Internal mechanism to check the excesses of PDP
Every organization has a mechanism of solving problems that will also ensure disciplinary measures. It is just like when you are preparing soup and you put too much salt into it. You know how that soup will taste. So, maybe we put too much salt in our soup that is why we sometimes have problems. But, we have learnt
our lessons from what is happening today. Even from the court cases alone, it is not a good omen for our party. And these court cases have diverted some of the mechanisms that we used to adopt in the party.