ISAIAH OSIFO, two-time local government chairman of Uhunmwonde Local Government Area who served as Chief of Staff to former Edo State Governor, Oserheimen Osunbor, recently dumped the All Progressives Congress (APC) for the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP). In this chat with Special Correspondent, TITUS OISE, he speaks on the reasons for his new move, the crisis in the House of Assembly and other issues.
Leaving APC for PDP
Isaiah Osifo
It isn’t about me; it is about the system. I want you to understand why people move from one party to the other. We must equip ourselves with the actual meaning of a political party. Nigeria is in a process of evolution, and our expectation is that we will get to that level of political stature and sustainable democracy. A political party has its own characteristic. In our Nigerian context, the party has its rules and regulations, which is the constitution of the party. The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) makes it a mandatory requirement for all the parties that are registered with INEC to document their constitution with it. When you give your document to INEC, the provision of the rules of that document is no longer an internal affair of the party.
So, INEC and members of the public are expected to keep to the rules and regulations. At that time, we were having this problem in the PDP. The party leadership was unwilling to keep with what they wrote. So as a member of a political party, you have three options. If you belong to an organisation and the document, which is supposed to protect you, is no longer accepted, you have the options of leaving or remaining under the rules and laws of illegality, or you can just leave politics.
Because I don’t want to leave politics now, because I don’t want to be within a political party that doesn’t keep the rules, so I decided to move to a political party whose leadership has spoken and expressed willingness to keep to the rules of internal democracy. My movement to APC was when Governor of Edo State, Adams Oshiomhole, organised a rally which he tagged ‘one man one vote’. I attended that rally – though at the time I was not yet member of (the defunct) ACN – to represent General Samuel Ogbemudia. It was after then that we saw that ACN was going to be the party with internal democracy, a party of fairness and justice, a party that would be a rallying point for democrats and progressives. So I saw the promises were enough to attract me. That was why I left the PDP to join the ACN then.
On why am I coming back, as I said, the political parties are evolving; there is movement of many people. I wasn’t the only one that left PDP. Many people also left from PDP to ACN and to other parties. That really exposed the PDP local leaders to look inwards on why people were leaving.
Now, we have evidence that PDP has embraced internal democracy. We now elect you to be our leader. So when you are invited to a meeting at the senatorial or national level, you are no longer there on your own; you are there by the mandate given to you. But before now, somebody would just come out and say ‘I am the leader’. They would go there to take decision on behalf of the people when nobody sent them. All these were creating problems.
So, if a political party can imbibe the evolution culture of the people, if parties can embrace the principles of free, fair and transparent congresses, I don’t think anybody will have reasons to leave the party. PDP is now trying to look at these areas: free and fair primaries, free and fair congress.
Grouse with Oshiomhole, APC
When the APC congresses that were organised in May 2014 were approaching, I met Governor Oshiomhole. I followed the first civilian Governor of Edo State, John Odigie-Oyegun, to his office.
I told him: “Governor, the congresses are approaching. Nigerians know you as a democrat. Nigerians know you as somebody who has been fighting for democracy; practicalise it now by ensuring that the APC congresses are conducted in a free and fair atmosphere.” He told me that was what he was going to do. At the end of the day, he did it the opposite way.
Party is collectively owned by all the members. Because he is governor, he is so misled to think that he is God. He is so misled to think that he is the best.
I cannot be forced to believe that I must remain in a political party whose leadership has decided to be irresponsible. APC in Edo State, today, is reckless and irresponsible. I don’t know how the members can justify their actions and still continue to convince the people to trust them that they are still a political party in the interest of the people of Edo.
Crisis in Edo House of Assembly
What you are seeing in the House of Assembly is a reflection of the character of APC. These Assembly members that are from the APC believe they were appointed by Oshiomhole. A lot of them have this impression that it is Oshiomhole that determines their stay in the House of Assembly; so they must take instructions from him. Otherwise, if an Assembly member believes he was duly elected by his people and not appointed by the governor, what is happening in the House of Assembly would not have happened. Let us take it one after the other. The Assembly has right to suspend any member. It has right to discipline the members. But in democratic assembly conduct, you must not do your business in secret. So, if you are punishing an Assembly member, the people that elected him/her deserve the right to know why their representative is being suspended. It is the right of the constituency he represents, the people that voted him, to know his offence.
So what they have done is irresponsible, reckless and illegal. It is null and void. These good guys have already seen what the APC will do. They preempted them, and so they ran to court to say: please protect us from what these tyrants will do when they eventually move to another party; please judiciary, we rely on you. So morally, logically and politically, the APC lawmakers were totally wrong to have pronounced them suspended.
