Longers Anyanwu is not your idea of a run-of-the-mill politician. He talks tough; and the tougher the issues, the tougher he talks. He is based in Imo State, but after spotting him in Abuja on a Saturday, Editor-at-Large, SAM AKPE met him the following Sunday evening, and for a few minutes, produced what you are about to read. Discussing politics with Anyanwu is like turning on a gramophone. What you hear is sweet music. He spoke about President Goodluck Jonathan, General Muhammadu Buhari and the political combat ahead.
After a failed bid at becoming the National Publicity Secretary of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), how involved are you in the party now?
I am fully involved, fully committed and fully participating. I am even more crucially involved because elections are around the corner. After losing the bid that time, I deliberately decided to reduce my visibility, particularly in the media. But for the actual politicking, I have been engrossed in it. I have been doing more of work than talking.
There is a general assumption that PDP was not prepared for this election. Is that correct?
I will not agree with you totally, but it’s not far from the truth because PDP seemed to have taken a lot for granted; thinking that the scorecard of the government was enough to speak for itself. So people did not really propagate what we achieved as a party. To that extent, I can say we took it for granted. Everybody was busy trying to deliver, trying to get involved in the transformation programme of Mr. President; hence the opposition had nothing doing than to castigate the party and the government because it had no programme to implement. But the PDP as a party in government occupied itself with a programme of action; be it road network revolution, agriculture, or job creation. We did more of work than talking.
How scary is the All Progressives Congress (APC)?
APC is an aggrieved party. APC is doing politics of anger. In APC, they are like mercantile politicians trying to wrest power at all costs; seeing politics and power as a business where you must put in everything, even if it means killing. They don’t care because they want power. Most of them, having tasted power in their states, believe that if they can expand their territories and then control the centre, then they can become emperors and lords. That is what is propelling them. That desire for territorial aggrandisement and total control, and of course conversion of the commonwealth into private enterprise, constitute their driving force.
If that is what is driving them, what then is driving PDP? Some say the two parties are two sides of a coin.
You will equally ask: why is it that somebody who has been a governor on the platform of PDP for two terms is suddenly preaching change? Why would somebody who had been speaker for eight years and governor for another eight years under PDP suddenly wear a new toga and be preaching change and anti-corruption? Why would somebody who has been a senator for eight years be suddenly preaching change? At what point did the desire for change start? Tell me about any of them who has not moved from one party to another. Politics, most of the time, requires patience. Like when I could not become the PDP spokesman, I decided to remain inside the party, rather than throwing mud at the party. But some people think that once they don’t get it, they must destroy it. That is the philosophy of some politicians.
I am not saying that there is perfect internal democracy, but when you compare PDP’s internal democracy to any other party, whether you call it APC or ACN, you’ll find that the other party knows nothing. Like in my state, whereas PDP had 27 gubernatorial aspirants, APC had just one person. Is that democracy? It’s appointment. It’s selection. Once the cabal that owns the party decides who goes where, it stands. And that is how they will sit to appropriate the commonwealth of this nation if handed over to them. The only party that practices internal democracy at all or is struggling to perfect internal democracy is PDP. Others do selection.
Unlike what happened in the past when party members who lost nominations would fall into line and support the winner, in PDP today, such losers quickly switch over to the APC. What is responsible for that?
I won’t agree with you totally. Look at the percentage of people that are involved in this game, maybe less than 10 per cent. Like I have always said, PDP is like the Roman Cathedral where multitudes outside are struggling to get inside while some who are inside but cannot get space to sit down are finding the way out. That is how I can liken PDP. But it could be better. I dare say, after this election, the leader of the party must be courageous enough to overhaul the entire party system. As a party man, I am saying that after this victory of March 28 and April 11, we shall sit down to re-focus and re-energise the party for the future.
You sound so confident of victory at a time APC may be compiling list of those who will form the administration.
APC is saying that it will form a parallel government. They (members) are trying to invoke treasonable actions. They are trying to use campaign of intimidation and blackmail. This cannot make you win election. If I lose, I will declare a parallel government. Then why are you contesting. Simply declare a parallel government now. If already you’ve made up your mind that you will not agree, whether you win or lose, then why are you in the contest? You can simply start the trouble which you want to foment. But I bet you, Nigeria is too big for any individual or any political party.
As an insider in PDP, you must be rattled by the intimidating presence of APC in this election.
I don’t feel rattled; I feel challenged. I feel that PDP should rise up and show Nigerians what difference it has made. For example, people didn’t really know much of our achievement until this election period. So, what APC has been able to do is to bring out the best in PDP. I think it’s good for Nigeria. It’s good for democracy. Today, the mien, the character and the nature of the president of this country is a Bible to read in aspects of humility, freedom of speech, obedience to rule of law, a man who cannot forget where he is coming from despite every provocation, there is no political prisoner in Nigeria till today. That is why PDP is the only party that can provide the best: the best person that has the required political temperament to handle the storm of this country.
What do you make of the card-reader that the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) wants to use?
Rubbish! Illegality! It’s just that the president is a fiercely law-abiding person who does not want to rock the boat. The Electoral Act says there shall be no electronic voting. Voting is a process. If the foundation of the process is anchored on electronics as against what the law says, why are we using it? In my village, if it doesn’t work, what will I tell my people? We cannot continue like this. If we want to do technology-based election, let us go for it; not half measure, not manipulative measure. If you go to my ward, you have heaps of cards with names you don’t know, people that do not exist. You have 80 per cent of the actual people looking for their cards, and they cannot find them; yet they bring cards that do not belong to the people of that area. These are fraudulent manipulations of the electoral process.
Who do you blame for that?
I blame Professor Attahiru Jega (INEC chairman); he has an agenda. Remember he started by creating fictitious 30,000 polling centres for his people until he was stopped. That’s when he could have been asked to resign. Then he wanted to hold elections when people had not collected their Permanent Voters Cards (PVCs). In some areas, he had completed distribution of 90 per cent of PVCs, yet there was war in those areas; there was scorched-egg policy where people had ran out of cities, but then they had collected their PVCs. Nigerians are not asking questions. Where is this man coming from?
So what’s the way out?
I expect him to resign because he is going to mess up this election the way he is going.
Apart from the illegality of the card-reader, what other problem do you have with him?
You cannot put something on nothing and expect it to stand. It was not expected to work. It is the manipulative strategy of one man. They say the battery is rechargeable. For me, this thing is programmed to fail. They have claimed that there is a central server that will receive all the thumb-prints and all that. How many people will have access to it? Is that admissible before the tribunal? Why is APC so head-over-heel with card-reader and Jega?
Why was the election postponed?
Nigerians knew that Jega and his co-travellers wanted to carry out a coup on February 14. And when your name is Goodluck, then good luck will follow. I think it was the good luck of Nigeria that exposed such heinous design and plot of some few political merchants in this country.
Buhari is noted for his anti-corruption stand and a deep sense of discipline. What do you make of him as president of Nigeria?
I look at him as a very unrepentant soldier who has no business in democracy. Even in the military, as a combatant soldier, maybe he could kill as many Biafrans as were available then, but in terms of intellectual contributions, his colleagues were the ones speaking. And then when you look at the opportunity he had to serve with Idiagbon, that was the era of the height of military dictatorship. It went down the history of despotism in Africa as the most dictatorial, the most heartless era that existed in Sub-Saharan Africa. So, when you now say that a man is not corrupt because he was flogging people on the street, or because he had retroactive laws that led to the killing of some people, that is the only score-card he has. What happened at the Petroleum Trust Fund (PTF)? What happened to the consultants of PTF? History is still fresh. I cannot point at any PTF presence in Imo State when he was the chairman of PTF. But then if you go to any part of Kaduna or Katsina, you’ll see insignias of roads constructed and hospitals built by him. Why would you at this age bring a man driven by religious and tribal parochialism? Nigeria has gone past him. Somebody, who, at this age, doesn’t even know the full meaning of APC, INEC and even the name of his running mate. And if you don’t vote for him, he says Nigeria will burn. Nigeria does not belong to one person or one section. To be president is not by force. Again, some of the APC leaders have a hidden agenda. PDP, I want to assure you today, will beat APC roundly.
What gives you such confidence?
That is because PDP is the most acceptable party. It is the party with the most national outlook. It is a party that is not owned by one person. It has a body of law and rules that guide it. APC is owned by a few individuals. PDP is the party that accommodates you, irrespective of your religious inclination, tribal or where you come from. That is PDP for you.
What is Jonathan bringing to the table that Buhari lacks?
Jonathan is bringing civility. He is bringing respect for the rule of law. He is bringing environmental freedom. He is bringing institutional transformation. What we are trying to do in PDP led by him is to strengthen the institutions; not individuals. Don’t talk too much about Jonathan, talk about the judiciary: is it independent? The legislature: is it independent? That is the unique thing he is bringing to the table. These people are bringing a Goliath with the highest dictatorial score-card. That is the only thing he is bringing to the table. But Nigeria has gone past that stage. We are now talking about institutional strengthening; doing things according to the rule of law; democratisation of democracy. That is what Jonathan is bringing to the table. Our democracy is about entering the auto-cruise; we cannot afford another set-back.
