Member of the Presidential Contact Committee of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) during the 2015 election, Ebenezer Babatope, in this interview with Assistant Editor (South West), MUYIWA OLALEYE, speaks on the party’s loss of the elections and how it will bounce back, his problem with Buhari presidency, among other issues.
Since the loss of the last presidential election by your party, you have been unusually quiet. Why has it been so?
(For me) as a stakeholder and a member of PDP Board of Trustees (BoT), the whole election is nothing to write home about. It is an ill wind that blows no one any good. I just felt I should go and relax myself for some time. I am not surprised at what happened to my party, but I want to assure that PDP will bounce back.
I have not recovered from the defeat we suffered at the elections. One way or another, one can say that the PDP suffered this heavy defeat because of the activities of the party members themselves. They contributed immensely to that defeat, though the Chairman of the Independent National electoral Commission (INEC), Professor Attahiru Jega, has his own problems. He presided over the most notorious election this country has ever witnessed. But then, we contributed to the problem. The problem of imposition of candidates ravaged our party. Correct candidates could not emerge. These are issues that have to be x-rayed and answered by all of us who are concerned with those elections. We must x-ray what happened and let the members of our party have the correct situation of event.
Can you imagine that in Oyo State now, PDP does not have a single member in the House of Assembly? Adebayo Alao-Akala, who left us, won six Assembly seats for the Labour Party (LP) under which he contested the governorship. These are very terrible things. Rasheed Ladoja too won eight for his Accord Party (AP). It is a very terrible thing. Well, we want to re-organise the PDP. We want to ensure that we remain credible, and that we remain focused, so that by 2019, we will ensure that the party comes back to power.
The next thing, left to me, is for all the important organs of the party to meet, and it would have been appropriate if all these organs would meet while the president is still there, before May 29. I am talking of the national caucus, which is the highest organ of the party, the BoT, and then the National Executive Council (NEC). Those three organs are made up of mature people, who would not be irrational in their propositions for re-organising the party. We should meet and x-ray what happened in that elections properly and thoroughly, so that we don’t start beating about the bush. We would then come to basic conclusions on how to re-organise the party, because it is almost apparent that it is that re-organisation that will push us to 2019 and, by the grace of God, win for us the presidency of the country.
It is being insinuated that you are planning to defect to All Progressives Congress (APC).
Join APC for what? At what age? I am 72 years and three months old. I now want to jump boat from the PDP to the APC? What am I going to do in the APC? What do they want to offer me? And in any case, it is not a matter of offering. I joined the PDP out of my own volition and out of the conditions I found myself in then. I joined the PDP in 1999 and I have been very happy being with the party. That we have lost the elections doesn’t mean that I have to jump ship. We will sit down in PDP, organise it and prepare grounds for power. Luckily for us in the PDP, the arrangements within the party are solid because we do rotational presidency. The arrangement within us now is to choose either a candidate from the North for 2019 or a candidate from the South East. And I can assure you that we are going to sit down and discuss the issue. I know that our South East brothers must also aspire for the national leadership. But, we will appeal to them. Let’s go and meet it up with Buhari and his group of APC boys by picking a correct, highly-focused and highly-motivated political somebody from the North to be our candidate. And when that person is chosen, we will all rally round to ensure that we get power back. Then, of course, when that person finishes his term, it will go to the South East.
How would you rate Jega’s performance in the last election?
For your information, I am one of the advocates of Jega. I must confess to you, he organised elections very well in many states of the federation such as Anambra, Ondo, Ekiti and Edo states, earlier. In all these places, he did very well. But for 2015 election, there was a Northern conspiracy of which Jega was a part; Northern conspiracy to return a Hausa-Fulani man to power! Everybody collapsed to this conspiracy, to this mischief to ensure that somebody from the North emerged, and Buhari, who they now call ‘Sai Baba’, benefited from it. Jega was a strong part of it. I am so sad, having been one of his strong supporters. I am so sad that he did that. It was so clear and apparent that there was a Northern conspiracy to rub credibility off the elections and put power squarely in the hands of a Northern person. Look at Boko Haram we are talking about; they came out to say that if Goodluck Jonathan is allowed to win election in 2011, Nigeria will be made ungovernable. I have always asked myself a question: how did they make this country ungovernable for Jonathan? Of course, Boko Haram manifested itself, killing people all over the places. Innocent and non-innocent people were killed and then they went and abducted over 200 girls from a school in Chibok. We are still looking for them. I’m so sad that the people that our soldiers are getting back are people who have no connection with the Chibok girls. Since Buhari’s election anyway, Boko Haram has been involved in staccato fights over the places. But, it has not been on the same scale as we had witnessed. Their activities have gone down.
Elections took place in Borno and Yobe states; areas made desolate by Boko Haram, yet they turned out very big votes. These things are really funny to me. We want peace in Nigeria. So, if Buhari, who would be president on May 29, is able to bring back the peace and his brothers now say no more Boko Haram, well, we will be grateful. But we want the world to know that so many forces ganged up against us. In fact, we had international conspiracy against us. Now, it was announced in our media that America is sending a very large contingent for Buhari’s inauguration. Fine! America is the policeman of the world. And the offence of Jonathan that America now seems to be at war with him to destroy him centres on that bill on gay marriage and the arms purchased by Nigeria’s government to fight Boko Haram. America won’t sell us arms and I heard the government moved to Russia and they got the arms. As far as we are concerned, they can come back with the entire cabinet of America to Buhari’s inauguration, but eventually, history, the arbiter of time, will pronounce its supreme verdict. I am a historian and I have always been confident that history will pronounce its own verdict.
So, this was what happened. But I am happy that Jonathan has proved all doubting Thomases wrong. He was not stupid when he said, “Okay, good luck to Buhari; Mr. INEC, I support what you are doing.” But the question remains that Jonathan was robbed because of this conspiracy I talked about from the North and also the conspiracy that came from outside our country. The PDP was robbed also by internal forces in the PDP, who didn’t get their bearings correct and who are playing the game of the APC. But apparently, when history pronounces its verdict, we shall know who actually was at fault. However, what is clear to me is that President Jonathan has already pronounced a very good verdict on himself, and history will record it to be as that.
What are your views on the second coming of Buhari?
I can never like Buhari coming back to power. Whether the election was manipulated or not, as I have said, they have declared him the winner. He is going to be president from May 29. So, there is nothing we can do about it. But, it will be very difficult for me to pat that gentleman on the back because he nearly destroyed my life. Many people have told me: you are a Christian, forget about it. Yes, I am a Christian, but I believe in the Mosaic Law: a tooth for a tooth, an eye for an eye. I will never have wished for Buhari to win back power with what he did to us. I spent 21 months of my life in Buhari’s jail. He put me in Kirikiri Prison, Jos Prison and Yola Prison, and then the man now is coming back. Honestly, I have always said it is a pity. I pity myself. If I had money, I would rather avoid the gentleman; I would go abroad. Because I do not have such money, I will stay in my home town, Ilesa. The people will not reject me, so I will stay there. And if the man again decides to move against me, I will shout to my people for help. That is what I am going to rely upon now. I don’t like his second coming, I must confess.
There is this rumour from a section of PDP leadership that members of the BoT were given money for the purpose of the elections. How would you react to that?
The BoT didn’t meet throughout the elections. Part of what counted against the PDP was that the BoT never met throughout the elections. Some of us clamoured for the meeting of the body, but it was never called. All I can tell you is this, that the presidential contact committees were established in the various zones at the beginning of the elections and the party made sure that money was given out to the said committees to be able to operate. But under no circumstances were they given as much as the N30 million being speculated that was given to each of the BoT members.
The presidential contact committees in the zones were not given even N4 million each. I was a member of the committee representing Osun with others. When the facts are demanded, I will come out to say what I know. Which N30 million? That will be almost about $150,000. To who? And some people who were members of Task Force were not BoT members. Senator Olu Alabi and Yinka Omilani were members of the contact committee representing my state in the South West zone. I am the only one in the BoT. So, where would the money have come from? Honestly, these things are making me cry because a beautiful political party has been liquidated. Who would have taken the money? I did an advertisement four days in a week in a newspaper, propelling the interest of my party. It took me almost three weeks to get the money back from Abuja because they had to pay me back. I paid the money to the newspaper house.
