As the crisis in the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) lingers, elder statesman, Chief Mike Ahamba SAN, has insisted that the National Chairman of the party, Dr Iyorchia Ayu, should not and would not step down as the party’s leader until after next year’s presidential polls.

The eminent lawyer also cautioned Governor Nyesom Wike of Rivers State and other aggrieved groups in the party to embrace peace, noting that there is crisis in other political parties.

In an interview, the PDP chieftain stated: “The Wike factor is self-developed and self-intended. If he succeeds, it’s okay; if he doesn’t succeed, it’s okay. If it’s just about one man, let the one man think twice. Wike is a man I respect, but I don’t like what he is doing in the PDP.”

He also spoke about the Labour Party and its presidential candidate, Mr Peter Obi, the APC and other issues.

The presidential campaigns start September 28, but the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) is still embroiled in crisis. Don’t you think it may affect the chances of the party in the election?

Has the crisis in Nigeria affected its existence? Once you have people with different interests in anything, there is abound to be crisis and wherever you are and everything goes on without any conflict, then only one man is thinking. That is dictatorship. We shall go on with the campaigns. The candidates are there, so they will go on with their campaigns. Those who are creating the problem to run down the party will find out that the opponents are also embroiled in crisis. If they manage their own, we will manage ours. It is not going to disturb our campaigns and those who want to disrupt the campaigns of the PDP will eventually fail.

You cited an instance with Nigeria’s continuous existence despite its crisis. Don’t you think it is different from that of a political party? If the country is fighting an external war, you may have saboteurs that will make it lose the war?

In this instance, the most import thing for Nigeria is the management of the country; there is a difference between management and mismanagement. What I’m trying to say is that in any human society, there is always crisis, but this crisis won’t stop the PDP.

In the history of PDP, the party has not had it so bad. This conflict is at the level of the presidential candidate

The Igbo man says, any food which is ‘eat all and take all’ is not a good food. There is crisis in the PDP because it is the number one party, and everyone wants a position in the boat. If there is no chance of winning, there will be no crisis. Even the crisis is evidence of our chances at the election. It will be resolved eventually, but it will not stop the party’s campaign.

The crisis is the Atiku, Wike factor?

No, no, there is no Atiku factor in it. Atiku won the nomination in a convention that nobody has said was rigged. The Wike factor is self-developed and self-intended. If he succeeds, it’s ok; if he doesn’t succeed, it’s ok. If it’s just about one man, let the one man think twice. Wike is a man I respect, but I don’t like what he is doing in the PDP.

Some say Wike is right on his agitation?

If he is right, he knows the venue to resolve the issue. They are going for a National Executive Council (NEC) meeting. Keep your powders dry, go there and raise the issue. If it is voted correctly, you will see it, but why try to kill the party before going to the NEC meeting? It is not right. My son is in politics, if he tells me what is wrong, I will disagree with him. Those who know me know me very well, I don’t support evil. Everybody has the right to complain politically, but don’t try to pull down the house. Where you are going, is there no crisis there? In your house don’t you meet crisis there? Where is it that there is no crisis?

What Wike is asking for, is it not tenable -the presidential candidate, the BoT chairman, the party chairman are all from the same region, North?

That is something that will be ironed out, but do you have a presidency yet? No. when you have a president you begin to talk of the items that go with him. Let us do the election. If Atiku wins, of course the chairmanship will go to the South. We don’t have a president from the North yet. Why are we trying to pull down the party because of it? In other words, are we not presuming that Atiku has won? It is a plausible presumption, but let it happen in a few months time, then we’ll go to the constitution and see what it says. Right now, we don’t have a president from the North.

Some argue that the breach of the constitution by Atiku and also by not abiding by the principles of the founding fathers of the party is haunting him. There is said to be a rotation of power between north and south, which is the principle of the party?

Has he complained that he is being haunted or someone presumed that he is being haunted? The crisis will affect everybody if it succeeds. Those creating it want to collapse the party, and if they succeed, will Atiku be the only victim? We don’t have a president from the North yet. If he becomes the president, then we all will rise and say the chairmanship must come to the South. It is the office that is alternated, not even rotated. Let us face the fact, that he is likely to win does not make him the president yet, but I know he will be the president. Until he becomes president, we don’t have a president from the North. How can you disrupt a substantive office even on popular reasonableness? Is it right? Do you share things that are not of the same value? This is what we have to look at. My attitude to the things of the public is to stay where I will defend to the last, knowing that I’m right.

You said Atiku is not yet the president, but that he will win. But some have said Atiku can only win if the different groups are able to reconcile. A situation where four governors are not working with him, can he win?

I don’t arrogate absolute power to myself to be different. If I’m in any group, I submit myself to the group. If they take a decision that is wrong, we will all suffer it. Let them leave the matter; if the PDP people cannot defend themselves to the extent of winning an election because of this point you are making, then we’ll suffer it. If we win, we’ll enjoy it. You don’t take a candidature and counter pose it to a substantive office. Let there be presidency first, then Ayu will step down. There is a chairman, there is no president; how are you going to resolve it? If we win, the presidency is from the North. Then Ayu will automatically step down. But if anybody is trying to put some obstacle on the way because of selfish interest, let him try, God ‘dey’. If he steps down and we lose the election, what do you say? Let us have the presidency first and if Ayu refuses to step down, I will head to court; that is the way I operate. Now, Atiku is a candidate, not yet a president even though he is a potential president.

The NEC of the party decided to make the contest for the presidential ticket open, jettisoning the founding principle of the party which is rotation to ensure national cohesion. Between winning election and national cohesion, which comes first?

This issue should not break us, except that there are some people who have already decided to destroy PDP and they were looking for an opportunity to do so. What they are doing is the wrong thing. Let them wait till after the election, if we win, the chairman will step down and a Southerner will take over. If all of the offices have been concluded, it will be a different thing. One has been concluded, the other has not. The people who are opposing it now agreed that it should be open, so, they should accept the result of its openness. PDP will be very foolish to tamper with their nomination now.

Some have also noted that Atiku has moved from PDP to other parties in the past, and that while he gallivanted, there were people who held the party together. Don’t you think such people should be listened to? Look at the South-East for instance. They stood ny PDP when other zones abandoned the party. But some say the South-East have been given the short end of the stick.

Who gave them the short end of the stick? I had told you earlier on this issue that zoning the ticket to the South-East was not a right to them, but it felt that equity demanded that it should be zoned to that zone. If the South-Easterners voted away from the South-East, what do you want people to do? We must not be emotional; I’m not, I face reality. If you are a leader, you must learn to face reality in good time for the people you are leading. We are in a very big turmoil politically here, and somebody wants us to go to election in crisis; that person is not a friend of the party and is not my friend politics. He may be my friend professionally or ordinarily, but he is not my friend politically. Anybody stoking crisis in the PDP now is not my political friend. Any person challenging PDP can be my political friend, but not a person trying to destroy the party.

Political pundits say the election is a three-horse race – APC, PDP and Labour Party, but some Nigerians are of the view that PDP dug the grave for the country and the APC buried it. Don’t you think Labour Party may trounce the other two parties?

Everybody is going there to win and anyone who wins, I will congratulate him. In your secondary school, you did an experiment to show that nature abhors a vacuum. The Labour Party is a victim of nature abhors a vacuum. People are just rushing in there to take advantage of one man; that doesn’t make them his men. People are rushing in there to take advantage of someone’s popularity, not that they agree with him; not that he agrees with some of the people. They are not bonded. Without prejudice to the wonderful credentials of Peter Obi, I don’t know what will become of them if they are the ruling party. In any case, I don’t belong to that party, but I want my own party to win. (Saturday Sun)

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