Former Federal Commissioner for Information under the Yakubu Gowon military regime and Ijaw national leader, Chief Edwin Clark, shares his thoughts with Laraba MUREY over the 2023 South-South presidential aspirants both in the All Progressives Congress and the Peoples Democratic Party, insisting it’s unpatriotic for southern politicians to accept being running mate to a northern presidential candidate. The elder statesman also gave his opinion on tropical issues including the failure of Nigeria to adopt the 2014 CONFAB recommendations, Goodluck Jonathan’s presidential ambition, among others. Excerpts:
Let us look at what is going on within the political space, especially in the South where over 20 southern politicians from the APC and PDP are currently jostling to succeed President Muhammadu Buhari. What is your take?
It is madness. If I am to be realistic I would say they are not serious, particularly those from the South-West and the South-South. We know some of them are just setting themselves up to be used for the double games in politics, so that when it comes to where we say no, some people would come out to say yes, we are contesting. That is just it. They know why some of them are there.
For instance, I don’t need to be told that my very good friend, Adams Oshiomhole, the former national chairman of the APC, was with Tinubu, but I was surprised yesterday (Wednesday) when I saw him entering the race. I am also surprised that Ibikunle Amosun, after seeing that the vice president who is from his place has indicated interest, he still goes ahead to entered the race.
If you come back to the South-South, Goodluck Jonathan was a Rivers State man before Bayelsa State was created in 1996. Today, Nyesom Wike wants to be president of Nigeria, Rotimi Amaechi wants to be president of Nigeria. Both of them are from small Ikwerre sub-tribe. You can imagine what is going on. I also understand that Timpire Sylva would soon declare. Meanwhile, people are asking me questions about Goodluck Jonathan and they are from the same senatorial zone in Bayelsa State. So, they know what they are doing.
For the Igbos, I encouraged some of them to come out if the presidency is zoned to the South-East, that the whole of Nigeria would vote for them that they should take part in the primary as we did in 2019 when 12 Northerners contested the primary which Atiku won.
You belong to the Southern and Middle Belt Leaders Forum, SMBLF, where we also have another eminent statesman, Pa Ayo Adebanjo. What exactly are you doing to rein in southern aspirants across the party divides?
We must talk to them because of what is going on today. Take the South-West for example, from 1975 to 1979, a Yoruba man was the Head of State of this country. After the death of Murtala Muhammed, Olusegun Obasanjo was there for three years. When Abiola contested and won, they annulled the election and then gave it to Ernest Shonekan but it didn’t last. But in 1999, Obasanjo came in with full force to rule Nigeria. At that time, Obasanjo had taken over the party, it was then very easy for him to bring a northern candidate of his choice. So, there was no contest of the primary. We didn’t have doubt that Umaru Yar’Adua would win. Jonathan became his running mate when Yar’Adua asked me to recommend his running mate.
Are you not surprised that the major parties, the APC and the PDP, are avoiding speaking categorically on zoning? The APC is also singing another tune about zoning. What do you make of this?
Thank you very much. That is a very good question and that’s why I used the word ‘madness’. Here is Nigeria where there is hunger, where there is lack of employment, where there is kidnapping going on every day, where children cannot go to school, where the economy is going down but each of these people was able to mobilise N100 million to pick forms. I didn’t know that Nigeria is so rich. These governors and ministers, if their salaries were to be used to purchase the forms, I don’t think they can afford it because they must eat in their houses. But they went under pretense, telling Nigerians that their friends contributed money for them.
El-Rufai said some time ago that 19 governors met with Mr President and the vice president that all the positions held by northerners should be moved to south and vice versa. We thought that zoning has been done. So, the South will produce the next president. Now that no southerner contested any position in the party which was zoned to the North and because the chairmanship was zoned to North-Central, Abdullahi Adamu took over. Look at the way they are now moving in.
What do you think would happen if the two major political parties pick their presidential candidates from the North?
Then we are moving nowhere! No southerner will support a candidate from the North. We can’t live as second-class citizens, whereby your franchise is taken over by someone who feels that it is his birthright to rule.
In fact, this matter was discussed at the national conference in 2014 where it was agreed that rotation is the only vehicle of unity in Nigeria and it was decided at that conference that there should be power shift. There should be rotation among the various ethnic groups or the various parts of this country if we were to have unity in this country. We were reaching there. And during the debate, I remember I mentioned that a situation whereby, for instance, in Kaduna State, southern Kaduna is bigger than the other parts of Kaduna, the Zaria part, yet they used religion and political authority from the center in suppressing southern Kaduna.
So, when Architect Namadi Sambo was made the vice president by Jonathan, the northerners, instead of being happy accused us, myself in particular, that we did it in order to make the deputy governor from Southern Kaduna become governor of Kaduna State. Patrick Yakowa mysteriously died in a plane crash and we went back to square one.
So, we took a decision: 18 more states should be created but they said the 36 states could not maintain themselves but I said they were lazy. They have oil money and so nobody wants to work. Governors now stay in Abuja. So, we created 18 states, four for the Igbos. It is on this matter that those of us who were delegates again at the 2005 Political Reforms Conference set up by former President Obasanjo debated on the issues of the eastern region, the South-East, receiving five states instead of six. It was abnormal, unacceptable. We recommended at that conference that a new state should be created immediately for the South-East. Then at the 2014 national conference set up by former President Jonathan, we recommended that four additional states be created for the east to make it nine, while three additional states for the North-West to make it nine and another three to the remaining four to make them nine. That was our recommendation and our position.
Do you think it is illegal for former President Jonathan to contest for president? And do you think he should run under the APC?
No comment from me. I am 95 years old.
