High Chief Zeek Martins Nnadozie, a chieftain of the PDP and former special adviser to Ex-governor Achike Udenwa of Imo state on security, spoke to Raphael Ede on the political quagmire in the state.
Let’s start with the defeat of President Goodluck Jonathan. You advised him to resign or not to contest. Could it be that other members of your party did not see what you saw?
You know that sycophancy has taken a deep root into the political beacon of this nation. Sycophants are the worst threat we have in this democratic dispensation, because they will surround you and will never tell you the truth.
And if you happen to be unfortunate like President Jonathan and by extension his wife (who loves sycophants), then it becomes a bigger problem. I was not alone when I advised him not to dissipate his energy and integrity in the 2015 election; there were some governors who walked out of the PDP convention. That singular exercise was supposed to be the first shock to a sitting president of Nigeria that something was wrong. It was a warning signal, but sycophants deceived him to believe that all was well, that nothing will happen. The wife of the president said “to hell with the governors”; but at the end of the day, “they sent President Jonathan to hell”. When he realized that he had been beaten silly, he threw in the towel before the final result trickled in.
Having won the presidential election and in many states, how far do you think the APC would go?
Let us watch out for what would happen in the next eight years. One thing I am sure of is that General Mohammad Buhari will do his first four years and possibly eight years, because he has the zeal to wipe out sycophants or stop them from polluting his administration. Remember his first coming as military head of state and how he stopped sycophants from sending congratulatory messages to him. He advised them to use the money to better the lot of their people in their various communities. He told them clearly that he did not need their congratulatory messages. He has also done a similar thing since he won the presidential election by telling PDP defectors to think twice, because “there is no appointment for them”. I love that approach. They only remember to jump over to the APC when they realized that PDP is on the verge of disintegration. With this, I think APC will last till the life span of Buhari’s administration and after that, we will know who takes over from him and that will begin the struggle for supremacy and power. And unless another strong man like Buhari takes over, APC will go the way of the PDP. It is the same Nigerians that are in these parties, they only change their clothes and titles.
In Imo state, is there any justification in conducting the supplementary election?
They excuse INEC gave is genuine. The number of cancelled votes exceeded the margin the victorious party is having over the other party. It is in line with the electoral act and for the sake of morality and to prove doubting Thomas wrong and to give the candidates chance to prove their worth. But personally, I will tell the PDP candidate to emulate President Jonathan, to be man enough to throw in the towel and go back to the drawing board.
Emeka Ihedioha should be bold enough to congratulate Governor Rochas Okorocha and save his supporters from this wild goose chase. If a man can defeat you with close to 80,000 votes and we have 144, 000 votes left, do you think Rochas Okorocha will fold his arms and allow you garner all the votes?
Do you think he will go to sleep? Even at that every susceptible politician will agree with me that we are looking at 60, 000 votes and not 144, 000 when you consider the number that collected their permanent voter cards and the overwhelming apathy in the land.
With this arithmetic, there is no how Ihedioha will get 80, 000 to invalidate the existing margin before talking of winning. And whereby only 60, 000 voters are likely to cast their votes in the supplementary election, don’t you think it is better for Ihedioha to congratulate Okorocha and save himself the embarrassment? Unfortunately, members of my party, the PDP see the ancillary election as a do-or-die exercise.
And in this type of game, you will see some stupid youths losing their lives for nothing when the PDP would have saved their lives and plan for another day. Part of the party’s problem in Imo state is that the so called leaders of the party did not listen to me when I condemned the injustice meted to Senator Ifeanyi Araraume in the 2014 primary election. Some people do not know that Araraume is a game changer. His call to his teeming supporters to vote for Rochas Okorocha was the last straw that broke the Carmel’s back. You cannot beat a child and still stop him from crying.
Before the governorship election, PDP was in big trouble because e some sycophants chose to do the wrong thing. How can a party present a wrong candidate and expect to win? They denied the real winner of the primary election and expect to turn the Augean stables? It is not possible. We boxed ourselves into a dangerous corner.
It is the same thing that is happening since April 11 election. Instead of conceding defeat, the party members are planning how to rig out the governor when they know that the environment does not favour that treachery. Do you think Imo state will remain the same if by tomorrow INEC announces somebody who has a deficit of 80,000 votes as the winner of the supplementary election? Why would anybody want to bring the disaster president Jonathan avoided in Nigeria to Imo state? There is going to be total disaster if the right thing is not done in Imo state. Look at the so-called leaders of the PDP; they all lost their areas, booths and wards to the APC. From Emmanuel Iwuanyanwu to Eze Duruiheoma, former chairman of the party, it was the same story that their people rejected them.
Duruiheoma lost his Mbaitolu local council in 2011 and the same thing happened this year. Does it make him a leader? These are people who claim they own PDP and feed on injustice. Parading the entire state with a Walking stick does not make a leader; rather it is integrity and sense of responsibility. And another rabble rouser from Orlu zone was boasting and ranting that Senator Araraume was a professional complainant. Today the same man has been turned to a professional failure. See how governor Okorocha spanked him in his booth, ward and local government area. Instead of hiding their faces in shame, they are here gallivanting and hoping against hope on how PDP will win the governorship election.
But Governor Okorocha was expected to win out rightly following his achievements so far, which would have avoided this logjam. What went wrong?
I don’t know what you mean by winning out rightly. If 80,000 votes margin is not an outright victory, what then is out right win? The supplementary election came up because there were some “mago mago” in some areas. In 2011, INEC did a similar thing because 75, 000 voters were disenfranchised in about for local government areas even when the n=margin was 40, 000 votes. INEC should have announced the winner. As far as Imo people are concerned the election has been won and lost. It is unfortunate that some PDP members are pretending not to know. Let my brothers and colleagues in the PDP send congratulatory messages to Okorocha so that we can have peace.
In other words, the supplementary is a mere formality?
Yes. Even if it is done 10 times, the incumbent governor will still carry the day. INEC is just wasting its resources and our time. This cannot happen in other states. It is only in Imo state that
you see politicians of over 70 years of age lording it over others. They want to render their children politically irrelevant. Rochas Okorocha was not in my good books in those days, but look at how he elevated the younger generation to political limelight. Before now, those young boys were peeping throw the political window for recognition, but he has raised them from that morass of hopelessness to political prominence. Look at the young man that won the seat to
represent Ehime Mbano in the Imo state house of assembly. He was in the primary school when I went to the USA. But today, Okorocha has given him the platform to prove his worth. That is how a leader should behave and not a situation where the so-called bigwigs over 75 years of age are still forming elders council to deny the younger generation their due share. The old men refused to leave the stage for the younger ones that is the problem in the PDP. It is the same old men in NPN, SDP that are now in PDP. Do you expect any improvement? PDP should concede and go back to the drawing board. It is all over in 2015 in Imo state.
