Engr. Ezekiel Izuogu is a member of the All Progressives Congress (APC) Board of Trustees. In this interview with some journalist’s weekend, he spoke among other issues on the National Assembly leadership crisis, proffering a way out of the logjam even as he urges APC members to rally round its National Chairman Chief John Oyegun. BODE OLAGOKE was there.
Let’s know your feelings about your party being engulfed in crisis less than two months after its victory at the polls?
Thank you very much. First of all I am very happy that I took the right decision to support another candidate than President Goodluck Jonathan. I was part of the formation of the APC. I am happy that I supported Buhari, l sacrificed four months to go round with him, to make sure he wins.
I am also happy that I went back to Imo State to campaign, to make sure that we deliver Imo, not only to the incumbent Governor but also to Buhari. I am very happy. Above all, I am happy that Buhari won the election with a very wide margin. What is happening in the APC today is that we are trying to manage our victory. We are weak at managing victory. What exactly this thing is showing is that we are not managing our victory excellently well. But it is a problem we can overcome. Every person who has won victory knows that sometimes managing victory is difficult, depending on the kind of people you are managing. It is very difficult.
We have not been in the party for a long time. People are still trying to study each other. There is also the struggle for future power, which is right because we have just won the Presidency. Let us relax and give the President time to manage the affairs of the country. In order words, even though we are victorious, we should be humble victors. We should sit back and allow Mr President to perform. We should not behave in such a way that performance becomes difficult for him because we are trying to entangle him, from one problem to another.
That is not good. I do not like it. It pains me. I wish that this problem can be resolved overnight. When the National Assembly election took place, some radio stations approached me for interview. I told them I am very happy that we have won the victory during the Presidential, Governorship and Senatorial elections. We have won it. We should now manage it like gentlemen. After you have won the victory, you must be a gentle man. If you are not a gentleman, you will scatter the whole thing, if you are too radical. Some of us are becoming too radical and that is not good.
Some people are equating what is happening now with what will happen in 2019 and are struggling. If you start this struggle this early, it is going to damage a number of things. Our greatest trophy is APC . APC should not be damaged because of our carelessness, because of our intransigence. We should not be arrogant. If we have won the victory at the National Assembly, let us humbly perform our duties.
There are insinuations in some quarters that this crisis is being fueled by the vaulting ambition of some persons who feel that because of their contributions to the party’s victory, they should be given free hand to decide who gets what.
I don’t know if you see it from that perspective?
The issue is, whatever anybody feels, what does the constitution of Nigeria say? The constitution says that the President will select those who will work with him in the Federal Executive Council. President Buhari is a human being. He is going to listen to guidance and advice. But the final decision is his own, not anybody else. In order words, those who are advising Buhari, they are right to do so. In giving that advice should not be a dictation.
If you have recommended Mr A to be the Minister for Education or whatever, it is a recommendation; It is an advice; You cannot hit your hand on the floor and say Buhari must do this or else. If you do that, you are spoiling the party because you are trying to say that whereas the constitution says there is only one President, you also want to make yourself Mr President.
If there are more than one President in the country, it’s not going work. So we must concede something to the incumbent, that whereas, it’s just like marriage, if I am getting to the age of marriage, there will be a number of ladies that my eyes will be on but you as my friend, can recommend Miss B or recommend Miss C.
When you make the recommendation, the final decision is my own, isn’t it?
You are not going to say, if you are my friend, you must marry this. No. You can’t say that because the marriage is my own. I must make the final choice but you make the recommendation. So I am advising my friends and colleagues in the APC, most of those who are into this trouble or the other, are with me in the National Executive Committee, the Board of Trustees (BOT) or in the National Caucus.I know them.
They are my friends of several years. My humble advice is, if you have won the victory as we have won, please be humble about it. Don’t be arrogant. If you are arrogant, it will spoil everything. Arrogance can even mean that what you won before, you can no longer win it. Suppose the party scatters and we go into individual small parties again, we will have nothing to brag about. So you must preserve the party, the oneness, the unity of the party.
The Principal officers at the National Assembly don’t seem to be toeing the line of the party leadership in terms of selecting those to occupy strategic positions as recommended by the party leadership.
What is your advice to them?
My advice to them is that they should remember that they are products of the party. The party is the platform upon which you have gotten what you have now. So please listen to the basis of your being there. Bukola Saraki is somebody I have known for a long time. I am very close to the Saraki family. However, I will advice Bukola let him try and take it easy. You cannot be a victor over your party men. It is the party that made you what you are. So please, remember the party. Whatever decisions you are taking, remember the basis upon which you stand to become Senate President. That basis is the APC, not any other.
Some people are alleging Oyegun collected bribe from some persons at the National Assembly to allow the emergence of the current leadership. Based on this some members are moving against his position in the party. They want him to be removed.
What is your take on this?
Oyegun is a man l know very well. Anybody who is accusing him of taking bribe does not know Chief Oyegun. Oyegun cannot take bribe to do anything. Oyegun is a transparently honest human being as much as you take me. He will not take bribe for anything. Oyegun is a bit unlucky because instead of people celebrating the victory he has won – he brought us the victory of the Presidency, the victory of majority Governors, victory of Senators, victory of House of Reps. We should celebrate Oyegun.
Any human being in APC should celebrate the man who brought such victories. Talking about removing him is unfortunate. Anybody who is talking of removing him is being unfair. Being unfair to the conscience of Nigerians. Oyegun midwifed everything. A new Chairman of a new party not up to two years in the country, being able to run elections without any gossips and all that.
Being able to put himself together, being able to work with the Presidential candidate and all the other candidates, Governors and everything and everything went well and we won the victory, we should clap for Oyegun. I am not saying that Oyegun is a perfect human being. There is no perfect human being. Oyegun should enjoy the victory that he has won. He, with all the members of APC, should enjoy that victory.
Anybody who wants to remove Oyegun at this time does not mean well. Such a person does not wish the APC well because if you start removing the National Chairman after we have won the victory, you don’t want the party to make progress. The party will move from one crisis to another, before we can handle it.
Look at the Peoples’ Democratic Party (PDP). Look at what happened to PDP. So please, it touches specially because I know Oyegun very well. Nobody should talk of changing the Chairman at this time. Nobody should.
Some believe that the present government is not moving fast, alleging that after one month of inauguration the government was yet to form a cabinet. You as a party do you share with this view?
Yes, l think l understand their feelings especially coming from the point that President Buhari is an action man. He is not a man to delay certain things. So, l am actually surprised that Ministers have not been appointed, l am sure that Buhari must have good reasons for not appointing them so soon. A lot of people expected him to appoint Ministers that same week he was sworn in as president. Ministers designate awaiting confirmation by the Senate. In fact that is what many modern Chief Executives of countries do.
Immediately they are elected, you see a lineup of those who will take over so that they can start liasing with the incumbent of the past administration. So, l sincerely suggest to Mr. President that he should look at it again. Some people are even saying that he would not appoint until September and that will be very, very late. I know that if there are delays, the President must mean well but let him find ways of overcoming those delays so that Ministers names can be announced and Senate will start working on confirmation. That is my sincere opinion.
I am surprised you are talking about the Ministerial list this way. Many believe that your name should be one of the names on the Ministerial list but you had such offers in the past and you turned them down.
Will you still do the same thing now?
Yes, to be honest with you, l had three offers to be Minister in the past but because of the research l am doing, which is very, very important, l didn’t want to accept those appointments, but now l want to say that l am humbly available. I have done the best l can in the research areas. If it is the wish of God that I serve in any capacity in this government, l will be ready to do so. I am not one of them who go to advertise themselves for appointments. No, l wouldn’t do that. I have heard sufficient experience in Nigeria politics.
You talked earlier about the completion of your latest research.
Could you let us into when Nigerians will be availed of what the research is all about?
Well, we have kept the secret for many years and that is purposeful because we didn’t want it let out till now. But by the special grace of God, in a short while, it shall be out. Emaginetor dynamics is another way of saving energy. Man needs energy to survive. This is another way of producing energy for your work. It is another way of producing electricity. It can produce electricity for Nigerian use, for 24 hours of the day, seven days in a week, 30 days in a month,12 months in a year nonstop for the next 60 years and it will cost you nothing because God has given the energy free.
From Emagnetor dynamics, God has given man energy free, from magnate. This comes from magnate. IMAGNAT dynamics. is a way of arranging the magnates in such a way that they will produce their energy. The energy they produce cannot be finished because it comes from God. And that energy can be used in other areas. It can be used to drive cars, it can be used to fly plane, the train, the motor car and so on and so forth. That is what it means.
When Nigeria is struggling with only oil revenue, there are other revenues that God has made available but we have not explored them. So it is a help to the government of Buhari, that under his regime, there is another source of energy. This research is going to reach out to both the rich and the poor because the difference between the rich and the poor is that the rich has more energy. If energy is free, the poor man can get as much of it as the rich man. So things will begin to ease out. There will be justice, there will be equity and all the things that are good.
