Mu’azu is not working for Jonathan – Ka’oje

The controversial party primaries conducted of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) nationwide has continued to resonate as more and more people are coming up with tales of bitter experiences in the hands of the members of the state electoral committee.  Hon Bello Ka’oje, former member of House of Representatives, and PDP stakeholder from Yobe state, says it is not for nothing that the PDP is in the current disarray nationwide, where the party’s presidential candidate, President Dr Goodluck Jonathan – faced with little option – is going round the country appealing to aggrieved members not to leave the party. In this interview, Kao’je asserts that the PDP national party chairman, Alhaji Ahmed Adamu Mua’zu, has an agenda different from ensuring success for President Jonathan in the coming 2015 elections. According to him, Mua’zu has his eyes on 2019 and is raising the political structure (manned by his associates) that will deliver him.

Recently, President Jonathan called on aggrieved members of the PDP to keep faith with the party and not to abandon ship. Are you worried that the confidence level in the party has gone very low since the controversial primaries were conducted nationwide?
I agree with anyone who says that the confidence level in the PDP has gone down. It really hurts to see all that we have laboured to rebuild since the days that the ill-fated ‘New PDP’ group left the party, being threatened by the ambitions of some people. I am not surprised that Mr President, having realised what is going on, is now going round and pleading with aggrieved persons, including aspirants (and their followers) whose mandates from the delegates had been stolen by elements in the national executive committee through the state electoral committees of the party.

Do you think it will affect the fortunes of the PDP in the 2015 polls?
It is natural to think so, but that would be if Mr President does nothing about the discoveries we have made about the ambitions of certain top ranking elements in the party structure, or the people he is appealing to refuses to listen. As we speak, many of the persons have left the PDP.  In many states, the ranks of parties like the Labour Party are already swelling with aggrieved chieftains from the PDP, even though the reasons for their departure differ from individual to individual.
What we are saying is that the President must do something to checkmate these people before the entirety of PDP, and he in particular, pays dearly for it. There cannot be two ambitions or two captains inside one ship in one sail.

You have spoken so much about the very discoveries by concerned members of the PDP. Can you please share them with readers?
I can put it straight. The national chairman of the People’s Democratic Party, Alhaji Ahmed Adamu Mua’zu is not working for President Goodluck Jonathan, and he is also not looking at the victory of the party in 2015.
He has his eyes on 2019 when every Nigerian expects power to shift back to the North. Our investigation reveals that Mua’zu is almost certain that he would not be Jonathan’s favoured candidate to succeed him in 2019, and since he (Mua’zu) has the ambition of becoming the President in 2019, the smartest thing to commence now is the task of building his own political structure.
Mua’zu’s permutation is that President Jonathan should lose the 2015 elections to the APC, so that the PDP will not have a sitting President in 2018 to determine his successor. Being the leader of the party, Mua’zu believes that the coast should be clear for him – and with the strength of the political structure he has installed – to deliver himself as the presidential candidate of the PDP for the 2019 general elections.

You and the concerned party members seem to be very sure of what you discovered?
We have interviewed a lot of the aggrieved party members. In the first place, the current disagreements in the party started shortly after the party primaries conducted by Alhaji Adamu Mua’zu, who is less than six months old as substantive national chairman.
We spoke to more than 40% of the aggrieved persons. We discovered that the crux of the matter is that the results of the primaries, which were announced at the venue and copied down by the aspirants’ agents, the INEC and the security agents, were not the same as the ones adopted by the national secretariat and forwarded to INEC headquarters.
We also discovered, and unknown to the Presidency, that virtually all the state electoral committees of the PDP went about their jobs with specific mandates from the party national chairman on the very candidates to return notwithstanding the outcome of the election.
The people who won the elections and rejoiced with their followers soon discovered how short-lived their joy was when they realised that the results have been manipulated and their names replaced in Abuja.
In some cases, the manipulation was not done with the consent of the entire electoral committee. The situation resulted into the presentation of the minority and majority reports to the national headquarters.  Astonishingly, we discovered that the national executive committee of the party led by Alhaji Adamu Muazu, toed the line of the reports that favoured the candidates of their choice, the opinion of the majority report not withstanding.
This was the case in Bagudo/Suru Federal Constituency of Kebbi state, where three candidates scored 78 votes, 3 votes and 1 vote respectively. The results were announced on the spot and recorded by all and sundry.  But chairman of the state electoral committee, Chief Chidi Chidebe, and the secretary, Mr Chris Orji sneaked out of the state to Abuja, without the knowledge of the other members of the committee, and submitted what turned out to be a minority report stating that the man with one vote won the election.
The testimony of the majority report from other members of the electoral committee, stating correctly what happened during the election, did not make any difference to the PDP national chairman, Alhaji Mua’zu.  If you go to his office, his table is filled with all kinds of petitions, but he is not blinking an eye because he knows what he is doing.
We re certain that over 70% of the persons that contested the PDP primaries nationwide had their mandates stolen by Muazu’s men, and that is causing the setting up of all kinds of reconciliatory committees to ensure that the people are pacified.

But there are chances that what has happened is not a calculated attempt by the people you think to dislodge certain people and raise their own structure for future elections? It may be coincidence?
Coincidence that the person who scored one vote becomes the winner over the one who scored 76 votes? Coincidence that  same story is told in streets of Abia, Imo, Akwa Ibom, Lagos, Oyo, Nasarawa, Benue, Yobe, Kwara etc? Coincidence that the bulk of beneficiaries are cronies of former governor-colleagues of Alhaji Adamu Muazu?  Haba! It is too real to be a lie.
But, if by any minute percentage, the picture is not what we have discovered then the national chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party is grossly incompetent.  A few months into his tenure as the party national chairman, and he is wobbling and tumbling, forcing Mr President to go round pleading on his behalf, then something is wrong with his style.
I am a big stakeholder in the PDP, and I am among those who do not wish that we lose the coming general elections on the altar of an ambitious, overzealous leader.  If Muazu cannot lead the PDP through successful internal party primaries, then he cannot lead us successfully against our opponents in the general elections in 2015.
Whichever way you decide to have it: that the national chairman is nursing an overriding ambition (for 2019) or that he is incompetent, President Goodluck Jonathan stands no benefit.