News: How I felt when heard that my father tore his membership card -Jonathan confesses #WilkeyPerkinsBlog

In order to correct the perceived marginalisation, when I dropped the Chief of Staff, I said this is the opportunity to make sure that the South-West gets that position.

But I must explain again that I did not cause the problem of perceived marginalisation of the South-West. If you recall, the PDP usually zones its positions across the six geopolitical zones. And at the end of elections, when the president and the vice-president come from different zones, then the president would be asked where his SGF would come from and then the Senate President; Speaker and National Chairman of the party to each of the three remaining zones. However, in 2011, the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) had many members in the House of Representatives from the South-West and the PDP members in the House who had done more than one term were about three; Mulikat Akande-Adeola; Ajibola Muraina and one other person. So I said ‘the party’s zoning policy must be followed,’ and that was why we picked Mulikat. The pressure was much, but I insisted that we must follow the policy, because if we take away the Speakership from the South-West, it will affect so many other positions. If you talk about Board appointments, all these six positions I mentioned earlier have a quota; the president has the biggest quota and though the South-South must benefit because he is from that region, other zones must also benefit. The same is applicable to the vice-president. The president has the biggest quota, followed by the vice-president and the senate president and then speaker. So, I said if we do not comply with that policy and the speaker, being a core person when we are discussing issues affecting the country. it will affect the distribution of things in the country. I fought and fought but I know what happened and I do not want to raise them now; some of you also know it. Some people from the South-West did not want PDP to have a stronghold in the region, so they scuttled it. That was the problem. People saw that I started having problems with the Speaker, Hon. Aminu Tambuwal, even before he defected to the APC, because he felt I did not support him. I am the one that is suffering the pains for insisting that the South-West must get the Speaker’s seat. That is still affecting me till date.

So, I was not the one that caused the problem in the South-West.

But in terms of what I have done in the region, we established a university in Ekiti State, the only state in the region that did not have a federal university and we also established a polytechnic in Ondo. Of course, we have started the reconstruction of the Lagos-Ibadan road and the Benin-Ore road was also reconstructed by this government. The Ibadan-Oyo section of the Ilorin-Ibadan expressway was also completed by this administration. These and other roads have been done or are still under construction in the South-West, because the region is key and very important in the country. I just told you that Lagos and the industrial part of Ogun State contributes about 15 per cent or more to the economy of this country. So, we cannot play with the South-West.

Mr President, for some time now; there have been cases of violence, shootings and bombings in Rivers State. Another one happened this week. How worried are you about the situation in that place?

Incidentally, violence is not only in Rivers State. I feel sad that we are embracing a culture of violence that was not there before. At least, I contested as a deputy governor in 1999; I was governor for some years and also contested and became vice-president and then president; I have been at the top level of leadership for some time, but things were not like this. The scenarios that we continue to witness are quite different. In 1999, immediately we finished the election and we were sworn in, for some of us who were deputy governors; you would not know the difference between two deputy governors from different political parties. We related freely. If your ward is going to another state, you just call your colleague that ‘my ward is coming’ and he will take care of that ward and the same thing applied to governors. We continued that way up till 2007; the governors related well irrespective of political parties, until people developed unnecessary ambitions and created crisis and began to move to parties. Cross-carpeting started taking place even at the level of executive and then we began to see all these dangerous trends of violence.

Now, some people believe that if you are in PDP, the governor from another party is an enemy. No, we are not a mono-party system. That is why we have many parties and we expect the different parties to produce public officers based on the parties. We are not enemies. Within this period, you would have heard the case of a presidential convoy being pelted by some young people instigated by adults. Even the campaigns; the PDP started its campaigns much late but some people began their campaigns with abuses, insults and so on. That was why when we launched our campaign in Lagos, I spoke the way I did, because I felt it was not fair to make campaigns based on insults. Campaigns should be based on issues. There is so much venom, bitterness and these are manifesting in all kinds of ways.

When I heard about the shooting in Okrika, I called the Inspector-General and the Director-General of the Department of State Security; I even called our governorship candidate about the situation in Rivers. It is sad.

The Rivers State case is sad. It is extreme, because guns were fired. Campaign vehicles and our offices had been burnt down in some parts of the North. In Lagos, as I informed you earlier, Chisco just told me some youths burnt down 18 of his luxurious buses. Is this proper?

The Rivers State’s situation is quite sad but I don’t like to join issues with a governor, because it is not fair. But that state is becoming one bad example. By the time we leave offices and people want to write the history of our periods in government, it will be a very bad example. The House of Assembly has been closed down in Rivers State for about two years. One arm of government has not worked for two years. The judiciary was also shut down for over one year. When they closed down the House of Assembly, they said ‘Jonathan wants to impeach Amaechi, because he is opposing him.’ But out of the 33 members in the House, only about five of them were in the PDP. Can the five people impeach the governor?

Maybe the conduct of the five PDP legislators showed that Sir…

Let us face the truth; which conduct? The whole arm of government has not functioned for two years. Okay, what happened to the judiciary? Am I the one that controls the National Judicial Council (NJC) and if the problem was with the former Chief Justice Aloma Mukhtar, who has now gone, why was the Rivers State judiciary still under lock and key? Is that the kind of democracy we are advocating in this country? So, are we saying the day the president gets angry with the judiciary, because it gives a judgment that does not favour him, he should go and close down the judiciary and close down the National Assembly? Then, only the president will be running government. You, the media people, should help Nigeria. If one wants to do something about Rivers State, you hear noise; ‘oh he is this and that.’ The Rivers State situation is sad and it is a very bad example.

Mr President, at this point, do you regret losing the five PDP governors, including Amaechi?

We did all we could to bring them together. I had several meetings with these governors. I am sorry to use this comparison, but it is like marrying a wife and for some reason, either the size of your pocket is not big enough or you are weak in some other areas or in-laws are harassing her, she makes up her mind to leave. If another person eyeing her is around the corner, no matter what you do, she will leave. After leaving, it will not be too long after, before you hear that she has remarried. As the president, I scheduled meetings for 9 p.m and I would be there before that time, but these governors would come one hour after. We had several such meetings, because I wanted the unity of the party. As the leader of the party, I did not want to preside over the disintegration of the party. But as a president, I would be there to wait for a governor for one hour and we had several such meetings. It was obvious that there was nothing we could do to stop them from leaving. It was like doctors saying we tried our best to save the patient but we lost him. Doctors cannot save all the patients. So I have no regrets. I would have had regrets if it was possible for me to stop them from leaving and I did nothing to stop them. But this one, it was not possible, because they had their reasons. We know the reasons now, because we have all followed the political process so far.