Forget The Dollars PDP Is Sharing, Cast Your Vote For APC

Nigerians have been urged to look beyond the dollars that are flying around allegedly from Presidency and go out on March 28 and vote for Muhammadu Buhari of the APC for the desired Change.

This is coming from Dr. Ogbonnaya Onu, a national leader of the All Progressives Congress (APC). In this interview with LEADERSHIP, he explained why Nigerians should give the APC a chance to lead.

PDP said it has lost confidence in INEC to guarantee free, fair and credible elections. Do you still have confidence in the electoral body?
The INEC is independent and some of us and not only APC were worried that there was some interference in the independence of INEC. We want a situation where INEC would be properly funded because if you do not give them enough funds, they can’t perform because we saw that in Ekiti and Osun elections. There was an improvement and we want that improvement to continue. So, l will prefer not to give my verdict on the performance of INEC until after the election.

You have averred that for elections to be free, fair and credible, they should be conducted on the same day. Why didn’t your party insist on this when INEC was to fix the timetable?
Yes, l must thank you but it doesn’t really mean that that is the only way you can get free and fair elections. That is if it is conducted the same day. There are many other benefits, for example, the cost of election would be drastically reduced if you conduct all elections on the same day. Secondly, this uncertainty which was introduced by INEC through the advice of the NSA to shift date would not happen because if it is a constitutional matter and you fix a date like every February in an election year election will hold on a particular date, no security man would write anything to shift it because that would be contrary to the constitution.

But above all, you would respect the fundamental rights of every Nigerian citizen to determine who governs him because you would eliminate the bandwagon effect. There would definitely be bandwagon effect if you have elections in more than one day because some people might say they are not going to vote on the second election because these people are already winning, so there are not participating. 

Secondly, some people would say because these people have won, let me support them even though you may not like their candidates in that election. So, the benefit, of holding elections in one day are enormous. If you hold the five elections the same day, it will be all participatory because if someone is not interested in the presidency, he would be interested in any other election and the turn out would be there and this is the key in democracy. So, l canvassed all these reasons and l have been saying this personally and the party also believes in it and even our members in the House of Representative tried but at that time, our party was in minority both in the Senate and in the House, though it has changed now at least in the House. So there was nothing the party could do because the ruling party perhaps for political consideration believes that separating the elections would be better for them. But we ought to be thinking of what is best for our country.

Why has it been difficult for you to join PDP and also do you have any regret in joining the merger?
No. The truth is that all through my political career l have been in opposition but l have to mention this to you that l would never have been in public service if it is not that l felt deep inside me that our country Nigeria was created for a purpose because if you look at the history of Nigeria, you will see that Nigeria is a nation, you don’t have one ethnic group that is dominant.

Even the three major ethnic groups if you put them together they would come to about half the population of the nation and it is one nation that no religion is dominant. In most countries of the world you have one dominant religion and the other ones would make up. The dominant religion could have about 65 to 95 per cent of the population then the balance is made of other religion. Nigeria is the only country throughout the world where you have the two major religions about of equal strength. So, there is uniqueness in our country and l felt that that uniqueness did not just come by chance. God made it possible so that we can use it to help for world peace and world development.

What do l mean by that? People of our colour over a long period of time have suffered tremendously in the world. If you look at slavery none was as humiliating as trans-antlatic which involved people of our colour then the experience of colonisation because the one Africa went through came at the time Europe was just moving into industrial revolution and if you check the history very well, which we have not done, you will see that are people were virtually ready to enter. So, you now see that l felt as a Nigerian and no other country can do for the black world What Japan did for the yellow people of the world. At the end of the 2nd world war, if you had a yellow colour there was no pride as such but Japan just moved rapidly from a developing country to a developed country and to number two and as you know prosperity has a way of robbing off on those who are close. 

So Nigeria can help the black race to move out of where they are. So there is no reason why we cannot make very substantial contributions. So that is the reason I joined Public Service and I felt that one party rule would not be good for the nation...

If by March 28 APC did not win the presidential election what do you think about this idea of competition?There is competition. The opposition is not the way people look at it as if it just come to take power if this fail the opposition would go down. Let me say something to you, if you look at the of APC so far, there was no single step APC took, which people didn’t say it wouldn’t work, even the merger itself. Not only those in the opposition said it can’t work, why because they have the history that it has never worked before but here it worked. The last was when we had very strong presidential candidates running for the ticket of the party and most people said this would break the party or that the party would collapse. But they forgot that there were people within the merger who were very determined and would make sure that there were internal democracy and even if there was consensus on any candidate that we will still have election. So our presidential candidate was chosen in a very open and transparent national convention. So, l want to assure you that the competition is genuine and what is driving the APC is not just the members of the party. If you look at the members of the party, then you don’t have the complete picture of what APC stands for. APC is a movement that derives its energy and strength from the desire of Nigerians for change.