APC won't exist beyond 2019 - Rt.Hon. Daika

Rt. Hon. George Daika, chieftain of the opposition PDP and former Speaker of the Plateau State parliament represented Qua’an-Pan, Mikang and Shendam Constituency in the House of Representatives. He speaks with Correspondent AGABUS PWANAGBA on the victory of the Senator Ahmed Makarfi-led faction of the PDP at the apex court, the future of the party, the 2019 general elections and sundry issues. Excerpts:
How did you receive the Supreme Court’s verdict granting victory to the Ma­karfi-led faction of the PDP leadership?

The judgment didn’t come to me as a surprise, because I had confidence in the mem­bers of the jury particularly the judges. It was presided over by the Chief Justice of the Federation, somebody that has integrity. I had every confidence owing to the fact that even the initial judgment at the Court of Appeal contra­dicted the issues. You can see that the judgment in favour of Makarfi did not take us by surprise. You see, the national convention, the highest organ of the party that could decide even on that day to dissolve the party. If the convention at that time decided that the PDP stood dissolved, it would have been dissolved. The de­cision of the convention stood based on the party’s constitu­tion.

What is the future of the PDP on the Plateau, consid­ering the victory of Makarfi?

Well, the victory is a vic­tory for democracy, victory for the entire Nigerians be­cause it has clearly shown that our judiciary is now up to the task of delivering the right judgment for the people at the right time. That has built our confidence and the entire Nigerians are happy too. You could see all over the country that people jubilated on the streets, including the mem­bers of the All Progressives Congress (APC), and the civil servants. That shows that they were truly aware that what Sheriff and the likes of Abang were trying to do was to de­stroy democracy in Nigeria, which is against the wishes of the people who were not happy about it. Also, they knew that without any strong opposition, Nigeria will be a one-party state, which will be at the detriment of the larger society.

The judgment itself serves as a quit notice to the APC, asking them to get prepared that by 2019, they should start packing at both the state and the national levels. So, it’s a quit notice asking them to get set to pack because the PDP is back and stronger than ever. What we need to do now is to talk about reconciliation, particularly with those that are aggrieved. And I think this is the right time for us to start thinking of genuine rec­onciliation. I think as much as possible we should avoid anything that has to do with imposition of candidates. We should allow the free will of the people to prevail. And let’s start to think of how to win in 2019. I know the entire Nigerians are with us, because APC is already a goner. By 2019, I assure you there will be no APC in place.

In 2015, when the PDP had no rancour, it was defeated by the APC. Now that it’s trying to rebuild, do you think the party will be strong enough to defeat the APC come 2019?

It is not an issue that the PDP will be strong before 2019, because it is already strong and stronger than ever. Even after the challenges we had we didn’t lose to the APC. We were rigged out. Actually we didn’t lose the election, we were rigged out. Thank God for the kind of leader we had in the person of President Goodluck Jonathan, who said he wouldn’t want any blood to be shed because of his elec­tion. And he wouldn’t want anything to spoil our relation­ship with the people abroad. For that, he conceded defeat even before the announce­ment of the results. But you could see that even what hap­pened on the Plateau, did the APC win the Southern Zone? What was the difference be­tween the APC and the PDP? It wasn’t wide.
The people decided to do what they did because they were aggrieved and looking for a change because they wanted the governorship to go down to the South­ern Zone. The problem was that even from the Southern Zone, because we could not present a candidate as a zone that gave an advantage to the only aspirant who came from the Northern Zone, who was late Senator GNS Pwajok. And that was how he won the PDP gubernatorial primaries with a landslide victory. If the Southern Zone was really co­ordinated, and had worked together as a family, and had decided on a particular can­didate, I think GNS Pwajok wouldn’t have had the oppor­tunity of winning the election. I don’t want to really believe that GNS Pwajok was actually imposed on the people. We actually defeated ourselves in the Southern Zone. And for some of us who felt there was no unity of purpose, we decided to do otherwise to vote for the candidate that we felt was credible, that had the pedigree and believe he could deliver, and that was late Sen­ator GNS. And we gave him 100 percent from Mikang during the primaries.

Are you saying your party (PDP) has the confidence of returning to power in 2019?

Well talking about con­fidence, I want to assure you that there is no APC on ground on the Plateau. I don’t believe in the existence of APC on the Plateau. You can see clearly for yourself that if you go to the APC secre­tariat, you will find out, aside the Igbo traders, car dealers, welders and rug carpet sellers; you don’t see the sign of any human being there. There is no activity taking place there. But go to the PDP secretariat, you will see a lot of activities taking place, because people believe in the party. They believe in the leadership of the party. They believe in the caliber of the people that we have at the state and national assemblies. That has actu­ally been our strength and our profile.

As far as I am concerned, our status remains the same. So we do not doubt winning the 17 local government elec­tions if they are held. That’s why I think the APC is scared of conducting the local gov­ernment elections because it knows, from the reports it is receiving, that it will not make any impact, even in Shendam where the governor comes from. PDP will still win. We are fully prepared and even if they say today the local gov­ernment elections will hold, we will win overwhelmingly. People actually did what they did out of protest, out of an­noyance, and some out of mere sentiments.

The APC said the party does not encourage people to leave their jobs to come and stay at the party secretariat to beg for money, which it al­leged the PDP is doing. What is your take?

What has the APC been doing as a government, not to talk of a party? Some of us know how the APC structure was formed. It only exists on paper. Even as a party in gov­ernment, they still don’t have structures. So what activities will happen at the party sec­retariat when they have a one-man-squad EXCO and sec­ondly when there is nothing forthcoming from the APC?

Even within the govern­ment, if you go to the Gov­ernment House, the minis­tries, you don’t find people there. Jang was entertaining and meeting people at odd hours, unlike the present gov­ernment that you hardly see people around the Govern­ment House.

You hardly see people around the commissioners and political appointees. If you see any of the appointees interacting with people, they are doing it for their selfish interests. That political ap­pointee is having an ambition to contest for an election or so. He wasn’t working for the interest of his principal.