PDP playing dirty politics - Dan Suleiman

Written by Abbas Jimoh Saturday, 13 August 2011 00:00
Air Commodore Dan Suleiman, (rtd) a member of the Board of Trustees (BOT) of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), and had been a member of Gen. Murtala Muhammed’s Supreme Military Council and also a former military governor of Plateau State. In this interview in Abuja, he says that it is wrong to zone the PDPs national chairmanship post to North East on religious basis. He also complained about his exclusion from the BOT’s meetings. Excerpts.
As a founding member and a member of the PDP Board of Trustees (BOT), why are you not attending BOT meetings?
This issue of BOT is very painful to me because I am one of the founding fathers of the party and the BOT. I have been a regular member of the party and a constant attendant before I went to Moscow. But since I came back from Moscow, I have discovered that I have not been welcomed to the BOT.
When did you come back?
I came back July 2010. I attempted to attend two of the Board of Trustees meetings and to my surprise, I found that the meetings are now being held in the villa rather than in Transcorp Hilton which used to be the venue of our meetings before I travelled to Moscow and invitations are no longer extended to people as it use to be. When Jerry Gana was the secretary of the BOT, he will write to you as a member of the BOT to invite you to the meeting, giving you the date, the venue and the agenda of the meeting; but these days, I discovered they mainly announce it through the media and you will find your way there. So, whenever I got there to enter the venue of the meeting, they will embarrass me by saying that my name is not on the list of those invited. When that happened twice, I said I will no longer disgrace myself. So, I wrote a letter of complaint to the then PDP national chairman through our North East zonal chairman, Paul Wapama, I did not get any response.
This is why I fail to attend because I don’t want to be embarrassed by going to the meeting where I will be told that I am not invited when I am a founding member and nobody has charged me with any offence. The only thing that kept me away from the BOT meetings for four years was when I was serving my country in Moscow. Having come back, I thought I will be welcomed back. I have seen others who served in the past, especially people in my own state as Ambassadors and came back and joined the flow of the BOT meetings.
Did you also reach out to the national leadership of the party rather than reach out to only the North East zonal chairman of the party?
Yes, that is the best thing to do, through the zonal chairman. I wrote through him. I have made calls to the BOT secretary, Abdullahi Adamu, the former governor of Nasarawa State asking him why this error. He said that my name was not on the list of those handed to him when he assumed office as secretary of the BOT. That is how far I have gone. Well, the secretary himself told me that he has realized the same problem.
Why do you think this is happening?
I think it is some of the dirty politics that they are playing in the party. If you are a person who speaks your mind, what the people do is to set you up. I discovered that I was not the only one but at that time, anybody who was vocal among the BOT members was excluded from the meetings. The day I went there, I found that there are other members who were standing outside after being asked to stay aside for clearance. So, we waited for about an hour or so. When the clearance was not forthcoming, we left. I don’t think I am the only one who was targeted. I remember that even Bamanga Tukur complained to me once that he was excluded from meetings. So, from the ugly political manipulations, they weed out those whose voices are considered to be either hostile or too critical.
Now that the PDP is set to elect the national chairman of the party, which has been zoned to the North East, your zone, are you interested in vying for the post?
Two things arise from the question. First of all, it is being resolved to let the North East have the slot because if you are looking at the present dispensation, the North East don’t have any top post. The zone’s top post have been the SGF before, now it has been shifted to the South East. So the North East deserves that post. To me, I think the idea of zoning it to the North East is very much in order but there is a lacuna here. I didn’t attend the National Working Committee’s (NWC) last meeting but I heard that the decision was taken that the position of the chairman of the party is expected to be zoned to a muslim. If that is correct and if that is the case, then it is a very dangerous precedent and I reject that in all its totality when you begin to zone party offices on religious basis, then we are treading on dangerous ground. That is why I have objection to that provision if it exists. I believe there are christians as well as muslims who are eminently qualified and eligible in the North East to run for the post of the chairman of the party. There should be a level playing ground and everybody who is qualified whether a muslim or christian should be allowed by the PDP to run for the post and not to restrict to it to a particular place.
Are you gunning for the post?
No, I am not interested in the post. I was once a chairman of a party, the UPP. It was the UPP that merged to form the PDP that is how I became a member of the BOT. Let them resolve the fear first of all, not necessarily me, but I will tell you I know people both christians and muslims who are competent.
What is your take on the six year tenure?
Let me tell you something, the idea is a good idea. This idea of a single term, as far as I am concerned as a person, I think is something that I would have supported at a given time, I don’t think there is anything wrong with it. In fact, it is going to help resolve the problem of election malpractice concerning incumbency. However, what is wrong is the way it was presented.
The idea shouldn’t have come direct from Mr. President at this time that is why it is creating suspicion. There should have been a tactical way of bringing those issues to the public and so that the public now creates it and then it will become a national consensus from there, the president will take up the matter. I think it would have carried some weight and will now have less acrimony. I believe in the idea if it is well articulated, presented and taken to the National Assembly because at the National Assembly, the elected representatives will be there to listen to the debate. I support a single tenure to avoid these crises we are having in the states.
How would you rate the performance of Governor Murtala Nyako?
It has been dismal, Nyako himself claims that he has recorded successes since assuming office. If that is true, he should not be afraid of a free and fair elections, yet, he is the one perpetrating this idea of lopsided representation by handpicking people to various posts, that is not good.
Chairmen of local governments who were duly elected, Nyako’s administration has been arranging their disengagement by removing them arbitrarily and imposing candidates, is that true good governance?