Chief Taiwo Kuye was the deputy director of volunteer and support groups of the 2023 presidential campaign council of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in Lagos State. In this interview he speaks on the crisis rocking the party, issues between Nyesom Wike, Minister of FCT and the PDP Governors Forum, why Umar Damagum should respect the party’s constitution, among others. JOY ANIGBOGU brings the excerpts:
Is the Minister of FCT, Nyesom Wike, bigger than the entire PDP considering his recent comment about putting fire in PDP-controlled states?
Initially, the problem in the party was unknown to many but at a time the situation became clearer that Wike was trying to lord himself over the party. Come to think of it, our National Working Committee members who are the arrowheads of the party, majority of them are notable politicians from their various states. We know this because we knew them before they were elected into those positions but I see the acting National Chairman, Umar Damagum, as somebody who is not straightforward because if he is, the constitution of the party is very clear. Like I say hold this thing for me, I’m coming to take it because the constitution of the party states that if somebody either by death or removal leaves a position another person from the same zone of that person would take over that position. For God’s sake, Damagum is from the Northeast and Iyorchia Ayu is from the North-Central, why can’t the party ask Damagum to allow the North-Central to complete their term? This is purely constitutional and I don’t know why he’s dragging that he cannot go. I’m not worried about Wike because I know he doesn’t play a straight game and he always plays rough games. He was a governor, it was all rough. When he was a Minister under PDP it was the same thing. So, I blame them for allowing Wike to come in and control them. How can Wike say nobody born of a woman can ask him to leave this party, who is he? We are members of the Peter Odili political dynasty in Rivers State. We were at the centre of Odili’s presidential ambition in 2005. When I knew Wike he was nobody in Odili’s government in 2005 but it is the same Wike that will come out today to say I built one house and named it after one man. I built another house and named it after another woman, indirectly referring to Odili and his wife. You can imagine the insult. Each time he is hurt, he will be shouting they want to take my structure. The whole structure of Rivers PDP belongs to Odili till tomorrow morning. So, he has been allowed to cage so many things and we will find a way of getting out of it. Wike is now a contractor with the All Progressives Congress (APC) but constitutionally would it happen? Somebody left this party and voted openly before Nigerians against our party, against our candidate and went further to take appointment from the ruling party and you still allow such a person to remain in the party. If I’m in the NWC, he cannot remain a member of this party. So many things are wrong with the party and that was how we lost the election in 2015, 2019 and 2023 that we should have gotten ourselves back to power, somebody just stood against it. Nobody asked you for God’s sake to go and contest for presidential primaries. His issue with the party is that he was taught politics 101 during the primaries. It is because he knows that we don’t have a steady NWC that he is behaving like this. After all, if we had a steady NWC like in 1998 till 2011, it wouldn’t have been like this. He would have gone out of the party for a long time.
Do you think that Wike is implementing President Bola Tinubu’s plan to destabilize PDP ahead of 2027?
It’s the party itself that allowed it. When Governor Bala Mohammed of Bauchi State was on good terms with Wike, he didn’t know that the man was using him to achieve his interest. But when other governors told him the implications of what Wike was doing, didn’t he retreat his steps? It is not Tinubu but why should Wike allow himself to be used? Other governors are there, why can’t the president make use of them? No other PDP governor will answer Tinubu apart from someone like Wike. He thought he would be a governor for life forgetting that there is a mark time of eight years. Just know that for somebody that wants to eat power every day, power will one day eat him up. So, if Tinubu is clever enough to make use of him and the party allows it that is their cup of tea. But for a very strong opposition party that has been in government for 16 years to allow this is unfortunate. He said he is spending money but some people have been spending money before you became a governor. Look at the founding fathers of the party and they spent money to build the party.
What is your position on the stand of PDP governors that Fubara is the leader of PDP in Rivers State?
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That is the system in PDP. When you are a governor, you become the leader of the party in the state. I support Fubara and whatever he does to reclaim his position as the leader of the party, I’m in support of him. You put someone as a governor, you appointed all the commissioners, you appointed all the permanent secretaries, you appointed the Chief of Staff, you appointed all the special advisers and you put the man there as a dummy. What manner of a person is that? So, anytime Fubara does to reclaim his position, I’m solidly in support of him because he is the governor of the state. And don’t let anybody fool you, he is going to serve for eight years. 2027 is going to be all people’s game because it is about Nigerians versus APC in this country.
There are concerns in some quarters in PDP that the NWC is not allowing the disciplinary committee to do the work they were appointed to do. Are you aware of this development?
I don’t have insight to that committee or their operations and I have never heard anything to that effect. Well, they are the ones that put the committee in place, if they don’t want the committee to work, the chairman of the committee should go away. You cannot put me somewhere as a chairman and make me look like an armchair chairman, it is not possible. If that is happening, I have not gotten information in that respect but if it happens, the chairman of the committee is a tested intellectual, Chief Tom Ikimi, politically or otherwise, he is not a baby. So, he has to choose between one and two because if you are given an opportunity to work and they want to close your hands, you have the opportunity to get away from the place. Within the NWC, I have worked with some of them and they are very intelligent, very experienced and very mindful of what we are doing as PDP but I don’t know exactly what is going wrong there. I have not gotten the picture very well. The picture I have gotten is Wike making an incursion into NWC.
If you say Wike is making an incursion into NWC, but the governors are divided on whether Damagum should go or not, especially Governor Seyi Makinde openly declaring support for him?
I thought Makinde was joking because he always cracks jokes. I know him and he’s a very serious party man. I worked with him when I was in the Southwest PDP and I know him very well and he respects the constitution of this party. When they were in G5 fighting against Ayu, they had a cause which metamorphosed into working against the party in the general elections. Rightly, Makinde didn’t work against the party and he didn’t even direct anybody not to work for PDP. Along that line when things went continually wrong he was the first person to opt out of the G5 movement not even knowing that Wike had another agenda other than the agenda they were fighting for within the party. Even up till now, it’s only Makinde that is supporting the party in the Southwest. The only statement I read after that was Osun State Governor saying that he stood with the constitution of the party. I think Makinde might be cracking jokes because he understands the constitution of this party than any other person and he respects the constitution of the party.
What is the update on the reconciliation move in the Lagos PDP?
We are trying to wake up. The exco is there and they have been doing the best they can do. By this time next year, the zonal exco will be dissolved and the new exco at the zone will come in. Similarly, Lagos congress will arrive by December this year but we are still watching because when the nation is not stable, how do you expect the states to be stable, particularly states without governors. They will be there operating as dead horses because they have no finances. Out of 36 states, we have 13 states, 23 states are operating without any support. Even the person boosting that he is funding the party cannot even spread his funds to all the states when he knows they need the funds.
