Matthew Iduoriyekemwen, a former Majority Leader of the Edo State House of Assembly and the Peoples Democratic Party’s flag bearer in Edo South Senatorial District, discusses with ADEYINKA ADEDIPE the Supreme Court’s verdict which recognised his faction, amongst other salient political issues
What does the Supreme Court verdict, which recognised your group (loyal to Governor Godwin Obaseki) as the candidates of the Peoples Democratic Party, mean to you?
The Supreme Court decision reaffirmed the court’s long-held position that primary elections, particularly those for party delegate positions, are a party’s internal matter. The Appeal Court had already given its ruling, and what the Supreme Court’s judgment also did was give backing to the Appeal Court judgment.
As a result, no court has jurisdiction to hear the issue of party delegates because it is a matter between the parties. It should be noted that the party established various committees to conduct primaries in the 36 states of the federation, including the Federal Capital Territory of Abuja, and that some individuals chose to disregard the committees established by the party and go on their own, after which they used the law illegally, misleading the judiciary to obtain a judgment that is embarrassing to democratic processes.
With the Supreme Court verdict, the political parties are the ones who have the right to conduct party primaries. All they need to do is inform the Independent National Electoral Commission of the venue and time of the primary election, which the PDP actually did.
As a matter of fact, the primaries I participated in had all agencies in attendance, including the security agencies, INEC, and the National Orientation Agency. It was a surprise that some people went to a different venue.
For me, it is like sitting for an examination at an unrecognised examination centre and expecting the paper to be graded.
What is being done to ensure that the judgment does not further polarise the party, as everyone is needed on board to win the forthcoming election?
Right now, we have put up different committees to reach out to other members. On the day of the judgment, I told everyone that it was a case of no victor, no vanquished and that the disagreement was purely an internal affair.
So, I will urge everybody to come on board as we all know what the right thing is. I have been in PDP since 1998. I have been in this situation before when I contested the party’s governorship primaries in 2016 when Ali Modu Sheriff was on one side and the party structure was on another.
And after everything, everyone still had to come back to work for the party. Right now, we are reaching out to party members and letting them know that the persons who are candidates today are not strangers to the party. They may not be everyone’s first choice, but having emerged as the choice of a majority of the party members, a genuine party man should put his grievances aside to achieve the goal of defeating the other political parties in the general election. So, we are appealing to our brothers and sisters to work together so that we can rescue Nigeria, which is a task that we take seriously as a party, and we cannot leave any stone unturned in our pursuit to achieve that.
How effective has been the move to reconcile party members?
We must start to reach out to people in our localities, which is what I am doing at the moment in the Edo South Senatorial District. I have reached out to many on the other side, and many have also reached out to me, and they have indicated their interest in working together to win the election.
Don’t you think the sealing of businesses owned by some PDP members loyal to Governor Obaseki could backfire?
I am also in business, and I make sure I fulfil my entire obligation in the conduct of my affair. I think the house cleaning must start from within, and I don’t see anything wrong with that because it sends the right message to the public. The businesses have since been reopened after the proper things were done.
For example, there was a time a woman based abroad built a shopping complex without a parking space along Akenzua Road. The governor saw it and felt that it could further cause more traffic on that road, which was narrow. The structure was demolished, and it has since been rebuilt conforming to the standards set by the state government.
So if you say you are close to the state government or part of the government and you do things that the government stands against, the government will not show sympathy because the government is for everyone and not for party members alone.
It doesn’t matter who votes for you in an election. Once you get elected, everyone becomes your constituent. Your responsibility is not to your party members alone but to uphold the Constitution of the country, which is superior to the party Constitution or loyalty to party members.
What is your take on a legal consultant to INEC, Dr Amos Ikuruka’s claim that campaigns by PDP candidates may be in contempt of court?
First and foremost, how much of the law does the man know? The legal issues are straightforward. The law is such that when a court of competent jurisdiction issues an order, every law-abiding person is bound to obey it until that order is vacated or overturned by a superior court. We did primaries, and some persons didn’t do them. They compiled names and went to a Federal High Court to get a funny judgment directing INEC not to accept any other names of PDP candidates other than the ones they have submitted, despite not showing the court that they had done primaries. The judge gave an interim order, which was served on INEC.
Whether the judgment was right or wrong, INEC followed it by publishing the names of those people until we went to that same court, despite being in the Federal High Court in Benin, and claimed that having won the primaries according to the party’s rules, the party and INEC should show us why our names should not be on the list of those who had won the primaries.
We went to court, but before the case could be dispensed with, they ran to court to procure an interim judgment in the Federal High Court in Abuja. That case never went beyond that, but the High Court in Benin gave judgment that it is not the state chapter of a party that conducts a primary election but the national one and that those of us who took part in the primaries conducted by the national PDP should be recognised as party candidates.
Don’t you think the APC will have an upper hand considering that the judgment may further polarise your party in the state?
I can tell you that we will reconcile with genuine members of the party before the election. I have been in this party since its inception, and I know those who are genuine members of the party. I know those who have political value and strength. I know those who will not play the devil’s advocate as well as those who are enemies but will pretend to be friends. We will continue to reach out to those friends. Of course, in a democracy, everyone will not vote for you, but your election must represent the will of the majority of the people.
Do you believe the emergence of Peter Obi and the Obidient Movement will cause problems for the PDP in its strongholds in the South South and South East?
I do not see the Obidient Movement as a political movement. I think the movement is an expression of the discontent of the people with the way things are in the country. I can tell you that if a group begins rioting today, people will join the riot without first of all knowing the faces behind it.
Political agitation differs from mass movements in that when campaigning begins, you must sell your candidates. We all know the problems in Nigeria, so what we need right now is people who will come up with solutions. We all know that the prices of goods and services are high in the country, so I am sure that people want to know what will be done to bring down those prices.
Don’t you think the acrimony between Governor Nyesom Wike of River State and Atiku Abubakar as well as Iyorchia Ayu will jeopardise PDP’s chances in next year’s election?
It is unfortunate that Governor Wike has allowed himself to become someone about whom anyone in the country can simply talk. I can liken this situation to not knowing that it is good to leave the stage when the ovation is loudest. People have argued that he has spent so much to keep the party together; did he bring the money from his house?
This was a man who became a local government chairman, chief of staff to former River State Governor, Rotimi Amaechi, minister of state for education, supervising minister of education, and a governor on the platform of the PDP. The first time he has failed to get something, he feels that he must bring down the roof. I think it’s very selfish, wrong, and bad for politics.
Some people have been members of the party since 1998 but have yet to realise their dream of becoming a local government chairman, despite remaining members of the party.
So, when the party has done so much for you, why take this step? Two things contribute to one getting tickets to a party for an elective post.
First is the belief of the people in you, and second is your personal strategy on how to get the confidence of the people. When it came down to the elements, Atiku showed that he was more politically savvy. On that day, Wike vowed to work with whoever emerged as the party’s flag bearer, so what has happened? Is he doing all this because he lost?
Do you feel there could have been better approaches than the demolition of houses and public facilities in Edo State all in the name of projects?
I am not an appointee of the government or an official of the government, but I know that before such decisions were taken, efforts would have been made to stop the people from building on the land.
Also, from what I read, efforts were made by the government and a statement was issued that no one should trespass on those lands. I can talk about the one that happened last week. The government wanted to use the land to build a new mega-city in Abuja. From the statement, the government has tried to stop these people from encroaching on the land. I read that government officials were beaten, their clothes torn, and even threatened with guns when they went there. I don’t think people should dare the government with their actions.
Ideally, before you put up a structure, you must go to the ministry and get approval. If those people who are building have approval, they can take the government to court to seek redress. People already have the notion that issues can always be settled in their favour since the government is involved.
