Joe Igbokwe is the Interim Publicity Secretary of the All Progressives Congress in Lagos State. He tells Senior Correspondent, ISHAYA IBRAHIM that the new political reality in the country is that the Peoples Democratic Party has ceased to become a ruling party. Excerpts:
Your party now has majority members in the House of Representatives with the defection of 37 PDP members to the All Progressives Congress. Is this for real?
The new reality on ground or the new political equation in the country tells you that PDP is now in the opposition. And this thing did not start today. If you ask Yorubas they will tell you ko kin se ise ijokan. It’s not a day’s job. It’s a plan that started about five, six, seven years ago. That it is coming to reality now, people should not think it started today. It’s a carefully planned project, just to help the people of Nigeria to move because, we feel that anybody that is privileged to go to school must add values to the society. And leaders of APC are doing what is expected of them to do when a nation is in crisis. If we don’t remove bad leaders, we will continue to suffer the rules of idiots. That is what is happening. Things will never be the same again.
But, you are still in the minority in the Senate?
Things will come. Things will be coming gradually. What is happening is a silent revolution, a bloodless one for that matter. Something you would not have achieved normally… For you to fight a cabal like PDP, you need to carry guns. But, this one is a carefully planned revolution. Because we are saying that if we cannot do this, then there is noting to handover to our children. We have a better idea of how to govern Nigeria. If you go to the states APC is controlling now, you will see changes; you will know that these people understand what governance is all about. This is what we want to give Nigeria. Governance is not rocket science. It’s about ideas.
Now that you have slight majority in the House of Representatives, are we likely to see any difference in terms of the quality of legislative business?
That is what you will see. You will see development of the mind, development of infrastructure, development of Nigeria. Nigeria has become a laughing stock in the comity of nations. You will see a lot of changes. The issue of security, institutions are down. We want to rebuild. If you come into APC, we will handover our template to you, what we believe in. it’s a party of ideas. That is just the summary.
Would this new political calculation not cause friction in terms of passage of bills emanating from the executive? Would your party not want to flex muscles?
There will be a problem until 2015 when we will push PDP aside and put our own man there, the person that understands what we want to do. The political equation you are seeing now, there will be a problem. If we want to help PDP, we will help them. Just to take the bull out of the China shop. Between now and 2015, we will just manage to take the bull out of the China shop. The man is going. He has to go. So, we will just have to manage the executive until 2015 when we will put our own man there and then we will work out the ways.
So one can say that your party is now a national party?
Yes. It is a product of hard work. It’s a product of consistency. It’s a product of people fighting for what they believe in, a product of hard work, a product of commitment. When you look at what is happening today, you will think that…people gave up positions; people gave up what they have been standing on for years. People gave out time, made sacrifices, and gave money, to make sure we get to where we are today. It’s not a day’s job. I told you.
Is your party also prepared to confront the elite crisis that would befall your party as a result of these new entrants?
If we have managed to deal with the challenges of the merger, we will overcome every obstacle by the grace of God. I just know that we want to change the course of this nation.
Culled from Independent