Buhari surrounded by known Kleptomaniacs –Okonkwo (Andy)

BY CHUKS EZE

Not many people are aware that apart from being a prolific thespian, Kenneth Okonkwo is also a radical politician and social commentator. A regular guest at national television and radio stations, Okonkwo, who is also a lawyer, in this exciting interview, fields questions on national issues, including the 2015 general elections, Enugu politics and what he feels about the administration of President Muhammadu Buhari, among others.

After boycotting the primary elec­tion in Enugu, people thought you would quit the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, but you remained in the party and worked for it as if nothing happened. Did the party promise you juicy compensation?

First of all, I am alive today and sec­ondly, the judiciary should be respected and thirdly, I joined the party before the idea of contesting for a position came up. So, the ambition was secondary to my membership of the PDP. What happened was that after I pulled out and the pri­maries were held, Mr. I. K. Ugwuegede emerged victorious, but Hon. Pat Asadu went to court and the Federal High Court gave him judgment. So, on the date of is­suance of Certificate of Return in Enugu, both of them emerged to lay claim to it and both of them were denied access to the document. But, maybe, the INEC later considered the court judgment and decided to issue the certificate to Asadu. But that is quite unfortunate because I remember that when we were campaign­ing as a party, it was Ugwuegede that the party knew as its candidate.

How do you see the emergence of If­eanyi Ugwuanyi as governor of Enugu State?

I am certain that he will make Enugu people proud. He is popular, humble and humane. He has been a member of the House of Representatives for 12 years, which also makes him eminently quali­fied, in terms of experience. This is a man whose charity and assistance know no bound. That is why he is so popular in the state and did not require much campaign to win the election. I was a polling unit agent and I can tell you authoritatively that everybody wanted him to win.

Wouldn’t such huge acceptability pose a big challenge to him as expecta­tions would be so high?

It brings a lot of responsibility on his shoulder, no doubt, but I am sure that he is aware of all that and he is equal to the task. I can also assure you that he is com­ing with love and dynamism. And the fact that he emerged without opposition will make things a lot easier for him because he will not experience the usual distrac­tions from the opposition and disgruntled elements. When I went to his house to see him after his victory, I witnessed all cat­egories of people and groups trooping in to congratulate him. I am not his spokes­person though, but I am certain that he is coming with love and he plans to ac­commodate everybody. That has been his nature. The man believes so much in prayers and with prayers, he will certain­ly succeed. But people should not expect him to satisfy everybody or solve all our needs because no government ever does. But I’m certain, judging by his past ante­cedents, that he will excel as governor of Enugu State.

Do you see President Muhammadu Buhari taking Nigeria to Eldorado as promised by his party, the APC?

I may say that Buhari may not steal because he has not shown that stealing is in his DNA. But the Presidency is not about an individual. It is an institution. So, I cannot say that the Presidency un­der Buhari will not steal because he is surrounded by known kleptomaniacs and lions; and lions, of necessity, must be carnivorous – feeding on fresh meat with blood. And so, when you are surrounded by such people, you have an uphill task when you want to be anti-corruption Czar. Now, the forces that joined to bring Buhari into power, such as former Presi­dent Olusegun Obasanjo, are such people that would like to either pocket you or destroy you when they cannot have their way. Buhari has never worked as a civil­ian under a civilian government, which is why I say that he does not have the DNA of politics and democracy instincts; and at his stage, you don’t have to expect him to start learning it now. In democracy, you win by superior ideas, superior creation and

charisma. The President has not shown any sign that he will be tolerant of op­position views because he grew under a situation of obeying orders without ob­jection or opposition. The new President once said that he does not know how to make money; and true to his words, he has never existed outside the government. So, he has never earned any money out­side the government. Even when he was in government, he was not known for be­ing innovative on how to multiply money. The only thing he was good at was that he knew how to use monies given to him without stealing it. Whether he knows how to use it well is another thing, but you are sure that he will not steal it. He would have been a very good bank man­ager. But in Nigeria today, we are look­ing for a person that knows how to create wealth because the oil price is rapidly go­ing down. So, if we should rate him from the stand point of not knowing how to make money, and he has made too many promises to the nation,

then time will tell how he will be able to meet up with those promises. His party, the APC had promised social security for all the unemployed, two million jobs an­nually for the unemployed and all that. And when the PDP advised them to stop making frivolous and unrealisable prom­ises to Nigerians, they refused to hear. Now, all those promises are documented and Nigerians are waiting for them. Nige­rians will soon realise that the best thing that happened to this country is President Goodluck Jonathan.

What is your impression of President Buhari’s predecessor, Goodluck Jona­than?

People said all sorts of things about the amiable former President – that he was not firm and all that. But the truth is that he was the firmest President ever in this country. A firm person is one who makes promise and keeps it. Today, he has just bequeathed a nation that is democrati­cally sound and free of political arrests; and without any political prisoner. I do not want to go the whole hog so I don’t sound as if I’m his spokesperson. But the issue is that the problems of Nigeria com­pared to the country’s resources need a man with youthful energy, great tolerance to the opposition and ultimately, a man that knows how to create wealth. The out-gone President knew how to choose from the best options and he has shown that he knew how to create wealth. Buhari may be honest, but like Obasanjo once said, it is not enough to be good. As a Nollywood actor, I can tell you that to be creative means you can create something out of nothing, if God is with you. Have we seen such tendencies in the incoming Presi­dent? My prediction is that, if care is not taken, after the first 100 days in office by the incoming government, Nigerians may be like, ‘Ah ah ah…! This is not what we expected.’

Talking about Olusegun Obasanjo’s unflinching support for Buhari, are you saying that they may likely part ways if Buhari proves uncontrollable?

I am saying that some of those who helped him to win the election will turn around to work against his government at the long run. Somebody like former President Olusegun Obasanjo supported him, but looking at him historically, he is known to play tortoise politics, and curses every regime that he is not part of. Whatever political help he renders has selfish agenda. The reason he sup­ports candidates is to ensure he controls them after they win elections. But once he fails to achieve his target, he fights the person. He helped to install the late Musa Yar’Adua as president but turned around to curse him afterwards, even when he was on his sick bed, forgetting that he should take responsibility for bringing him on. Then he helped Goodluck Jona­than to ascend the throne, but when Presi­dent Jonathan stopped playing according to his rules, he started fighting him and propounding all sorts of theories. So, now that he has purportedly helped Buhari, if hefails to influence his government to his satisfaction, within six months or a year after its inauguration, he will start making efforts to bring it down. He has even started showing warning signals by setting agenda for the President and stat­ing, among other things that re-election in this country is no longer guaranteed by power of incumbency. If you look at the former President historically, you would realise that Obasanjo is part of the great­est problem that has happened to Nigeria. The destabilisation of PDP started with him. In 2003, he was almost on his knees begging Vice President Atiku Abubakar to support him. But afterwards, he en­sured that he neutralised the former Vice President politically and dealt with him. Then by 2007, when he would have qui­etly left office and chosen the best hand to lead PDP, he started seeking for third term. It was that third term ambition that originally created deep divisions in PDP. Remember that it was the PDP that re­jected the third term. The PDP-led Senate did not even allow such ambition to see the light of the day, as then Senate Presi­dent Ken Nnamani’s gavel shattered the plot. After that, he had a grouse with the party, which was why he chose the late Yar’Adua, who was then known to have the least presidential ambition to become the president. He wanted to pursue his third term bid under another guise. When that failed again, he changed PDP con­stitution to install himself as the Board of Trustees chairman and unceremoni­ously sidelined people like Chief Tony Anenih and others. So, like I said, it was Obasanjo’s incurable appetite for power that originally brought about the lingering problems in PDP. The truth is that when Obasanjo wanted Jonathan to become president, it was not because he liked him but because he thought he would use him. There are many things that people do not know about the former President. He had even wanted to jettison

President Jonathan in 2011. Let me tell you, it was the ‘Accidental Public Servant,’ and present governor-elect of Kaduna State, Nasir El-Rufai, that told us that Obasanjo had already asked Gen­eral Buhari to choose the Minister of Fi­nance, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala as running mate so he would support him to win the 2011 presidential election. But something later happened and when they went back to him on the Buhari/Okonjo-Iweala pro­posal, he turned around and said that even though Jonathan had issues that he would tutor him to become a better person. He had automatically changed his mind! This is a man that, apart from the 1999 elec­tion, he has never on his own, won any election in his constituency while in of­fice. He organised the election that were rated as the worst in 2003 and 2007, to the extent that the ultimate beneficiary of the 2011 edition called it flawed. The same international community that he had written off for condemning the elec­tions that he conducted are the same body that he is now running around saying that they are hailing the 2015 election, which incidentally, was organised by Jonathan. So, APC should realise that his align­ment with the party was not for national interest but for selfish interest, to make it look as if he contributed to the success of the party. As it stands now, the former President will be one of Buhari’s politi­cal liabilities, and his current support for Buhari is also a pointer that Buhari may not succeed as the former president is a potential destroyer.

So, you are saying that the forces that worked for Buhari’s victory including the merger parties will later dissipate?

O, yes! There are several strange bed­fellows that are incompatible in APC, and for that, their marriage will not last. You can quote me anywhere: Implo­sion awaits the party. They were able to come together because they were fight­ing a common enemy, not because they believed in a common purpose. And now that they have hunted the enemy down, their differences will soon begin to mani­fest. I dare say that the people that gave victory to APC are PDP members. So, it cannot stand because those PDP members have democracy in their DNA but have gone to a ship where its captains do not have democracy in their DNA, rather, they are known autocrats, lions and self-styled godfathers.

Those former PDP members had evolved through democracy and learnt democratic culture. So, it is just a matter of time and the implosion will manifest. Within six months into the life of the in­coming government, the party will begin to see genuine signs of crack, except if miracle happens. Then, within one year, people will see open signs of crack and within two years, the party will collapse.

I know that apart from being an ac­tor, you are also a diplomat, lawyer and evangelist. But are you speaking now as an evangelist, by way of prophecy, or just as a politician?

I would not say that I am prophesying because I have enough economic, politi­cal and historical facts to make my pre­diction. Therefore, I would not want to say, ‘Thus says the Lord,’ rather I would want to reason it out. So, let us look at it this way; Kano, Jigawa, Katsina, Kwara, Kogi, Bauchi states and all of them that gave victory to APC were known PDP states, at least, in the last six months or thereabout. They left PDP because they felt that their own personal political inter­ests were no longer being taken care of. I want to play my politics in all honesty. By 2011, my opinion was that PDP should have re-zoned the Presidency to the north. I wrote the article and it was published; and my reason is because I believe in zon­ing. I believe that in Nigeria of today, fair distribution of political offices, on the ba­sis of rotation, is what will stabilise our democracy; and no region should be de­nied their own turn even if it meant that it came out of natural consequences.

Why did you canvass for power to re­turn to the north instead of the South-east in 2011, when you knew very well that the Igbo had not taken a short at the presidency for a very long time?

One thing about democracy is that you cannot shoot your way to power. You would have to organise your way to pow­er; and you cannot redress domination that has lingered for a while by replacing it with domination. The opposite of north is south and not South-east. Whenever a southerner has taken a shot at the Presi­dency, it we should expect that, in the in­terest of rotation, that the next shot should go back to the north. So, when President Yar’Adua died without even spending up to a term in office, I had advised the PDP to retain the power in the North-west in 2011 but that did not happen. So, what played out in the just-concluded elections was not due to non-performance but be­cause of the sentiment that power ought to have been in the north for that period and it was denied them. That is why I am an apostle of zoning. That is also why I believe that the APC will soon begin to have problems. Our national philosophy in PDP now is that we are going to be in opposition constructively, not destruc­tively. For any policy that the APC brings out, we will give constructive criticism and offer alterative solutions.

Will the PDP make the seat of gover­nance hot for the APC like they did to your party when it held sway?

The difference is that the APC was making PDP feel the heat and they had no alternative to offer. But PDP will not only give them the heat but offer alternatives.

Do you support calls in some quar­ters for southeast elected PDP National Assembly members and governors to join APC in order to attract adequate federal presence?

No way; count me out of such calls. Igbo will lose nothing being in opposi­tion. Whoever jumps ship for the sake of power is not qualified morally to occupy any elective position. Your people voted for you based on that platform. Are you now jumping ship to betray their vote? My advice is that South-east political stakeholders should come together bear­ing in mind that Martin Luther King once said that the greatest weapon of non-vio­lence is unity. If the PDP wants to be rel­evant in Enugu State and the entire coun­try in the next dispensation, they have to be united.