In this interview, Minister of Niger Delta, Usani Usani speaks on the allegation of anti-party activities, the crisis currently rocking the All Progressives Congress (APC) in Cross River State and the suspension slammed on him by the National Working Committee (NWC). ANDREW ESSIEN presents excerpts.
Minister, what would be your take on the allegation of anti-party activities levelled against you by members of your party at the state level?
Those allegations are not strange to me. You can cross check everything I am going to say because they are verifiable. From 1999 to 2015, I have had reason to dine with the PDP. It was a political fallow season. You will probably be surprised to hear that when I contested for governorship in the opposition in 2003, there was an attempt in broad day light to assassinate me and I ran out of the country to return after two years. At that time when I was to contest, I offered to contest for the senate and I declined. In 2011 when I contested against PDP candidate, offers were made to me and I declined. If you talk to Cross Riverians, they know us by character. So, when I had a political fallow season, if I did not accept overture from them, what will attract me now as Minister. If for 16 years, I declined everything that tended to be offers to me, now that I am minister, what do I intend to gain. Is it that if I support them, I will become President?
This is crafted blackmail intended to decimate my reputation. Thank God as Journalists, you have the capacity to verify what you get or the information you receive. When the people coming together to fabricate these things are said to have the capacity to win election came in, the first person to send a message that if the APC is to win election, Usani Usani has to contest is Senator John Owan Enoh.
The person he sent did not tell me the message until we were together with him and he said, Senator, I want to deliver that message you gave me before. That person is Godwin Asam Efa who was vice chairman of Ikom local government council. Please, you can verify these details I am giving you. But something happened. When the former governor of Cross River State felt that it was too risky for them to allow Usani come in, he told him to go and fight for it so that whether it goes the way of PDP or APC, he will be in charge. Meanwhile, that former governor was zonal coordinator for PDP presidential campaign. Suddenly, he started recruiting different interest. When the national chairman came into office, they caused him to believe that I was supporting the former chairman, Oyegun and I wonder what type of sense that made because Oyegun did not contest any election. So, even if somebody was supporting him, of what value would that be?
Secondly, the national vice chairman, South-south who is spreading these falsehood who did the same thing against me during Oyegun’s chairmanship and I wrote many letters to Oyegun telling them about his character and Oyegun decided to believe them. For over two years, he peddled these falsehood and they realised too late that these fellows were not the character they think they are. That was when Oyegun was already going and that is the same thing he started with Oshiomhole.
My silence for a while is because somebody worth occupying a public office should be able to recognise where rule and order should prevail. I have always been quiet and not talking on this issue because the constitution says we should not go to the press. But when the managers of a system violate their own rules, then it means that the anarchy does not allow the institution to run. Then, you can see what the APC is today. The President’s image is what keeps APC standing as if there is a party. Otherwise, by conduct, we have lost every value for the fabrication of the initial concept that brought honour to our party. Now, I have decided to speak out because further silence in the phase of the falsehood in the market will suggest that I am guilty.
To suggest that I worked for the PDP can only be authenticated by the indices we lay across. Find out if in the course of the recently concluded elections, if they did not say, vote for the presidential candidate and for the rest, vote for us. Go to Calabar and verify. Find out if the national vice chairman for South-south won one polling unit in his own ward for the President. There are two wards in my community and the PDP did not win any unit. I accumulated over 4000 votes while the PDP got about 1000. Assuming I was working for the PDP and I produced results against them, which one is more viable to believe. They have held several meetings and I will tell you that they are trying to do everything to make me politically irrelevant. They know that my continuous prevalence in the system will expose them. These are people who mismanaged public funds and they have been scared ab initio that if the President comes back for a second term and the anti-corruption struggle goes on, they will be in the web. For them, instead of allowing sleeping dogs lie, they want to shake the hornet’s nest. I can tell contracts in my state they have received and failed to accomplish. I can tell you company names they have forwarded even at the beehive of the dissolution of the NDDC board which they are still forwarding for payment. For them, the dissolution of the NDDC board is the foundation of their revengeful attitude towards me. You know how the place functioned for a while which is in public domain.
What are your thoughts about the factional leadership of APC in Cross River State?
When they say crisis in APC, we don’t have factional leadership in APC. Before the current chairman came, congresses had been concluded. He decided that they will dissolve the state executive whereas as soon as that was concluded, we were given certified true copies of the results of the congresses supervised by INEC as prescribed by law. One day, they just came and said, we dissolved it. We sought redress in court and until now, the subsisting judgement in that regard showed that Hon. Godwin Etim John is the chairman of the party. So, impostors are just buying their ways as a result of favours that does not accrue from any due process. So, there are no factions in the party. Every action being taken in response to this situation by them is contemptuous.
They have also gone ahead to write a petition to the President alleging these same things. Incidentally, I have given a response to that petition. These people have no interest in this party. They came to destroy it and run back to PDP. Between a man who has stayed for 16 years without changing focus and those who today belong to one place and tomorrow, they are somewhere else, who is more likely to prevaricate in circumstances of pecuniary inducement?
For the South-south national vice chairman, he was the national coordinator for the current PDP presidential candidate during the APC national convention in Lagos to choose our presidential candidate. However, he failed woefully and took those who were not delegates to Lagos and when the man discovered, they fell out and he felt that I was probably responsible for that and so, his antagonism started.
I put it on record that in 2012, I sponsored him to be ACN chairman in the state. In 2014 when we were discussing the zoning of positions in the South-south, I proposed his name against the wishes of Cross River indigenes and they told me he will disappoint us, but I stood by him. I honour principles and preserve accords and so, I put his name. For some people who do not have secondary vocations, if politics falls out of place, they will be stranded. So, they pursue political ambitions with absolute temerity of desperation and so, we will not be surprised because we know them.
But for me, if anybody says I worked for PDP, go and tell Cross Riverians and see if they will believe you. When nobody could stand up to challenge PDP, I was the sole figure challenging them. So, I can assure you that those fabrications won’t amount to anything. Whatever their anger is, I have given every room for us to sit and discuss, but you will understand that when a society is growing, those who stand as victims are those who have honour and that is our situation.
Go and ask former governor Liyel Imoke those he was paying in the opposition when he was governor. Go and ask former governor Donald Duke those who go behind to collect money. Go and ask incumbent governor Ben Ayade those he gives money in the secret rooms. If you were from Cross River, you will know exactly how we stand. For some of us, hunger and abundance makes little difference but honour is greater than every consideration. Even as they did not like me, I still voted for the positions they are contesting and l delivered.
These people have been moving from one party to the other. They are green pasture politicians and I am not. I stand on the conscience of honesty. If they tell you Usani is this or that, let us put forward our political credentials and let us know where we stand in terms of tenacity to character and conscience. I like to treat them with a form of palliative mercy because they are my brothers. My Bible tells me that anger belongs to the devil and at all time, I try not to degenerate to a point of anger beyond measure.
What is your reaction to the suspension handed down by the APC National Leadership?
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I started administration at a high level in 1992 and I know what administration entails. I know that administration is not done in the open market or village square especially when you have rules guiding a particular system. If, for any reason, I am accused of committing an offence, the constitution provides how the procedure should be.
I did not receive any invitation to answer to any query, neither did I receive any correspondence suggesting that I am under punitive measures. So, I just presume that it is one of those media rumour and so, didn’t need to apply myself to it. I saw a letter from my ward chairman saying I remain a bonafide member of the APC in the ward he controls and that I have not committed any offence to warrant a disciplinary measure. So, I remain a member in my ward and that is where I stand.
The question then is, why would anybody want to suspend me? All methods, legitimate and legal has failed them in a bid to stop me from my governorship ambition and so, adopted a cowboy method thinking that pronouncing suspension on air will make meaning. It does not make any meaning. I was the first party chairman in the state, not because l vied for it but because they said that they needed a character that will not sell the party. So, when they say I have been suspended, I have not received any correspondence to that effect and I don’t know what offence I have committed.
Suspending me is very dangerous because we are very few in Cross River that can hold the party. Let them show their results in the just concluded elections. It is not about noise, but unfortunately, in Nigeria, noise means strength. But for me success means strategy. I don’t need to talk, but to prove and I have proven.
If you say that President Buhari’s integrity is what is keeping the party together, What is the future for APC after his tenure in 2023?
Like in every vocation or activity in life, even the environment that is natural is dynamic. Therefore, the future of the party will not be determined by the projections of today because tomorrow may turn a new live. The determination of the strength of a party does not also lie in the internal melee, but the actions and reaction of contending forces. That can always change the fortunes of the party. At the end of the President’s second term, if Christ tarries, God will give us what befits us because my Bible tells me that a leader emerges from the system and the nature of the people. So, whatever happens, it may be a stronger or weaker party, but there will still be a party.
But I note again that Abuja residents who have the privilege of entering offices are not the owners of the party. The custodians of the party strength are resident in the states. So, it is not for us to gather ourselves, come to Abuja and claim to be key stakeholders. Those who hold the ground for us to rest on are right there.
Would you have made any impact in the election if you were given the ticket?
I want to tell you that it is true that the PDP rigged elections and it is not in any way a hidden secret that they rigged election in Cross River. The truth is that the University of Calabar where the returning officers were drawn from is managed by the Vice Chancellor who is from the local government of the governor and majority of the returning officers were drawn from that local government. There were instances where people who retired from the military became returning officers. In my ward, the presiding officers were speaking my language and no youth corper serves in his local government. These are proof that PDP rigged the election. Assuming I was a candidate, I won’t assume I will be declared because the reasons for declarations are beyond the ordinary. Legitimate and legal processes show that we are the real candidates of the party. You can verify that and will find out that the only record in INEC suggestive of a congress or primary puts me as candidate of the party. So, whatever makes INEC to keep publishing what we don’t understand is what we cannot unravel.
As at today, even though there are cases at the Appeal level, the subsisting judgement remains valid until an appellate decision is taken. The only valid judgement so far is in our favour. As somebody who is honourable and believe in the rule of law, my approach will not be the brigand method. INEC has given us certified true copy of the fact that they supervised our primaries. Evidence available suggest that these people are playing a game midwifed by the former PDP governor of the state. If you find anything otherwise in documents that we are not the candidate, prove it.
Do you think all these are plots to stop you from returning as minister and would you want to sacrifice your ambition and engage in a dialogue?
In the first instance, they felt too arrogant to sit in a discussion. For me, what matters in life is not money or position. When the Bible said Herod exhorted himself above the knowledge of God, it is this type of attitude. Who is who to determine the fate of another man? So, when they behave like that, I don’t care. God gives positions and l don’t need to depend on anybody to get positions. I got this one without lobby. God must have used people to promote me to this point. Go and find out when I served military administrators as commissioner.
There were times when I said instead of this, I will resign. You heard what I said on the floor of the senate during my screening when it was insinuated that I had a parley with the PDP. If you cannot serve the devil, don’t eat his food. That is my philosophy. I won’t put my hand behind and collect and then pretend. They were too arrogant to sit in discussion even though I know that I have greater political fortunes in the state than they have put together. My fortunes in politics is from the life I have lived with my people and they know me. It is not a matter of being ambitious, but recognising that we all can form a whole. Whenever they want to call a meeting of what they called stakeholders, they will call 13 people who are against Usani and then call Usani alone without telling him who the other stakeholders are.
Abuja noise is not ground movement. In the last elections, find out if anybody gave me money. But they were given hundreds of millions, but what’s the outcome? I stand on what I believe in inspite of the pain and hurt because I want to be predictable.
Has there been any intervention from national leadership and do you believe in Oshiomhole to resolve the crisis?
Every leader has what it takes to resolve crisis in his domain. So, I have no doubt that his leadership can resolve the crisis. To ask whether I believe, will my singular opinion over ride the general convention decision to have him as our national chairman. As the national chairman, he should be able to resolve it. Whether he can do it or not, I don’t know. But for me, I exercise the right and privilege of my membership within the limits of the provisions of the rules of the party. As a member of the cabinet of the President, you don’t expect me to be a dissident and if anybody does not regard his position as a pedestal of honour, you don’t expect me to follow him. I know myself. The Bible says, man know yourself, l know myself.
Don’t you think with your suspension, the chairman tried to make a firm statement as to resolving the crisis?
I tell you something. When socrates was already 70 years old, he found a man whose worker was stealing his proceeds and the man killed that worker and the son of this man came to him and said daddy, you said this man committed evil and you killed him. Are you not committing the same evil like the man? Because the Arthenian philosopers were afraid that at every time, Socrates will prove them wrong, they decided to imprison him. He told them I am already 70 and will soon die. If you kill me, the uprising will be faster, so allow me to die naturally. They refused and killed him and the uprising came earlier than anticipated. If you think suspending me is managing the crisis, let me say it is provoking the crisis because he will lose a lot. I know that I am not serving any suspension. Did I register in Abuja? Did anybody tell you l have membership of APC in Abuja. We are all members of our wards. When election came did you see us in Abuja. I have mentioned here that in all attempt to stop me legally and procedurally, having failed they adopted a Cowboy method but that is not the way to stop me
How do you rate the performance of your party in the recent elections?
At this moment bearing the pending cases of suspended or supplementary elections, if you want to rate the party in the face of what you have seen as journalists, the rating should be based on the judgment you have. I don’t have the general overview which you have daily. So, the rating of the party should rather be my question to you. You are the assessors of the umpire and the general performance. In my view it would differ from index to index, from area to area and to rate my party without implicating some institutions would be very difficult yet l can’t afford to take that risk. So, we are doing good.
