Jonathan’s Opponents Planned to Discredit the Election - Maduekwe

Former Minister of Foreign Affairs and Deputy Director -General of the PDP Presidential Campaign Council, Chief Ojo Maduekwe, in an interview with THISDAY spoke on the 2011 general elections, President Goodluck Jonathan’s victory and how opponents planned to discredit the election. Excerpts:  

As Deputy Director -General of the PDP Presidential Campaign Council, what does the victory of President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan portend for Nigeria and Igbos in particular?  

This victory is the dawn of a new beginning for Nigeria. It is an opportunity for us to reinvent ourselves and be more focused in achieving our destiny as a potentially great nation, as a nation of very beautiful diversity, to provide leadership far beyond our sub-region. This victory is a defining moment for Nigeria after 60 years to be consistent with our magnitude. This victory will finally herald that we are no longer between country and nation, that the unifying mandate of President Jonathan who is not from any of the major ethnic groups and whose emergence was quite situational. It is an extraordinary opportunity for the emergence of an opportunist society. It is an extraordinary step for turning Nigeria into an opportunist society where all ethnic groups, sections of the country will flourish in accordance with the objective of excellence. I believe that with this victory, it is possible for the various four clans in our nation to begin to be addressed more adequately. I believe that the situation that has brought President Goodluck Jonathan so far is now available for the Nigerian project more than ever before and if I may end on a slightly religious note, the Hebrew meaning of the word Jonathan is gift of God. I believe that the leadership of President Jonathan is going to go far, it is going to be an extraordinarily transformational dimension.   

To the Igbos, what does it portend?  

It is interesting that looking at the statistical weight of our voting, it is extraordinarily, because of our belief in one Nigeria and which has been translated into our being everywhere in this nation. It is the second largest ethnic group after the indigenous population in most states. As a matter of fact, many of our people decided there was no need to go back to the south-east during the voter registration to register. Their faith in the community they have identified with was so strong that they felt that they could register there. After all, if they are living in Kano, Lagos or Maiduguri or Ogbomoso and they are making a living, having their children and in some cases even inter-marry, so why return to Abia or Anambra to register. The Igbo character has been consistent with that perception of Nigeria as being something that we should identify. There is a radical Nigerianess about the Igbo character and Igbo temperament and that was shown again during the voter registration and if you look at the numbers in the south-east on the voters’ register, it obviously did not adequately reflect the true demography of Ndigbo in the south-east, because so many of our people were outside in terms of their voting strengths. If you look at those numbers, that is, the number of registered voters in the south-east is a little more than 10 percent of the total number of people registered nationwide and yet 30 percent of the votes President Jonathan got, the total votes he got zone by zone came from the south-east. If you make allowance for the south that the votes in the south-east and north-west were Igbos votes, which was consistent with the unprecedented and unequal and matchless commitment of the umbrella organisation that Igbos should vote for President Jonathan. No ethnic group came close to that. If you relate to that and take it that many of the Igbos vote outside south-east and voted for President Jonathan, to be very modest you are looking at may be another 7 percent of the totality of votes cast outside the south-east that were for President Jonathan. If you add that 7 percent to 22 percent, if you juxtapose that against the total number of votes that President Goodluck Jonathan got, at least 30 percent came from the Igbos both at home in the south-east and outside. The implication of that is that no ethnic group came close in the numbers of the votes that President Jonathan got. I am not aware that any Igbo politician vying for national office came close to this massive endorsement. We have therefore completely invested in this project, in a manner that the success of President Goodluck Jonathan is the success of the Ndigbo and what is that success, is that Nigeria should be a more secure, a merit-driven modern state, where the constitution works, wherever you live in Nigeria, and get the same treatment. And where extraordinary forces that are positively available for transforming this country are harnessed, not only in terms of infrastructure but in terms of educational opportunities, so that the nation will be more competitive, so that those Igbos who are on the cutting age of their professions in many parts of the world will feel the urge to come back home and make that skill available to the nation.  

One of the things about victory is how to manage it. There was violence is some sections of the country, are you not worried by this as the second in command in the campaign organisation?  

It is a disaster that does not diminish our concern, the fact that anyone thinking theoretically would have foreseen this. I myself speculated that those who are fanatically opposed to President Goodluck Jonathan are going to move in four stages, we are witnessing the third stage now. I am optimistic that if they are neutralised this third stage, then they may not try the fourth one. The first step was to ensure that he was intimidated from even declaring interest in the office. All kinds of threats were issued and blackmails were resorted to. When that did not succeed, they tried to ambush him at the primaries people whose voice in the past had been very eloquent on the oneness of Nigeria, elder statesmen in the past who have done very well in uniting the people of this country, now became divisive and they tried to make zoning look like President Jonathan was violating not just an agreement but a covenant. That political disagreement was raised to the level of a religious disagreement and once it assumes that dimension, sound reason takes flight through the window. So these are the issues that went into the primaries and the various political landmines that were laid at that time are exploding now. Once they were defeated at the Eagle Square, they did not accept defeat and efforts to reach out to them were futile. So together in concert with forces that were not in the PDP, it was the combination of all these forces to now go for the third step that we witnessed. As such, the plan was that if the election held at all, everything will be done to discredit it, to get international observers to rubbish the election. But the president’s passionate commitment to one man, one vote and the strong presence of international observers, who came hoping that Nigeria for once would get it right, was not factored. Having said that, we have seen the beginning of what they want to do as a fourth attempt to damage President Goodluck Jonathan’s presidency but they will not succeed, which is to make the country ungovernable. A local replay of this so-called clash of civilizations is what is being orchestrated to take us to a Nigeria which never existed. The Nigeria that existed before now was where Umar Altine from Sokoto, Hausa/Fulani, contested an election and won against an Igbo Christian candidate in Enugu or a Nigeria where the Muslim-Muslim ticket of Abiola Yoruba and Babagana Kinkigbe, in which the Igbos had no opposition to that ticket, and Igbos are almost 100 percent Christian, yet their vote went massively for the Muslim-Muslim ticket. Unfortunately, the bad leaders in the opposition are trying to destroy that Nigeria that we know. But I am convinced that the force of voters displayed on April 16 by massively voting for President Goodluck Jonathan has given us hope. Indeed, one has to pay special tribute to President Jonathan’s supporters in the Muslim part of the country. They have shown a lot of courage and their position has gone with a big cost by supporting President Jonathan, because by rising above the primordial pull of ethnicity and religion, they have shown consistency with the noble idea of other great nationalists that come from the North, like Sir Ahmadu Bello and Prime Minister Tafawa Balewa of blessed memory. These great nationalists showed that all men and women, irrespective of tribe, can operate in this country without fear for their lives or properties being attacked. We believe that under President Goodluck Jonathan’s leadership, whether north, south, east or west, Christian or Muslim, the great tradition of this country that speaks for national excellence will come together and reject violence and primordial activities that deny Nigeria the capacity to be internationally competitive.   

What of the opposition in the North?

When we zero in on the north, one would rather say opposition anywhere in Nigeria because the truth of the matter is that we lost some votes too in the south. I believe that very critically to have a robust democracy, we must have a vibrant opposition. A serious opposition or party is an alternate government, and some day, the opposition party will definitely be in government and it may not be because PDP has not done well, it could just well be because people want change. It has happened in many countries before, but I hope it will be a long time before it happens here. I will work hard to see that the day that the PDP will be in opposition is still a long, long way off. But if we are truly committed to democracy, the litmus test for democratic survival is if the ruling party is theoretically able to preside over its own defeat. I said so publicly and a few months after, I was made national secretary of the party. Also, by President Jonathan appointing a party chairman who he does not know anything about and from a zone completely different from his and a religion different from his own, what President Jonathan was trying to say is that I will not influence the outcome of my election, I will not resort to primordial gimmicks to win this election. So our passion as a ruling party for free and fair election should be so profound that defeat should not be something that we cannot contemplate. Late President Yar’Adua broke all traditions. On his inauguration, he said yes, I am happy to be president but the process that brought me had quite some flaws which we must look into and he was lucky to have a vice president who shared his passion on this matter strongly. At a time when President Jonathan, even as acting president, could have repudiated the commitment of his boss on this issue or stayed silent, but he did not take advantage of the situation, he could have said no. But he went even beyond that commitment to say we must have free and fair elections and allow technical assistance group’s to come, a group that came as a result of President Yar’adua’s request and President Jonathan received them and has taken our electoral process to another level. The point therefore is that it is a new dawn and the violence in certain parts of Nigeria should not upset this game, even as I wish to console the families that have lost loved ones in this very unfortunate situation. It may not be adequate consolation for them to suggest that they should see those that have lost their lives for the sake of democracy, but it will still give them some comfort that the people did not die in vain. I also believe that the country will not be the same after this, what has happened is a wake-up call for us to begin to function like any other modern democracy and whatever President Jonathan does, he can transform our infrastructure, give us more megawatts of electricity than he did not think possible, and build more universities. I think down the line, when the history of the legacy of President Jonathan is written, this moment will always stand out as the defining moment, because if we get it right in terms of elections, fighting corruption will be much easier. We will have international respect more than ever before and I thank God for the wisdom and courage that was available to President Jonathan to stay the course on this issue and take it to a level much higher than anybody imagined.