October 24, (THEWILL) – Engr. Bayo Dayo is a former Chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party in Ogun State. In this interview with AYO ESAN, he speaks on issues affecting his party and the country as a whole. Excerpts:
Your party’s national convention will take place in Abuja between October 30 and 31. How do you see the preparation for the convention?
The Convention is going to be peaceful. You know we moved the time from December to October. We are all working towards the success of the national convention. All the necessary committees have been set up and people of good pedigree are in these committees. So we are expecting a good outing and there is going to be no problem.
The Zoning Committee led by Governor Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi of Enugu State zoned the national chairmanship of the party to the North. The party accepted the recommendation of the committee, but threw open the position of president to all the regions. What is your take on this?
The committee is not in charge of zoning executive positions. So when it comes to the executive positions, the party will meet again and we will know what to do about it. This is because our thinking is that no matter what you do, you need to make a northerner presidential candidate of the party because we are not in government. When a political party is not in government, it must be very careful about what it is doing, particularly when it comes to the northern part of Nigeria where we have millions of people that do not understand the full situation of voting for a candidate. All they know is to vote for a northerner like themselves and we should not play into their hands. So we should throw the presidential candidacy open at the appropriate time so that we would have a very good candidate that would be acceptable to both the North and the South.
Your position differs from that of the southern governors, including those from your party, who said the next president must come from the South
Yes. When you think of it, the southerners are saying a different thing from what the northerners are saying. They are all trying to protect their tribes, which is not good. We must look at politics of PDP as a national party. The party ought to look thoroughly into the candidature of whoever is going to represents us, whether he comes from the North, South, East or West, it shouldn’t matter to the leaders. We just need to make sure that we put a round peg in a round hole. But in a situation, where you think because you are a Yoruba man, you want to put a Yoruba man there by all means and if he is not acceptable to both the northern party members and the southern party members, then we would have a problem.
We don’t want to have problems in 2023. We want a candidate that will be acceptable to both the northerners and the southerners. What the governors are saying is that the position is very good for southerners. Yes, but it is not only the southerners that are going to vote. They must put into consideration that most of our votes are coming from the North. Whether it is true votes or not, we do not know until we have a genuine census in Nigeria. But, for now, majority of the votes come from the North. So we must put them into consideration in whatever we do.
My advice to PDP governors of our party from the South is to allow the party to throw the presidential candidacy open to all regions and let us take the best candidate for that good position. Whoever can win the national primary election for the position of the presidential candidacy will be strong enough in all the six geo-political zones of Nigeria. If you are popular in the six geo – political zones, then it will mean that you are popular enough to win the election. This will be better than having a person that is popular in a section of the country. We should choose a candidate and another section is not happy about it. We want everybody to be happy with the candidate of our party for 2023
What is your expectation from the forthcoming convention of your party?
My expectation is that we are going to have a very successful convention. The people we have in this convention committee are thinking of what we have not been thinking about before. They are putting everything into consideration. When you think of how to arrange the convention, we have a good committee looking at that. We have a good committee in the planning and electoral committees. We have good committees in all the aspects of the committees that are required for the convention. And I am sure that we are going to have a successful convention this year.
Two weeks ago, the Senate adopted direct primary as the mode of choosing candidates for election by political parties. How do you see this decision?
I honestly think the direct primary is the best bet for all political parties in Nigeria. This is because a situation where we selected few people to go and represent thousands of people is not good enough. Let everybody know what is going on, let them be part of the process and let them have a say in whatever the party is doing. That is a very good option for this country
But some people are saying that political parties should have been allowed to decide what method to adopt
Of course, it would have been better for the party to decide, but that option is a very good option, particularly for people to be aware of what is going on at the ward, local government and state levels. It is not good enough while we have few representatives doing whatever they like when they are to take decisions. The Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria is supreme to a political party’s constitution. If that is the provision of the Constitution, so be it. All the members of political parties can go out and make their choice. Although it looks a bit cumbersome and very expensive than having the indirect primary, it is a good option and good decision by the Senate. I really like it.
The Senate also made a U-turn by okaying electronic voting and electronic transmission of results. What is your take on the Senate’s new position?
It is a very funny issue. When a committee at the National Assembly presented a report that this is what is very good for the country and the members of that committee voted against their recommendation, you know something fishy is going on. The best thing for us is the recommendation to transmit the results from the polling units to the place where they are doing collation. It is better for us to be sending our results directly to the Collation Centre, rather than moving it manually between the polling units and collation centres and the figure changes along the way. The government in power should not use its power to change the decision of the people. Electronic transfer of results is the best option for a great country. And that is what happens in the advanced countries of the world. That is what happens in England. If you want to vote from home, they will send you your voter card. You want to register as a voter, you just fill the forms from your house and send it to the people in charge of elections. They have been doing that in foreign countries for many years. It has been ongoing in various countries. If you don’t transmit the election results directly from the polling units in America, it will take almost one year to conclude an election. So direct primary is the best option for our country and I must commend the Senate for its new position.
Many people are looking up to the PDP, especially those who feel dissatisfied with the President Buhari’s government. How prepared is the PDP for the 2023 Election?
It is always very difficult to control any party that is well known and has spread all over the country, especially a party that was in government for 16 years. You have many well-to-do people in such party. And when you have very many people who are intelligent, you must have different opinions all the time. But we thank God, we have put our house in order. All our people are now united and they have submitted themselves to genuine reconciliation. PDP is now reconciled. I can tell you we that are going to win the general election in 2023. What is happening in the APC now is what happened in the PDP. We are beginning to see the beginning of the end of the ruling party. The PDP will win the general election in 2023 because we are one. While members of the APC are still going to court to fight themselves, PDP will consolidate and win the election in 2023 by the Grace of God.
AYO ESAN, has been actively reporting and analyzing political events for different newspapers for over 18 years. He has also successfully covered national and state elections in Nigeria since the inception of this democracy in 1999.
