The Deputy National Chairman, Congress for Progressive Change (CPC), Mustapha Saliu, in this interview with Ruth Yamta and Kingsley Opurum, speaks about the ongoing alliance discussions between CPC and ACN, he also discusses some strategies his party will employ to defeat PDP in 2015 presidential election.
CPC is barely two years old now but waxing even stronger than some of the older parties. What’s the secret behind this????
?Like I said earlier, it is because we know where we are coming from and also where we are going. We have sat down as a group of people of like minds. We’ve been able to strategize and itemise how we want to operate. Most important thing is that we don’t have the kind of money that other parties have especially PDP as well as the number of seats or governors they have but what we have is integrity, which you can’t buy in the market. What we’re using is integrity and discipline. That’s what Nigeria lacks for today, which is the bane of the whole problem and corruption we have now.
Our brand like you know is integrity. General Buhari represents that integrity and people, who really believe and are optimistic about the future of this country, all they want is leadership by example with somebody that has that integrity to lead and lay this foundation. You see, lies can only be there temporarily but the truth can always shine forever and that is why you see we continue to wax stronger because we are built on a solid foundation of integrity.
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Earlier on, you pointed out your plan to floor PDP come 2015 general elections. How do you intend to achieve this?
It will be premature for me to start telling you a lot of our strategic plans now. As a strategist, it will be suicidal for me to start telling you that, but the truth is that you can see from the body language of things that are happening or from the handwriting on the wall. We are working with other opposition parties of like minds.
First and foremost, we must first of all come together, understand our differences so as to be able to work together to see how the modus operandi will be. These are the first stages we will first of all at least be able to achieve. By the time we achieve this, I can assure you that people will be remembering that once upon a time, there was a ruling party called PDP. So, for now, some of the main strategies we are going to use, it will be premature for me to let them out now because they are still in the formative stage but as you can see, we don’t have any problem with some of the major opposition parties especially ACN and we will definitely work together to see that we defeat PDP.
It has happened in other countries. You saw what happened in Senegal and even in France recently. It’s unfortunate that we’ve learnt a bitter lesson and this time around, all hands must be on deck to see that we push out this government of anti-people.
Are you confirming it is no more a rumour that CPC is forming an alliance with ACN against PDP in 2015 elections??
It is no more rumour because from what you’ve been seeing from the public outings, you can see the two leaders are working closely together. They’ve been visiting each other. These are all parts of processes to see that there’s a very formidable relationship between the two parties. So, I repeat, it’s no longer a rumour. Definitely, we will work together and it can come in any form. It might be premature for me to say it will definitely be a working relationship of alliance but we’ll definitely come together and cooperate. But, for now, no deal has been reached but already there are discussions going on. So, it will be premature for me to say this is what it will definitely give birth to but the issue of working together is certain to push out this anti-people government.
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So, do you think such an alliance will have the capacity to oust PDP from power?
The truth is that PDP has never won any election in this country. This last election you heard how the ACN themselves described the election, that it was systematically rigged. If you go through most of your reports after the election, that was what ACN said. We on our side, the CPC, we did not even measure what took place as an election because the parameters to measure it as an election was not there. We went to the court to even compel INEC to bring the materials they claimed they have been able to gather to declare PDP the winner. For us, PDP has never won any election. If there is a free and fair contest, PDP will not win a seat anywhere because nobody will be happy to vote in a government that has kept them in perpetual poverty for over 12 years now. Nobody in his right thinking sense will do that. For us, defeating PDP, by the grace of God, will be a thing of the past, by the time election comes, so, we’re definitely working together to see that we defeat them and we don’t believe PDP as a party stands the chance of ruling this country again because they will only put Nigeria in more crisis. From what we’re experiencing now, nobody will ever say that PDP is doing well. These are practical things from score card now on ground. Nobody can score PDP 25% with what they have on ground. In fact, when I say 25%, I’m just being too generous. Nobody will score PDP now with 15% performance.
You can see the level of insecurity, the level of poverty, every day, all you hear is theft left and right either some pensioners are dying on the queue and some people are busy embezzling money, the next thing, they are on bail even challenging people. The next thing you hear again is about how people are being bribed or bought over on issues that affect all of us. For us, it is a wakeup call for Nigerians, civil society members, the political class and political parties to come together and seize this opportunity to see that they push out this anti-people government in order to form a government that will represent the people for the people.
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How do you appraise INEC’s performance from 1999 to 2011?
It’s so unfortunate that what has been happening in the past is the more we go into the future, the more they come out with sophisticated means of rigging and manipulating things. When Chief Abel Gubadia was there, because of the handover from the military rule, some of the things were not perfect and the score card then was not excellent, people complained and we thought the coming of Iwu, things will be better. Iwu came and it was like everybody was crying that it was the worst election ever experienced. But with Iwu, you know where you stand because he never hid his own. You knew he was campaigning for PDP, you knew he was working for PDP. And now came a man, who disguised himself like a saint and took everybody by surprise. With Iwu, some of us were comfortable because you know what you should expect from Iwu, so you know how to prepare yourself, but now came a man, who was preaching and deceiving everybody that he was coming to do justice to the electoral process, serve as a fair and credible umpire to us, not knowing that he was going to be the worst.
Jega has disappointed everybody because the box stops on his table. Whatever excuse he wants to give will not be accepted by anyone of us. Immediately after the election, he went out to launder his own image visiting some countries trying to give lectures on what?? On election that you just finished and people were saying that the elections were characterized by irregularities? What are you telling people? Coming from the academic environment, people thought he would be the suitable person. He can’t give us any excuse that people manipulated him. There are so many things we said before the election and it has come to pass. It has shown clearly that he is somebody, who sometimes sounds or comes out in a very arrogant way, claiming he knows why he doesn’t know.
For us, Jega was a catastrophe to have made INEC chairman because he has only pulled us back, not even preparing Nigeria for a better future outing. When they came up with the issue of DDC machines and all that, if you have these DDC machines and you claim you are able to do data capturing, then what stops you from providing these records in a tribunal. If people ask them for these records, they will start avoiding all these things. As I’m talking to you now, if you ask them to bring out those things, they don’t have it. It doesn’t exist. This is even worse than what Iwu did. That’s why when you ask some of us; we don’t even know how to qualify him because we believe what he has done is taking Nigeria 20-30 years backward again.
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In your own assessment, are you saying Iwu was better than Jega?
For your information, Jega was one of Iwu’s Consultants when Iwu was there. You can go and find out. He was consulting for them. So, what do you expect from somebody, who was consulting for somebody we all condemned. What I said is that with Iwu, you know where you stand. But with Jega, who deceives you, gives you a wrong impression. That is why we said he is a catastrophe. Actually, bad is bad. Good is good. There is no middle way between good and bad. If somebody is bad, he’s bad. If somebody is good, he’s good. They’re both bad but I’m only telling you that you’ll know how to approach Iwu than Jega because Jega gives you a human face that has a very monstrous or deceptive mind of what he wants to do.
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