“Action Congress is Part of PDP”

Dr. Abiye Sekibo, A People’s Democratic Party (PDP) Chieftain in Rivers State and former Minister of Transport

—Dr. Abiye Sekibo, A People’s Democratic Party (PDP) Chieftain in Rivers State and former Minister of Transport
By Lawson Heyford, Port Harcourt
It has been rumored that the likes of you, Sergeant Awuse and Celestine Omehia are planning as siduously to cross over to AC as a veritable platform to contest the 2011 governorship election, what is your take on this?
First of all, let me make it clear, there is no Action Congress in Rivers state. There is no political party called Action Congress in Rivers state. Those who are in the Action Congress are members of the PDP. And I make bold to say this, from the head of the so-called Action Congress in Rivers state to its tail are all members of PDP. They are only bearing the name of Action Congress to give the semblance of a different political party. Let me even say that there is no Action Congress in Rivers state. Whoever is claiming to be a member of Action Congress today is a member of PDP. Whether you like it or not, we know what is going on there. My younger brother (Tonye) Princewill who says he is the leader of Action Congress in Rivers state, everybody knows he is a member of PDP. He is working with the PDP Government. Why will anybody then want to plant that kind of negative story of my movement to AC, I don’t understand. But PDP is such a large umbrella that there are too many rooms. In the bible, we are told that in my father’s house there are many mansions. When there is a house and in that house there are many mansions, you can imagine how that house would be. The same thing goes with the PDP. The PDP umbrella is so large that within the PDP, there are smaller families. And I can say that AC in Rivers state is one of the groups within the PDP umbrella.
Looking at the scenario in the country at the moment using Anambra and Bayelsa states as case studies, one can but think that the next election may still witness some traits of violence even in Rivers state, what is the way forward for Nigeria?
Let’s be clear, all of us as politicians have to be guided by personal principles. What you see in the political field is the reflection of the personal principle of the individual player. There are those who are guided by their religious convictions. In fact, I believe that almost everybody who is in politics is guided by his religious conviction. Religion in this case has to do with what your belief is in terms of a god. If you are a true Christian, you believe in the God Almighty and in His son, Jesus Christ. If you are a Muslim, you believe in Allah and Prophet Mohammed. If you are a juju worshipper, you believe in the small god, demons and other evil spirits in your villages and society. And if you are an atheist, you practically don’t believe in any other thing but in yourself as a god. All these depend on what ones personal principles are in terms of your religious conviction. For me as a Christian, my guiding principles are those things the bible has set out for me. When I go out there to play politics, I come with those principles. “Do unto others as you will want them do unto you.” “Love your neighbors as you love yourself.” When I play politics with somebody who believes in the small god, they will not do unto others as they will want others to do unto them. They want to destroy, kill and maim. You as a Journalist can judge better –men that play politics without any guiding principle. A lot of things are going wrong because Christians, Muslims and even the juju worshippers have all forsaken their principles. In every society, there is a battle between good and evil, between light and darkness and even in the very family where we belong. In political parties, there are people who stand for the truth and others who don’t. Within the PDP and outside the PDP, there are evil men and women. Those of us who stand for God Almighty must be prepared to stand and fight these evil men and women whether they are in our party or outside our party. That is the only way this country can move forward.
What is your relationship with the present Governor of Rivers State, Rotimi Chibuike Amaechi, and to what extent have you contributed to move the state forward?
(A long laughter) I must confess that between me and the present Governor of Rivers State who happens to wear the toga of PDP, we don’t have a direct personal relationship. I have nothing against him. I think that the way he became a Governor– even though he is from my party–does not satisfy the requirements of the constitution. Though he was the one the PDP leadership picked as the candidate and supported during the primaries, he was not the one the PDP presented to the Rivers people as their candidate. So, when the people voted, they did not vote for Amaechi. Though the people voted for PDP, it was not Amaechi that they had in mind. But the Supreme Court in its wisdom, not the wisdom of God, anyway, decided to swear- in Amaechi as Governor and he was so sworn-in. But I have to tell the truth. Even though the Supreme Court said this, I have to look at my children in the face and tell them that Amaechi was not the person the Rivers people voted for on the PDP platform, saying that truth has tended to pit me against him and others, but it does not bother me.
You and the Governor are children of the same political god father. When you were SSG and he was the Speaker, no crisis was ever noticed between the two of you. Right now what is the position of the arrow head (Dr Peter Odili) in resolving the crisis between the both of you?
(Another laughter). That is the question you will put to him. It is true that Amaechi was a Speaker for eight years and I was secretary to the state government for four years and then went on to be a minister for more than three years. The truth is that there has never been any obvious problem between us. As I said earlier, in the same family there is bound to be a discord. There are always a few people who will come and say they will stand out for the truth. In this Rivers state matter anybody is free to make his or her comment on either the truth or falsehood depending on your kind of person. I was part and parcel of Dr. Peter Odili’s government. The decisions he made for the good of Rivers state, I take them as my personal decisions. The decisions he took that did not go down well with the state, I also accept the fault that we made, some mistakes in that regards. That is what I am taught to do as a Christian. Both the Governor and myself have children who knew us as people who worked with Dr Peter Odili. For those of us who were Odili’s supporters when he was in power, when our wives gave birth to children, we named them either Peter Odili or Mary Odili depending on the sex of the child. But suddenly, when Dr. Odili left office, some of us changed automatically, why? Unfortunately, there are elders who are supposed to call us to order, but they are part of this evil. And I cannot keep quiet in the face of such evil. I have nothing personal against Amaechi. He can as well be a Governor for 20 years, it is not my business.
You are being rumored to have an interest in the governorship of the state in 2011. How factual is the story and how are you prepared for that big contest, knowing that the present Governor enjoys the support of the masses?
Well, I’m still in politics. You have to differentiate between seeking office and being a politician. I am not an office seeker, I am a politician. My profession is medicine. But as we are told, all human beings are political animals. I have been able to enter into politics to be able to widen my horizon of service to the society and to humanity. So I am still in politics. There is no active politicking going on now. So everybody now should be busy practising his profession. But we have an eye on what is going on in the political terrain right from the local government level, the state and the federal level. Whenever it is necessary for us to commend, we commend. Don’t forget that we are members of the ruling party. For me personally, I am proud to say that my local government area (Okrika) is PDP, my state government is PDP and I am proud to say that I worked hard to see to it that PDP won in my state. It will interest you to know that I was the chief
agent of the President in Rivers state. We gave the President the highest number of votes in Rivers state than any other state in the federation. Many people are trying to make issues out of this, but I make bold to say that the people of Rivers state gave President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua the highest vote ever given to a presidential candidate at the last election. I am lucky that my party holds sway in all the areas I can say constitute my political home base.
You have been out of government since 2006, what have you been doing to keep soul and body together?
You are quite right because I have been out of government since October 2006. As you might have known, I am a medical professional. When I left government, I went back to my profession. I now treat people. We have our medical practice here in Port Harcourt which we established long before I joined politics. We now have a new one in Abuja. That keeps me shuttling between Port Harcourt and Abuja most of the time. So, at the moment, I am doing what my parents sent me to school to study, not just my parents, but the Rivers state government trained me to be a medical doctor. That is what I am practicing now.