‘I hope my successors will see potentials I have put on ground’
Chief Dan Nwanyanwu is the out-going National Chairman of the Labour Party. In this interview with some reporters, he gives account of his tenure for 10 years and eights months. Associate Editor, Sam Egburonu reports
Your last NEC meeting appears to be your last before you step aside, looking back at the time you served, what would you consider your major achievement?
We started building a political party from the scratch. When I came on board as chairman of the party in 2004, I was given only the certificate of registration of the party and nothing more. So, we started scouting for members. Two years later, in 2006, there was election, we scouted for candidates and at the same time continued to build structures. We pushed it on to 2009 when I was reelected until now. So, I can say the major achievement in the party is that we have built a major party, structure-wise, that is without rancour. My tenure for 10 years and eights months was without quarrel like in other parties. For instance, there is a party that has over 36 intra-party cases, but we don’t have that here. We have tried as much as possible to raise the image and tempo of our party. So, today, Nigerians know the party and its leadership. Along the line, we produced a governor, senators, house of representatives members and state assembly members, local government chairmen, ambassador and director general. But all these were not easy for a political party that didn’t have the resources. However, it was because of the integrity of the leadership of the party that made most politicians come to the party to contest for election and they are still coming in now. So, the major achievement is that we now have a major political party that is ready to blossom and this will start after the convention when we have a new leadership. We have provided the infrastructure which is ready to go. I hope and pray that my successors will see the potentials that I have put on ground. Many people are calling that they want to come to the party because they believe this is a party they will get justice and not suffer imposition. In our party, we operate strictly by our constitution and guidelines before you emerge as candidate. These are the things we have put in place and we are happy for it.
By its formation and composition, Labour Party is seen as a socialist inclined party. Would you say the party has lived up to that expectation?
That is correct. I am not ashamed of saying that Labour Party was formed on behalf of the Nigerian workers as a whole by the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) under the former chairman, Adams Oshiomhole. Then, the party was registered as party for social democrats. And I think the intent of registering the party was to give the Nigerian workers a voice and opportunity to contest elections where they are popular. So, of course, that will give you an idea that the party was formed on a very strong ideology which is the ideal of social democracy. If you look at the logo of all other parties in Nigeria, only the Labour Party has a human face to its own logo. Some have dog, others have monkey, broom, umbrella, etc. but we have a father, wife and a child, a family, as our logo. There must be nexus between democracy, governance and the people. So everything we are doing, if we don’t anchor it on the people, we might not be right. So, our party has its mission and vision as articulated in its manifesto and constitution. We are social democrats. We are not so much concerned that the rich are getting richer. We are concerned and bother that while all these thing are happening, the poor must leave poverty, that is the point of departure between Labour Party and others.
With the spate of rumoured defections, involving the Ondo State governor, yourself and Joshua Dariye, who has declared his defection, doesn’t this signal the fizzling out of Labour Party?
We had a National Executive Council meeting a few days ago. Governor Mimiko was there. I am not aware that governors of other political parties can attend NEC meetings of other political parties. At least as at that day that Dr. Mimiko came, he was still a member of the Labour Party. As at this morning I was with him, he was still a member of LP, so that settles the issue of Governor Mimiko. As for Dan Nwanyanwu, I started building this party since 2004, I have put time and resources, denied myself things and privileges that ought to get to me as right. But that didn’t bother me because I was bothered for the people of Nigeria, offering them a platform to ventilate their beliefs and ideology. I started that and I have done it for 10 years and eight months. My tenure expired in December 2013, the NEC in its wisdom invoked the provision of the constitution which allows it to extend the national convention to a later date if for any reason whatsoever the convention cannot be held as at when due. So they shifted the convention by nine months and pleaded with me to accept it, including Gov. Mimiko. I reluctantly accepted. The reason was that they wanted me to oversee the Ekiti and Osun elections. The NEC were planning a coup to arrive at the same situation so that I will prosecute the primaries and elections so that convention will come after Feburary/ March next year. So, that was why the first early statement I made was that I won’t be available, hence pulling the carpet from under their feet. If I had gone through the normal procedure of the NEC meeting, they would have taken me back again, and I can tell you that majority of the NEC members felt very bad that I was stepping down. But there must be a time a man will look back. Constitutionally, I have no encumbrance to continue in office, the leadership of the LP from wards to states and national headquarters, have no time limit. You can be elected as many times as the people want you to be there. But this is not my fathers estate. I refused to accept the third term offer to contest and I came to the inevitable conclusion that this is my time to go. So when people say I want to go and that I want to follow Dr. Mimiko to go, these are statements made due to gross ignorance, maybe malice. You cannot say a man that has been national chairman of a political party for over ten years, stepping aside for younger ones to come in is decamping. That is a stupid thing for anybody to say. Check the history of Nigeria’s political party, no national chairman has stayed for ten years and eight months. So, you can see that I am a democrat, I am not leaving because I am going some where else but you must also know that this game is dynamic. Politics is dynamic, things move fast. As I am talking to you now , I am leaving because I have done my best and I felt it is my time to leave.
If you look at political parties in Nigeria today, they are plagued by crisis. What, in your estimation, are the reasons for political crisis in Nigeria?
So many reasons can be adduced for such intractable issues in political parties, ranging from greed, selfishness, bad leadership, lack of openness and transparency. It is both from the leadership and followership. When a leadership is transparent, open and honest, those being led will know. They won’t disturb you. Nobody has disturbed me here. I am the only chairman of a political party with government that is not on salary or allowances, honorarium or any sort of penny whatsoever for the ten years that I have been here. I know some that get up to 40 to 50 million Naira a month, another one gets about 15 million Naira in a month from government and so on and so forth. But I don’t get a kobo. If you run through the accounts of the party, you will never see Dan Nwanyanwu’s name as having signed for any amount in the party throughout the time I served. Most people ask me how I survived and the answer is simple. I said at the floor of the national conference when I was making contribution on the topic of political parties, I am a professional in politics not a professional politician. The difference is that a professional in politics is somebody who has something doing, a means of livelihood but decided to get into politics to add value. But a professional politician is that person whose life is dependent solely on politics and any attempt to touch it the person will kill.
National conference tried to offer some answers to the defection malaise. What should be done to curtail the spate of such defections?
We have taken care of that at the confab. The national confab came to the conclusion that we will not stop people from defecting when you are in office, but when you are defecting, you must drop the mandate and go. That is cast on stone right now, even though it has not become effective now. I am not in a position to hold anybody who plans to defect from LP. It is free entry and free exit. But one thing I say authoritatively is that this party has offended no one. LP is like the Catholic Church. People leave the Catholic Church everyday to Pentecostal but if you go for morning mass at 6 o’clock and you are five minutes late, you will not find seat to sit in Church. That is what LP is and hoping to become. We are not building a party that is in a hurry to produce the president of Nigeria. That is not to say that if we have the opportunity today and we have the structures as per the candidate and the capacities we will not give it a shot. We are building our party from bottom up, not for somebody to just come in and say because he has money we should give him our presidential ticket. I always laugh at some of these fringe parties that are clowning around and clog the ballot papers in the guise of contesting presidential election. It is a mockery for a party to go into a presidential election and at the end of the day get 1000 votes. That is not the kind of thing we are trying to do here, we are trying to build a party that can become a household name and people will understand what it represents. So, some years down the line, when you put up a presidential candidate, Nigerians will say yes we know the party is ready. So people can move in or move out, we can’t stop them. I can decide now to go and form a new party, nobody can stop me but it has not changed the concept and belief of a political party. I will not comment on those who want to leave our party, time will tell whether they will leave or not.
Going by your response, it does appear that LP will not contest 2015. Will your party therefore support a candidate of another party?
It is not correct to say that I said we will not run in 2015. You are anticipating me and that is speculative. As somebody who has some knowledge of elections in Nigeria, presidential election in Nigeria is not for small boys. I have been saying this since 2007. You must have the capacity.
People ask me why do we have to talk about money, but we do have to talk about money in politics. That is not to say that everything is money, but at least the basics, like movement, mobilisation, membership and so on can’t be compromised. In the last election in Ekiti, some parties paid 15,000 to 20,000 Naira per agent, unlike in 2007 where 2000 Naira was paid.
So that is the reality on ground. Don’t get me wrong. I am not saying a poor man cannot be president. A poor man can be president of Nigeria but he must have backers who believe, have trust in his person, after all, no rich man has ever become president of Nigeria. They only become richer when they get into office. So, let nobody get me wrong that this is a labour man talking about money in this way. I am a realist. I don’t pretend, atleast I have been in this job for over a decade, so I know what I am talking about.
Why is it that the party has problems penetrating other regions of the country besides South-West?
On the issue of the party not making inroads outside the southwest, it is not correct. It is not easy to build a party. It is easy to penetrate a region like the South-West because they are more ideologically correct politically than the South-East. I am from the South-East.
How do you mean?
In the South-West, they don’t look at who you are, they want to know what you are made of. They ask questions about whether they can trust the person not what the person has put on the table. In the South-West, politics is not the run of the mill.
What of the complaints of the stomach infrastructure phenomenon arising from the Ekiti and Osun elections?
No, you are coming to the finished product. You were asking me why LP have not moved. It is possible that you may not win election but you are on ground. PDP, APC and LP are on ground in Ekiti. But somebody must win, it doesn’t mean they are not on ground. That is what also happened in Osun. So the type of politics they play in the South-West, left behind by Pa Obafemi Awolowo, is not the same in the South-East. There are things we overlook in the South-East which can’t be overlooked in the SouthWest as a matter of priority. So in the South-West, I have been there, I know them, I can say it that they are more ideologically correct politically than any part of Nigeria. So, that is the difficulty in selling the party in other parts of the country as easily as we did it in the South-West. But we have made in roads. Anambra has accepted us, we are very strong in Edo, Plateau and some others states. But we have to do this gradually. So by the time we get some other governors just as we have done in Ondo, people will say they want us to come and replicate what we have done, and the gospel will spread.