The Acting National Chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Alhaji Abubakar Kawu Baraje, spoke on a number of issues with journalists at his Ilorin, Kwara State residence during his recent visit to his home state. Biola Azeez was there and brings the excerpts:On the Peoples DemocraticParty (PDP) primary inBayelsa State.I told the stakeholders of the party in the state before hand that the primary would be done according to the constitution of the party. So, the issue of exclusion of one contestant or the other does not arise since a contestant that obtains a form of intention and form of contest can't be said to have been excluded. Governor Timipre Sylva is a dutiful and good party man. He was not dropped from the primary unlike the case of Rotimi Amaechi. Sylva got forms of intention and participation. He went into campaign. He went into screening. We issued temporary clearance to him. There is appeal committee for contestants that were not cleared. He appealed to that committee. The National Working Committee (NWC) looked into all the clearances and those not cleared and the reasons they were not cleared. If we had petition against those cleared, they were referred to the appeal committee. Seven out of 11 of them that contested had petitions written against them, including the serving governor. So, they were referred to the appeal committee.The appeal committee came up with their findings and confirmed the petitions, except three out of the seven. So, four were confirmed and the petition genuine and we said they should not be allowed to participate. The NWC came back to say three candidates were cleared. It touched on the integrity of the person to be presented for contest. Timi Alaibe was not and had not, at that time, properly come back to the PDP; so, he can't be PDP candidate. For Ben Bruce, some people say he was disqualified because of citizenship. No! We asked for Bruce membership card, and the section of the party's constitution relating to that matter says that candidate must be financial member. Ben Bruce was not a financial member of the PDP. These are the nitty-gritty.Governor Sylva's issue bordered on security. The governor of a state is the chief security officer of that state. So, if the person's integrity is questionable in the area of security, what the party's constitution says on that is there for all to see and so we applied the constitution. Though, some people felt he was disqualified because he's not on good terms with Mr President. That is missing the point. The NWC invited the legal adviser of the party and he said we follow the constitution. We even put it to vote. It's there in the records. While some said we should apply political solution, some said follow party constitution. So, the party constitution won and Sylva did not scale through. We never had problem with Sylva.On planned removal of oil subsidy.Another issue is that of fuel subsidy. The PDP supports fuel subsidy and we have our reasons. We have sat down with experts and they have convinced us with practical and supporting indices that we might not be able to sustain the retention of fuel subsidy between now and the next two years but thereafter, we will not be able to sustain it; that this country will be in perpetual penury, indebtedness to other countries, coupled with the fact that we operate a mono-economy because we have been depending solely on oil; that our oil in the next 20-25 years will dry up.With that there is the need for us to protect what we have now to ensure that the huge amount of money which we are even borrowing to subsidise stops. And that whatever we now have as gain from subsidy will now be directed towards special areas of development in our society, particularly in the local government areas.A committee has been put in this area of which the party is a member headed by the vice-president of the country to chart the way forward on the application of the funds that will accrue from the subsidy. One of the major recommendations of the committee is that a special body comprising eminent and high integrity Nigerians should form part of this committee and will advise government from time to time on the spending of this money. The percentage of money that will come to the Federal Government is what this body will advise government about. Other percentage will go to states and local governments.On that of the local government, our committee recommends that it should go directly to local government and not to the state government. The local government chairmen from 774 LGs like the states Accountant-General will go to collect their share. The board will also supervise special projects peculiar to the local government that they want to use this money for. The progress of such peculiar projects in each of these communities will be monitored openly because the committee will also comprise representatives of the media.On the reason for the planned removal of oil subsidy before making oil refineries operational.I agree with you that our refineries should start working first. We should see that our oil are being refined locally before we go into subsidy. The thing about governance is that there is always a long term plan which should be executed. The importation of fuel is run in this direction. The period we are going to use in this outgoing year and the earlier part of next year is already signed. If, therefore, we want to start refining on our own and stop importation, we must also start, at least a year. Our refineries must have been working three months maybe before we now say, 'stop importation.'That is how the government works. In the first instance, the people that are going to work on the existing refineries are the people that constructed and built it. They are already on ground and they have been contacted and contracted. The new ones that are to be built are through PPP. The arrangement has already started. The first part of the contract has been signed.They are now on site. This will go in pari pasu with continuous stoppage of fuel importation so that the money we have committed into this area will also phase out along with this arrangement. So, as one is phasing out, the other one is taking over. That is how government works.How do you see the ACN governors withdrawing their support for fuel subsidy as against the position of the Nigerian Governors' Forum'I am not aware that they have backed out. I was at a meeting where the political parties met and the bigwigs of all the political parties were there, the chairmen, secretaries and some other officials, particularly the political parties that have governors. We met and we all agreed that the fuel subsidy removal is a very desirable exercise with some proviso. We agreed that the NNPC should be privatised. Once that is done, we believe all other things will follow and fall in line.If there is a change, we would not hear from the governors. We will only hear from the political parties. And if there is a change, the governors will only go to their meetings and announce that they have withdrawn because at their own meetings too, they agreed. I have not heard about that.Recently, the National Assembly recommended that some of those privatised companies that were doing well should be taken over by the government and the privatisation cancelled. Today, the PDP is supporting the Federal Government to privatise the oil sector. What is your take on this'I think you are asking question about the privatisation of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC). The NNPC is going to be privatised. A lot of lessons will be learnt from era of the privatisation of other companies, which had been highlighted by the National Assembly. I believe experts will give appropriate advice in order to plug all those lacunas so that we do not have other problems on our hands. Privatising an organisation like NNPC is not a joke. And I do not think government will handle it with kid's gloves. PDP will ensure that it is not handled with the kid gloves.
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