Elder statesman, Chief Edwin Clark recently spoke to Okey Muogbo and Leon Usigbe on some national issues. Excerpts:You have been a strong supporter and stabiliser of the present administration, given the circumstances under which it came into existence, how stable is the government now First and foremost, are you talking about President Goodluck Jonathans administrationYes sir I see. Well, when people talked about an administration, most of us believe that in Nigeria, we are talking about military regime. Jonathan became the president and Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Nigeria after the passing out of Alhaji Umaru YarAdua. Since then, I must confess, he has been doing his duties.There have been relative peace and stability in the country; the image of this country has improved in the international world. People now refer to Nigeria as a democratic country. People now talk of Nigeria as a country where no one is oppressed. Seriously speaking, Otherwise, I will be the last person to support him to contest in the presidential election. He has performed well and he should be given his own chance to develop and to improve the lots of Nigerians, which I believe he will surely do.I believe also that the power situation in the country is improving, as we now generate about 4,000 megawatts of electricity. In the future, it will be improved upon, having regard to the governments road map and the declaration in Lagos. But at the moment, the situation has improved. We now have a new target which is putting the electricity generator to where it belongs, that is a standby for power. So, as far as I am concerned, Jonathan has brought the administration to improve the power position in the country and if it is the governments decision to privatise power sector, the government should carry workers along with it, to show that they are part of the new system.You will also remember that sometimes ago, people queued for fuel, spending about N1,000 to buy a gallon of fuel. But today, the situation has improved and you will agree with me that the stability in that sector has made it possible for people to enjoy some of the facilities we were not enjoying before.So, in these two areas, the government has done well. There are disturbances and violence here and there. That is true, but, at the same time, everywhere in the world.Do you see these disturbances as deliberately targeted at sabotaging Jonathans administration Some of it, but not all of them. When bombs are being thrown at people at public places, they are definitely being masterminded by his political opponents and to that extent, there is some evidence to that effect.For example, it was discovered that Henry Okah has about eight different telephones with which he communicates to Nigeria. Who is he communicating with I believe it is the people that are politically opposed to Jonathan because this young man has a political hatred for Jonathan. He was the one responsible for the bombing of Jonathans home in Otueke (Bayelsa State) and he never respected Jonathan. So, Jonathan becoming the president of Nigeria was indeed an affront to him and he reacted by bombing the Eagle Square the other day.So, as far as I am concerned, Jonathan should be able to maintain the peace, because he is from the Niger Delta and he should know some of these boys. He should be able to promise them better days ahead and I think that will help solve this problem.Can you tell Nigerians why you have special preference for Jonathan, as we have never seen you support any president like this before Thank you very much; that is true. I remember in 1978 and 1979 that we held the first convention of the defunct National Party of Nigeria(NPN) at one of the cinemas in Yaba, Lagos, where the northerners were asked to produce a presidential candidate and it was a contest among Alhaji Shehu Shagari; Alhaji Maitama Sule and Mallam Adamu Ciroma. There were others who contested at that place such as the late Joseph Tarka, Chief Olusola Saraki, Kam Salem, Ibrahim Tahir and other people.At the end, there was no clear winner; we were to have a rerun, but it was later settled that Shagari should be the presidential candidate of the NPN. I was a member of the presidential campaign team. We went round the whole country. Now, having said that, Shagari was overthrown in December 1983 and the military took over. Thereafter, we had the issue of Chief M.K.O. Abiola (June 12 election); that one passed.There was no time that Jonathan ever believed in becoming president of Nigeria. I knew Jonathan as deputy governor of Bayelsa State; that was in 2004 and 2005. I found in him, a young man, brilliant young man, humble, with attracting disposition. I took a likeness in him.So, one day, he came to request from me some of the articles written by the Minister of Finance where the amount received by each state was stated. I was then in the Presidential Hotel in Port-Harcourt. He collected the papers from me, went and made copies and came back. Since then, I saw him as someone with a vision and humble.When Chief D.S.P. Alamieyeseigha was the governor of Bayelsa State, and was arrested in London, I was in London. I went to the airport to check in, to return to Nigeria, when the Nigeria ambassador to France phoned to inform me of Alamieyeseigha arrest. I cancelled my flight went back to London and I was with him for about 7 days before I came back into Nigeria. Then, I was particularly interested in the transition. It was discovered that Alamiasiagha did not authorise Jonathan to act, the same scenario that happened in Abuja (when YarAdua was sick) and I tried to see that the situation was normalised, but things went differently. Later, Alamiesiagha left London for Nigeria, leading to his impeachment by the state House of Assembly.But one thing was very clear. Jonathan was not part of the exercise; he did not contribute to it. In fact, he was in Abuja and later, he went to Bauchi, where he was a guest of governor of the state, Alhaji Adamu Muazu, for a period. So, he did not contribute to the impeachment and the removal of Alamieyeseigha. And I also know that he became the running mate to Alhaji Umaru YarAdua without knowing that it was coming to him.The primary which produced YarAdua as presidential candidate was held on Saturday and it was reported that Odili was to be his running mate, but unfortunately that was not to be. The signal had changed.The acceptance speech of YarAdua had been interfered with and the name of Odili was removed, where it read: The governor of Rivers State, Dr Peter Odili, was to be the running mate of Umaru YarAdua. It was changed to, I will name my running mate after due consultation with the elders of the party. That was how Jonathan came in. It was a request from Umaru YarAdua and that was how Jonathan became the running mate.He did not fight for it. He did not request for it; he did not ask anybody to lobby for him. It came to him as an act of God and we celebrated his nomination. first of all in my hotel in Transcorp Hilton.And to show he was not ready for it, when he was sent for, he was not properly dressed to take that position. When he was told that he has been nominated by Umaru YarAdua as his running mate, he had no hat and Chief Olusegun Obasanjo had to make available one hat for him. This is what you call resource control hat.So, Jonathan never thought he would become a running mate to YarAdua. But his stay as vice-president was like his period of deputy governorship in Bayelsa State. You know that Obasanjo and Atiku who was the vice-president disagreed on many occasions and to the extent that the president made the office of the vice-president irrelevant. So that situation existed for Jonathan during the first period, when YarAdua became the president of Nigeria.The young man from one of the small communities in Bayelsa State and you have heard about his background. He is not ashamed to say it. He has told every Nigerian about it, that he was not from a privileged background, telling all how he had walked from his village to school. So, I believe in him. As a leader of the South-South Elders Forum, otherwise called South-South Peoples Assembly, this thing has never happened to us before, for over 50 years in Nigeria. We never held any office like that.We have wanted one of us to be president of Nigeria. That was the Calabar declaration, and I was there in Calabar when the declaration was made. That prompted people like Sir Peter Odili; Architect Obong Attah; Mr. Donald Duke; Admiral Mike Akhigbe (rtd) and A. K. Horsefall, to want to become the president of Nigeria. That was the situation and we started to campaign and we went to various parts of the country.The issue of zoning never arose, and we had the support. I remember the meetings of South-South Peoples Assembly in Uromi, held in a hotel owned by Chief Tony Anenih, where I stated that I would celebrate my 80th birthday in Abuja and in Aso Rock. That was my projection; that was my prophecy at the time. I thought I would do that, and it came true. I celebrated my 80th birthday in 2008 at the International Conference Centre with General Yakubu Gowon as the chairman; it was attended by prominent people of Nigeria.So, my prophecy came true and I have a duty to protect it, to preserve it, to pray to the Almighty God to guide and protect him and to see that those of us around, who have been asking for that position, stay to protect him. It is not about tribalism, not because he is an Ijaw man and I am an Ijaw man. No. This was the dream of the people of the South-South or the minority people of Nigeria, that the majority have had their time. This is our time. The minority man has become the president of Nigeria; so, we must protect him. We must pray to the Almighty God to protect and guide him.Since President Jonathan earned the presidential ticket of the PDP, there have been some discomfort within the party, and you will recall that he contested for the ticket with other prominent party men like Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, General Ibrahim Babangida and co. Since he got the ticket, he has been trying to reconcile with everybody in the party, but it appears that the more he tries to reconcile, the more these people distance themselves from him, what is your take on this I dont think it is true that he is not succeeding in his meeting with them. Let me take it from this angle. As I said earlier that when the South-South decided that we must have the presidency and Sir Peter Odili and others showed interest, he went to all parts of the country to campaign particularly in the North. No one at that time talked about zoning.If Obasanjo had not imposed or had not brought in Alhaji Umaru YarAdua, I have to be proved wrong, Odili could have been the president of Nigeria today. He worked for it, went round the whole country and everybody supported him, but it was Obasanjo who changed the situation.But the issue of zoning came in, when YarAdua was ill in Saudi Arabia and Prince Vincent Ogbulafor, who was the chairman of the party and who was being used by the Governors Forum, made a statement that there was zoning and that the North should have the presidency for the next eight years at the time when we were facing a constitutional crisis. So, that is how the Northerners decided that it was their turn. During the time of Odili and others, they had been showing interest for them to go ahead; we have records about those statements, supporting a South-South person becoming the president of Nigeria. So, when that argument arose, I must confess that the northerners, the generality of the northerners, gave us more support than any other, even the South-South where we are from. Some of the governors were not supporting Jonathan.So, we are grateful to the northerners for the few leaders. My friends, about 15 of them, committee or Group 15, which later became Northern Political LeadersForum , headed by Adamu Ciroma, brought about this agitation. I must confess that we all have our own blame in this issue. Rather than finding a way of resolving the issue, we decided to debate. Was there anything like zoning or there was no zoning I think this was how the whole thing was handled.But looking back, I believe perhaps we could have settled this problem much earlier and with success and if there was zoning, the situation is that you now have a sitting president. It is not easy to remove a sitting president who has not completed his period, or who has something to look into. Then what happens to him Do you want to humiliate him by removing him I think that is how the agitation started. God says it is now our turn. Jonathan is now the president of Nigeria. We were not ready to give way; others who said it was their turn were not ready to give way.Some northerners set up a committee whereby Atiku was adopted as a consensus candidate. We had the PDP presidential primary and it produced Jonathan. Nigerians produced Jonathan. Those who are arguing are members of PDP; so, I think we are now negotiating. I want to appeal to them that there is another chance for any other person in Nigeria to become president. But today, there is a sitting president of Nigeria who still has some things to do. Give him a chance. He will not stay beyond 2015, but it is wrong for anybody to insist that Jonathan should hand over to them. He has no power, no authority to handover to any group whether the North, or East. In fact, that will be an insult.All that is important is that he has agreed to remain in power for four years and to those doubting him, I want to assure them that he will not exceed 2015. He should be given a chance and the negotiations that are going on will definitely succeed and Jonathan will become the President of Nigeria on May 29.Looking at the candidates that President Jonathan have to contest with; General Buhari, Mallam Ribadu and the other candidates, how do you assess his chances Secondly, Nigerians believe you have been a pillar behind President Jonathan, but they also have some reasons to believe that you have some disagreements. Well, I am saying this because of the Delta State governorship battle. Jonathan root for Governor Uduaghan and it was very obvious that you are against it, how do you reconcile your position Well in any democracy, people have a right to aspire to be president or governor of the country or a state. The fact that there are so many presidential candidates is nothing new. In every part of the world, people aspire to be president of their own country; we now have 20 aspirants who want to be president of Nigeria, which Jonathan is one of them. Jonathan will continue to work hard and he has to prove to Nigerians that he has the ability, and the character to rule this country and by showing to them what he had done so far. It is left for the other candidates to prove their own worth.I listened to the debates involving the three presidential candidates of the All Nigeria Peoples Party (ANPP), the the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) and the Congress for Progressive Change (CPC).That is democracy and they debated their points.How I wish I was in a position to choose who was the best among the three. I wont tell you now because I dont want to raise dust. But I must confess that Jonathan is not afraid of debating with anybody. After all, for the ANPP presidential candidate, one of his good points was that he was a principal of a college, he was a permanent secretary, and you saw his arguments. Why would a man who has a PhD, who has been a deputy governor, who has been a lecturer, a deputy governor, a governor, a vice-president, acting president of Nigeria and now president of Nigeria, be afraid of debate I must assure you that Jonathan presidency is God sent.I sit down here in this house, receiving up to 200 people every day. People are, on their own, mobilising support for Jonathan without being paid, without anybody appealing to them. Jonathan is a candidate of Nigeria.You saw what happened during the PDP presidential primary, where he conceeded only five states to Atiku , a seasoned politicia. But there is something always proving that Jonathan is the man Nigerians want.So, as far as I am concerned, they have a right to contest but none surpasses what Jonathan has done for Nigerians and what he is going to do for Nigeria.On the second question, I have issued a statement recently after the kick-off campaign in Port-Harcourt, where I was accused by some people that I shunned the Port-Harcourt kick-off because of my difference with party or with the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) or with Jonathan and my answer was published recently in the papers. I said that the issue of Jonathan being the president of Nigeria is different from the issue of Dr. Emmanuel Uduaghan being the governor of Delta State. They are two different things completely and that is why different days have been fixed for their elections. So, the two are not tied together. Jonathan is the leader of the PDP of which I am a member; he had every reason to go to Delta State to campaign for Uduaghan in the re-run, which he did.But Uduaghan is not our candidate right from 2007 he was imposed on us by his first cousin, Chief James Ibori. He was Commissioner for Health under Ibori, he became the SSG under Ibori, where he became the defacto governor. So, we objected to it, and when we found out that he is really covering his misdeeds. We said no he should not come back.Where in this world have you seen a man, who is governor of a state and the custodian of that state, go to court to seek an injunction that the man who committed misdeeds should not be prosecuted And he got an injunction that the book of government which will reveal the essence of his misdeeds should not be given to the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC).Iboris lawyer, an expatriate, allowed himself to be deceived, to be used. They recently gave him seven years imprisonment because of Ibori, while Uduaghan and his cohorts are moving around in Nigeria, wanting to rule us.Well, this has not affected my relationship with Mr. President. He knows my character. If you have a father who cannot speak his mind, it is a bad thing. He wants Uduaghan, I dont. I am a Delta man and I am still a member of the PDP, but I will never vote for Uduaghan. And because of what is happening in PDP, after Jonathans election, after he has won, I will be 84 years old then. Then, I will say, enough is enough, no more partisan politics. I will no longer be a member of the PDP. So, there is no problem between me and my son Jonathan. He knows who I am, and I know who he is. We are honest people.
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