Punch Newspaper interview of 18th August 2025
By Wale Akinselure
A founding member of the Peoples Democratic Party, Dr Gbenga Olawepo-Hashim, who recently returned to the party, in this interview with WALE AKINSELURE, speaks on the party’s decline, the North-Central’s quest, electoral reforms, President Tinubu’s administration and his chances of re-election.
Akin: You were one of the founding members of the People’s Democratic Party. Interestingly, in 2021, you joined the All Progressives Congress. Only recently, you have returned to the PDP. Why did you dump the party you were a founding member of for the APC four years ago, and why are you back in the PDP?
GOH: Well, that time it was a strategic retreat. While I was in APC, I was not very active politically. I was quiet. So, I am back to my home that I helped build in 1998. This is my natural habitat, and the PDP is the party for democracy. That’s how we made it when we formed it. It was mainly formed by those of us who were opposed to General Sani Abacha’s self-succession programme, and who were in Nigeria, not in exile at that time.
The day General Sani Abacha died on June 8, 1998, I was in General Muhammadu Buhari’s office in the Petroleum Trust Fund. I was one of the PTF consultants in the Public Affairs Department then. When Adamu Adamu came and said that Abacha died and that they were inviting Buhari to come, the Abacha people didn’t know that I was working covertly with the civil society initiative that was opposed to them. But I used to do the media support. In the morning, I would drive to the Daily Times residence – Tunde Rahman was working for the Daily Times then, and Segun Adeniyi, Sufuyan Ojeifo and others.
I would give them a briefing very early in the morning. So, we went immediately to the secretariat of the Institute for Civil Society, and I briefed Professor Jerry Gana, who was the then underground secretary-general, that Abacha had passed on and that we needed to present a new transition program to the country, through the military high command. So, the memo was drafted. Dan Iwanyanwu, who is now the chairman of Zenith Labour Party, my humble self and late Pascal were told to sign that memo. But it was my job and that of Dan Iwanyanwu to deliver the memo to the military high command. That time, we didn’t know who was going to be head of state, and there were tank movements that night.
And Dan and I presented the memo to General Ibrahim Babangida. It was a very tense period. And 90 per cent of what we recommended was what became the transition programme then. When we made the presentation to General Ishaya Bamaiyi, who was then the Chief of Army Staff. Although Abdulsalami Abubakar became the Head of State, it was the same transition. We made some recommendations about the freedom of political detainees. We wanted an Independent National Electoral Commission.
It was the National Electoral Commission of Nigeria then. Some of the things we recommended were that we wanted the electoral body to be free. Interviews were supposed to be conducted for those who will be members of NECON.. It will be advertised; their funding should not be subject to executive control. It should be on the first line charge. The military high command accepted most of our recommendations, including the name: Independent National Electoral Commission. The only thing they didn’t accept was the problem of the Nigerian electoral system today. That is the nomination of the composition of INEC, which we said should be independent of the president and the executive.
We wanted it to be like it was in South Africa. That was the only thing they rejected in the memo, and that is the problem of the Nigerian electoral system today. So it was a very tense night. So we were in the core of the making of this republic, and immediately we put the party together. All that time, people like Chief Bola Ige were a part of us before they withdrew and then went to form their party by the time we were naming PDP. So PDP is my home. In any other party, particularly in APC, I was like a fish outside the water. And one of the reasons why we left PDP was because of internal struggles over issues of internal democracy.
I left the PDP a long time ago. Then, in 2006, even before President Olusegun Obasanjo handed over, we had issues then. Most of us, who were founding members of PDP, left PDP at one point in time, whether it was Dr Iyorchia Ayu, Prof Jerry Gana or even Chief Solomon Lar himself. People like Chief S. B. Awoniyi, we had issues with the people who became beneficiaries of our efforts, that is, those who were holding governmental positions. We had fundamental issues over principles. So it was not just like we were moving around looking for platforms. I wasn’t contesting to be president at that time or anything. The issues were over our founding values, which those who were elected into office were trying to trample upon. So this is the context for my migration out of PDP. And coming back now, we have seen that everybody at least can be clear that the party suffered defeat as a result of trampling over those fundamental principles.
And everybody is realising that if the PDP must reinvent itself, it must go back to the founding principles of its founders. By December 1998, when we were going for local government elections, the PDP had won two-thirds majority of seats in Nigeria during the local government elections, so there were no governors, there were no presidents. So the PDP did not become a popular party on the strength of who was governor or who was president. It was on the strength of the popularity of its founders and the credibility they had with the electorate. It was not because we had anybody who had a lot of money when we were going for the local government elections. It was because the people of Nigeria trusted the founders of the PDP.
The people of Kano trusted Abubakar Rimi; even in Kwara, where I was doing my politics then, you had big names like Dr Olusola Saraki and Mohammed Lawal, who just returned as military administrator of Ogun State. They were in the All People’s Party. We delivered to our local government. My local government was PDP; I won it. I cleared most of the councillors, cleared the State Assembly. That was how the founders did. It was just that you had to deliver to your local government.
So it was not the popularity of any individual human being that made PDP popular; it was the principle; it was the history. So if we return to those principles and history, the PDP will bounce back. But if we keep them up, trampling them on the ground, it will just be an irrelevant party, but I pray it will not be irrelevant. We are standing and fighting for those founding principles, and PDP will bounce back.
Akin: But there are those founding members who, no matter what, have never left the PDP– the likes of Sule Lamido, Ahmed Makarfi.,
GOH: Ahmed Makarfi is not one of the founding members – he joined when he wanted to contest to be governor. Yes, Sule Lamido was a founding member. But without detracting from their integrity and all that, these are two very credible people, and I have tremendous respect for them. But some left on principle. For instance, people like us didn’t just leave. A lot of us were expelled from the party, including myself, Harry Marshal, and Chief S.B. Awoniyi, because we were quarrelling over founding principles.
One National Executive Committee meeting claimed they had expelled us from the party. We had to fight through the courts to regain our positions, and one thing led to the other, and we just had to exit. So it was not just that we liked to leave. Don’t make it as simple as that. It was a very serious thing – even lives were lost. Some of our supporters died as a result of those struggles. Some people were assassinated. These are no jokes. And if you want to be fair to the memory of these people, you cannot just make it as simplistic as we are trying to make it now.
Akin: But issues of internal strife remain unending in the PDP…
GOH: You can strive for anything as long as you resolve them democratically. Strife, quarrel, and conflict are normal in a political party, but the question is, how do you resolve them? Do you close the democratic door? There must be contestation where human beings are there, but how do you resolve them? You resolve them through popular vote. This is the issue. So it’s not about strife, it’s not about contestation; it’s about how you resolve them. They have to be resolved democratically.
Akin: Lack of discipline seems to be the bane of the PDP.
GOH: The National Working Committee of the PDP made a statement that it would not tolerate that, and I want to believe that the party is now more focused on discipline. By the time the party would have had its convention, and then you have leaders with stronger mandates, properly elected, not people in acting capacity, then I believe that you will see more discipline in the party.
Akin: There have been persistent calls for the opposition to put the ruling party on its toes. The Labour Party provided an alternative for the last general election. We now have the African Democratic Congress. Some chide the PDP for its failure to be a credible opposition despite having a nationwide structure, being once a ruling party.
GOH: All the political parties have their issues because the Nigerian political system has not been organised around ideology. You have individuals who have some ideological persuasion. But there is no single party, whether it is the Labour Party, PDP or APC, that you would say currently has a very clear ideological differentiation. The APC has more problems than any of these other parties that you have mentioned.
It is just that they are in power, and they have a lot of leverage to keep things at bay. But even then, now you are seeing some senators, even on the APC platform, resigning. I left the APC for PDP. So the political terrain in Nigeria is at a junction where things are being redefined. But I am in conversation with young Nigerians. Young Nigerians are looking for political leaders who have a bold plan to create jobs and rebuild the economy. They want political leaders with a very concrete plan for national security. National security and economic reconstruction are key to them. They are not interested in ADC or PDP or anything.
And I think the big media, like yours and established media, are the ones who are more concerned about this issue of political platforms and all that. I am in communication with young people, and we speak about the national economy. And sometimes I have videos that will cross several million followers. Mostly young people comment in thousands — and they speak freely. The followership of some of the big media is not up to 10,000, and they reflect mainly the views of established politicians who try to force their interests, as a conversation, on the country.
So, the young people of Nigeria, who are the franchise group, are interested in how to resolve the national economic crisis. How do we guarantee security for all Nigerians? They are not interested in PDP, the division and all that. It is the big media that is forcing that on the agenda.
Akin: The PDP convention comes up later this year. What are your expectations regarding zoning the party offices? What kind of party chairman does the PDP have?
GOH: The PDP needs those who have strong values to lead the party, and those who are also committed to the principle of inclusivity. The founding principle of the PDP is to be a platform for all shades of opinion. Whilst party offices can be zoned, you know that when it comes to elective positions, the party does not have a practice, tradition, or constitutional leeway to zone elective offices.
So, I am sure that the zoning committee that has now been established will look into the zoning of party offices. And I believe that in any region where any position is zoned, you have more than enough people who are competent enough to occupy such positions. Some names of likely persons to become the next PDP chairman have been bandied, including the likes of Jerry Ghana and Ahmed Makarfi. Where are you tilting towards?
Akin: I am aware that you are not vying to be chairman…
GOH: I ran as a presidential candidate when President Muhammadu Buhari contested in 2019. That was the last thing I ran for. I have not been running for party offices, so I would not be interested in that. But I think that if the opinion of people in our zone, which is the North Central, is anything to go by, I think North Central people in the party are tired of being chairman, over and over again. They want some other positions. And I think they have expressed that they are tired of being chairman because it has been a pretence to zone out other, more important positions, away from the North Central. From what I have heard from the stakeholders in the North Central, they don’t mind the chairman going to other zones.
Akin: You mean the North Central is looking at producing the party’s presidential candidate, and you are in the running?
GOH. Well, I think now we are in the zoning thing. So, let’s wait. After the convention, it will be a good time to come out and say I am going to run for president. It was the last thing I ran for. So, I am not going to be running for anything less if I am going to contest. I made a statement that, by the end of this year, I am going to make a formal declaration.
Akin: Talking party discipline, why is Minister of the Federal Capital Territory, Nyesom Wike, a bone in the neck of the PDP? Can’t you do without Wike as a party?
GOH: Well, you raised an issue about the issue of discipline. So, it is not just about Wike. If you mention Wike, you personalise the issue. Many other people are also having their problems. If you apply the general principle of discipline across the board, everybody will sit up. It is not just about Wike, and I think this is what the party is trying to do.
Akin: There continues to be critiques of President Bola Tinubu’s governance. What do you consider the most pertinent issues that should be addressed by the present government?
GOH: National security and economy. The economy is completely in a state of disaster. The Gross Domestic Product has contracted three times, according to World Bank records. Although the Federal Government is bandying their statistics, saying that it has only contracted by about 20 per cent. But whatever it is, Nigeria is no longer ranked as the biggest economy in Africa. We are now ranked fourth or fifth. So, you need to fix the economy.
Then, national security has deteriorated. And you can’t fix anything if you don’t, you are not on top of national security. So, this should be the President’s priority. What has happened to Nigeria’s economy is like a monumental earthquake. When GDP plummets from $574bn, which it was in 2013/2014, to something as low as it is now, it could only have been a monumental natural disaster that could have caused that in economic history. Currently, according to the World Economics, the GDP of Nigeria is $259bn.
The World Bank figures are pretty low, or lower. The Federal Government argues that its figure is $472bn. Even if you take $472bn, it’s over $100bn contraction from the 2013-2014 figures. So, it means that the past 10 years have been disastrous. Now, what is even worse is that there is no transparency about these figures. For the first time, you are having arguments. Politics is now dominating even the usage of basic economic data. So, how can you make any progress under those circumstances? At least, under President Muhammadu Buhari, they were honest enough to admit that the economy had contracted to $363bn.
But these guys are even throwing up funny, funny numbers. Under Buhari, they were honest enough to say that unemployment is now about 37 per cent. But these people are saying there is four per cent unemployment when you have unemployed people everywhere. How can you be doing propaganda with every obvious economic data? That does not show seriousness. If Nigeria were to be a parliamentary system, the Tinubu government should not have continued in office for more than one day going forward, I’m telling you.
But because we are a presidential system, where you always have a very fixed tenure, elections will come in 2027, that’s why we are even talking about what is to be. Otherwise, this government should have gone by now. How can you run a country so recklessly in two years that the economy will contract by such a magnitude? So, for me, there is nothing to talk about the Tinubu administration. What we should be talking about is examining the alternatives to Tinubu. And the alternative to Tinubu cannot be those who were part of the problem in the first instance. We are having a nice conversation with young Nigerians. They say the names they are hearing are still the same people who created the problem. They don’t want to hear these names. They are forward-looking. You cannot be talking about progress, and you are running backwards.
Akin: Are you referring to the ADC?
GOH: Not just the ADC. I had a chat with one of the young people who said, I see somebody who is going to be 80 years old and wants to be our president. I see all those people who are in their 70s. Some of them are even older than Tinubu, whom we are complaining about. So, what is all this?
Akin: But some would argue that Tinubu is the master of the game. They point to the fact that his coalition ousted an incumbent, and with him holding the reins of power, it would be difficult to oust him.
GOH: That is their perspective. The President of Zambia, Hakainde Hichilema, ousted the ruling party. Incumbent governments have been defeated many times in the Ivory Coast, in Ghana, among others. So, there is no big deal about it. He was not the one who ousted an incumbent. It was Muhammadu Buhari, not Tinubu. So, don’t give that credit to him. In the last election, he could not deliver the vote of his own Lagos State. So, don’t give him that credit. He was bailed out by the votes of the Buharists from Northern Nigeria in the last election. He struggled in the South-West; he struggled in the whole South. He struggled in his base. The Buharists bailed him; in fact, they made his presidency. So, don’t give him too much.
Akin: There is a question in the political arena about who inherits Buhari’s typical 12 million votes. Don’t you think President Tinubu, being the incumbent, is in good standing to garner a large chunk of those votes?
GOH: Well, I think that those so-called 12 million votes will now go to different places. With due respect, the end of Buhari is the end of an era. The tactics of the Buharists are they weaponise religion in Northern Nigeria. Now, that tactic has come to its end. The reality in Northern Nigeria of poverty everywhere shows that Buhari did not perform when he was in office. The economy contracted; corruption soared.
So, all those myths have now exploded. You saw the protest over the economic condition in Nigeria –#EndBadGovernance protest. It was very severe in Northern Nigeria. You saw them waving the flag of Russia. They were not waving an ISIS flag, and they were not shouting religious slogans. They were giving a tactical, ideological response to a question of survival. The North is not the North of five years ago or two years ago. Things are changing.
What is going to determine how people vote in the North is economics. It’s not the sentiment which had been created through the weaponisation of religion by the Buharists when Buhari came into politics. All that now has collapsed and ended. People of Northern Nigeria, just like people of Southern Nigeria, want a better country.
They want a secure, united country and a country where people can live truly, have legitimate employment, not by handouts, bailouts and palliatives.
Akin: The likes of Hakeem Baba Ahmed have mentioned that the North is angry with Tinubu. You also belong to the North. Is that assertion about the North regarding Tinubu true?
GOH: The North is not monolithic anymore, just like the South is not monolithic. All this blanket categorisation has given way to new political and economic realities. Nobody can sit and speak for the North. The various states of the North will speak for themselves. And the people of Northern Nigeria will speak with their votes based on their peculiar realities. The reality of Benue is not the reality of Kano.
The reality of Kano is not the reality of Jigawa. You have to win the states by their reality, and you need to connect with the realities of the people, local government by local government, constituency by constituency. There is no blanket categorisation. Likewise, in the South, there is nothing like it. So, it’s not just the opposition that is trying to create that narrative of the North. Even those who are trying to create a Southern narrative in the south will soon be surprised that the APC will fail woefully in Lagos. We even saw it in all the intra-party crises of the APC in the Lagos Assembly. The president was backing a speaker who could only muster three legislators supporting him. And they had to bring a lot of pressure to kick out the woman who had more support. So, if the president cannot get more than three legislators in his assembly in Lagos, I don’t understand what you mean by saying he is a strategist.
Akin: What do you make of the argument that only a presidential candidate from the South can defeat Tinubu in the 2027 election?
GOH: The Nigerian electorate is not interested in a Southern or Northern candidate. They want a competent person who will deliver national security and the economy. And it is only politicians who have no agenda to truly develop Nigeria that are promoting this conversation. We just analysed what happened in the last election.
So, Tinubu was not supported in the South. He was supported there in the North. So, it depends on your so-called Southern candidate. You bring somebody who has no record of performance, who was a failure, or who has no programme to address the major concerns of Nigerian people today, which are the economy and national security. It’s still going to be the same result. I don’t think the next election should be about which Southern candidate or Northern candidate can defeat Tinubu. But it should be about making a new Nigeria – a Nigeria that works for all Nigerians, a Nigeria that will provide employment for millions of unemployed youths, not palliative, a Nigeria that will secure its people, a Nigeria where people can take for granted basic access to health facilities.
That is the Nigeria that Nigerian people want. Nobody is interested in whether it’s going to be a Northerner, Southerner, Muslim or Christian. People are tired of those shenanigans. They want to truly move forward. So let’s help the country move forward, even in the media, by formulating the correct question and setting the agenda correctly. The media must pull back from being a megaphone for confused political elites who have destroyed the country. There should be a true media for where Nigeria should be, as it was during the struggle for independence.
The media aligned with the agenda of the nationalists to create a new Nigeria, an independent Nigeria. While we’re struggling for democracy, the media is aligned with the struggle for democracy. Now we need to create a new Nigeria, a Nigeria that works for all, that should be the conversation, that should be the agenda that the media is setting.
Akin: We continue to crave for a free and fair election. As we move towards the 2027 election, what baffles you the most about our electoral system?
GOH: We started talking about the electoral reform immediately after the 2003 election. It does not appear to me that the present government is interested in such a conversation about organising a free and fair election. People who are even quarrelling with the economic data on the GDP, how can they be interested in a credible election? These are people whose academic records are even controversial. Let’s start with that. But the good news is that, when you have a tactic or a strategy that everybody knows what it is two years before implementation, there is nothing strategic or tactical about it. Everybody is clear that all that the current APC government wants to do is to secure a re-election, no matter the means and nobody is going to allow them to rig the election.
And they are trying to plot the map from now, coerce, blackmail some governors to defect to their party and then parade all these as we have captured Akwa Ibom, we have captured that state and all that. I just told you the story of what happened on June 8th 1998. Before then, the United Nigeria Congress Party, Congress for National Consensus, Grassroot Democracy Movement, Democratic Party of Nigeria, National Centre Party of Nigeria and CNC, all these parties claimed they had adopted General Sani Abacha. They were already creating a scenario to make him an unopposed president. Abacha had money; he had access to the Central Bank of Nigeria.
He could spend anything. He was controlling the National Electoral Commission of Nigeria. And then they were going with adverts that he is the only one that the cap fits. But there was one gentleman – a former inspector of police to the Murtala administration, M. D. Yusuf – and he was saying, I’m a member of the GDM, I’m still going to press on, I’m still going to challenge Abacha at the GDM national convention.
So, I am not discouraged by all those manoeuvres like we will do this, do that, the election is wrapped up, we were there during Abacha, and the question is, Abacha was never able to implement those dreams because people knew where he was going quite ahead. So the whole world knows that all that Tinubu wants to do is to fix the result in 2027, and that God who made it impossible for Abacha is still alive; he is on the throne.
(@Copyright Punch Newspaper of 18th August 2025
