Straight-talking and occasionally combative, Segun Sowunmi comes across as the new face of leadership in the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP). He was the spokesman for the Atiku Abubakar presidential campaign council in the 2019 election. But the former Ogun State governorship aspirant has not had it his way no matter the public acceptance of his persona.

A loyal member of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP),  Otunba, as he’s fondly called, experienced the rough side of the political landscape when he failed to clinch the PDP governorship ticket in Ogun State for the 2023 election. The party was polarized and he had to soft-pedal in a country where politics is more about who possesses the financial war chest.

But he has remained undaunted and saw that experience as passing through the crucible of political firmament. Lately, Sowunmi launched an alternative group he said would serve as a grand opposition not only to the government controlled by the All Progressives Congress (APC) but to the PDP.

 Call it opposition within the opposition, Sowunmi did not lay claim to puritanism but that PDP needs to reform before going for any election if it wants to win. He also suggests that  Peter Obi needs to return to the PDP and that Atiku should undertake deep retrospection and introspection and allow the former Anambra State Governor to get the party’s ticket.

He believes Obi can defeat President Bola Tinubu in 2027.

In this interview with Isuma Mark of THE WHISTLER, Showumi bared his mind on the failures of the PDP, why Peter Obi needs the PDP to win the presidential election, and why Atiku should take the back seat.

Excerpts…

You Just Set Up A Group Despite Being In PDP, What Is This All About?

Well, the truth of the matter is that I’ve been a very consistent PDP man for years. Even when PDP was in government, I wasn’t really in government.

I was just in PDP because democracy takes time to build. I get people’s interest, but interest and all of that comes second to me. What comes first is whether we are making progress collectively as a people.

I believe that bread is not for the strong man, nor the race for the swift, but that a force above us which we call God, who is God, is the one that makes things happen. So, I’ve never really been about me.

And you’ll notice that after the PDP lost in 2015, I doubted and challenged anybody who defended the party more than me. I don’t think so. Others join me. They leave me. I’m still here. Some new ones join. They leave me. I’m still here.

So, what I have now seen with everything going on; one of the great disruptions that even makes it clear to see is the Peter Obi movement. The effort he made, the limitations, and even some of the crises that they had to contend with.

The Wike scenario in PDP, what led to it, the challenges I am seeing with the ruling party, and the limitation of some of its challenges. So all of this put together is what made me say that, okay, we now have to start thinking differently. People are not even turning up to vote anymore.

They don’t show up on election day. The ones that show up want to be paid to vote. Something is fundamentally wrong.

And to correct it, you need to have a dialogue that can go around the whole country. And so I thought, okay, let us create a pan-national orientation movement, which I christened the alternative. The alternative in the sense that it can look at government policies and offer the ones they agree with, they can say they agree.

The ones they don’t agree with, they can say they don’t agree, and why? Even the ones they agree with can say, these are the safety gaps we want to see in the policy. And they can also look at the opposition parties themselves and tell them, we don’t agree with this, you need to change this, you need to change that.

So, it will be a big platform that can allow anybody who is in our country, or a lover of our country, to use it as a basis for pushing the country in the right direction.

I didn’t want us to be opposition people who just pull the country down, who shame their country, who make it difficult for it to listen to each other, who become too tribal, and increase tribal hatred and all of that. So, these are the things we are doing. But it’s not a new party, and it’s not intended like that.

It’s just to make sure that we can look for a platform to look for the best of us so that the best of us can serve the rest of us. And we can save ourselves from a fait accompli of political parties who just do whatever they like and force the people to a fait accompli.

And I’m hopeful that all Nigerians will embrace it. They have embraced it very well. I’m even shocked at the level of excitement and support that people have.

People are even asking, is it going to be a political party? I’m the one telling them no. It doesn’t have to be. All we need to do is look for Nigerians that we believe in, that can do well for our people, and use them.

If we can get space for them in the party, it will be good. If we cannot get space for them at the party, get space for them anywhere. Because ultimately we need to make sure that good people are in charge of us.

And then when they get there, we can continue to push them in the right direction, put their feet to the fire, argue with them, correct them, scream at them, and shout at them without necessarily destroying the country.

So these are the kinds of things that I have in mind when I keep saying we need a national opposition movement. And by the grace of God Almighty, I have been able to bring it to life.

And let me pray and hope that the Lord lets it flourish so that Nigeria’s democracy can be better for all of us.

But You’re Still A Member Of The PDP?

Oh, fully. I’m even running for national chairman of PDP.

How Is This Being Looked At From The Leadership Of The Party? When Should You Have Run This Trom The PDP?

 The truth of the matter is that even the leadership of the party knows that I’m a very loyal PDP man. And being a loyal PDP man, I must accept that the organs of the party have the liberty to have a view on things of their own. For instance, most of the issues of the ruling party, they never engaged them. I’ve been engaging them. Now I want to engage them as the leader of an alternative point of view. So the PDP can get an advantage if they want.

And if they don’t want to, they can do whatever they like. But my position is that even the PDP itself is not spared from our criticism as before when we were speaking about PDP, and then we’ll be defending even the indefensible.

What’s the point? Even if a political party is 27 years old, and will not reform itself, why will a political party be working against its interest? What should constitute the interest of a political party? A political party has to reform itself so that it is outstanding, the people who are standing for the party must be potential presidents in the making, and they must be potential governors in the making.

They must be potential ministers in the making. You cannot reduce a political party to just the interest of one individual. And one individual’s interest must not destroy a political party, anyhow you look at it.

So, this is how I see it. And it can allow me not to annoy or offend PDP that I did this. Because the alternative would have been to say, I’m criticizing PDP, and yet I’m defending PDP.

You know, it doesn’t make sense. We need a platform to criticize PDP, to criticize APC, to criticize the ruling party, to look at the issues well, or are you telling me that you Nigerians are happy with the way things are?

Why should somebody win an election today, and six months after you hate him, and start liking the one you said you didn’t like yesterday?

You didn’t like Olusegun Obasanjo, but you liked Musa Yar’adua.  You didn’t like Yar’adua but you liked Obasanjo. You didn’t like Yar’adua but you liked Goodluck Jonathan. You didn’t like Jonathan but you liked Muhammadu Buhari.

You didn’t like Buhari but you liked Jonathan. You didn’t like Buhari but you liked Bola Tinubu. You didn’t like Tinubu but you liked Buhari. Do you understand? When we are not mad people, there has to be a way of saying enough.

Let’s do it a different way, and that’s what I’m trying to offer us. And the conversation will go down to the grassroots. We’ll use the radio a lot, because when they don’t even have lights, how many of them even watch television?

We’ll use blogs a lot. We’ll use local and rural communication platforms a lot, and we’ll create voices in their locality who will understand the message and carry the message on. It doesn’t belong to me.

You Are Regarded As Atiku Man. Are You fronting for Atiku?

I was  Atiku’s spokesperson in 2019. I was Atiku’s main spokesperson in 2019, and I spoke about his candidates to life. As far as I was concerned, he joked about it in 2023. They were dancing and playing.

Are You No Longer Together?

No, no, no. I mean, Atiku has not told me he’s running for anything. Like I said to people, I’ve asked him two times, he has not said, and I don’t think anybody should force anybody to take a difficult responsibility. In any case, the political party cannot be about Atiku. He’s an old man.

It can’t always be about him. The party, yes, is allowed as a person to, if he’s interested, if he makes up his mind, tell us. We’ll review it along the lines of others.

I hate anybody who creates a messiah complex. That’s one of the reasons I have against the people following Peter Obi. You create a messiah out of normal human beings who have not done anything to end it.

If Peter was a messiah, why is Anambra not better than it is? So, if you have not been able to do anything special, I don’t mind that you like him, and I like him too, and I don’t mind him doing well, but I don’t like the concept of a messiah. I will not have it from Peter, and not from Atiku.

I’m just saying that it’s the same thing with them. I mean, we’re together to the extent that he’s a Nigerian who has not told me he’s running. I’ve asked him. It should have been a different thing if he had told me.

Even if I asked Atiku, I would have asked him some tough questions. They went to the last election all of them shouting the same policy.

Am I supposed to be angry with Tinubu because he’s implementing their policy? There’s no difference. They said the same thing. They may say they would have done it differently, but that’s not important.

The important thing is that you said, I’m going to build a house on this land. You did not tell us what type of house you are building. Somebody has come and is building a house on that land, and you’re telling us it’s too tall, too short, too fat. I don’t have time for that. 

Are You Indirectly Saying, If Atiku Were To Engage You And Others…

Why do you think I shouldn’t be the presidential candidate instead of Atiku? Why do you think that we don’t need young people in leadership? Why do you think the young people that are in the country don’t have a right to say, Mr. Atiku, you have campaigned and contested too many times? Why do you think we don’t need that? Are we going to design a political party that is going to be giving tickets to a candidate all the time?

And I’m not saying we shouldn’t give him, but I’m just saying that doesn’t make everything about individuals. It’s the same mistake the party is making.

You are shouting, Wike, Wike, Wike, we can’t, Wike, as if you don’t have 12 governors. What are they doing? The same thing you are doing, you are shouting, Damagum, Damagum, Damagum, as if you don’t have 18 or 19 National Working Committee members. What are the others doing? I don’t believe in that.

I believe that, yes, somebody can be leading as a first among the equals but he’s not the totality of what we are. If Mr. Atiku dropped dead. No, we’re not going to continue our country?

Where is Awo? Where is Tafawa Balewa? Great men have died, Nigeria is still going on, then you’ve been shouting and screaming, why? For anybody to say, I want to be president, the law allows you to say, but we are not beholden to say, because you said you want to be president, that means nobody else can be president. And you can present yourself, and you can lose. After all, you’ve lost a few times.

And if your policies are the policies of your rival, if you said the same thing, for me, it’s neither here nor there. You said you are going to devalue the currency, he’s devalued it. You said you are going to remove the subsidy, he has removed it.

You said you are going to take pensions to fund the education, private sector, he’s doing it. What’s the difference? I don’t agree with those policies. Don’t get me wrong, I’m just saying, all of them campaigned on the same thing. Peter, in terms of the substance of what he’s saying, he’s not saying anything.

What Do You Think He’s Saying Wrongly?

He’s not saying anything, that’s the problem. He’s shouting, from production to consumption, what does that even mean? He’s saying domesticated production. What does that mean? What does that mean? He was governor in Anambra, how many productions did he domesticate? You can say, I’m going to do consumption to production, I hear you.

Practical step, what does it mean? You are going to come and beat people in their houses. You are going to use chains to drag them to where? You will come and say, yeah, Niger States, the land of Niger is more than the combined land of Netherlands and Peru, yes. How are you going to force them to farm? You are going to stimulate them, what do you think the governor is doing now?

So what I’m saying is that these guys are not saying anything spectacular, they are just harvesting the anger of the citizens.

Nigerians are angry because Nigerians are angry. Nigerians are feeling frustrated that they have not been well-served and that is the only thing, that is the only reason why they will not say they are experts. Yes, they’ve had about two years or one year plus before the election.

Then they had some time, four years because he was the vice presidential candidate in 2019. Then the election has been over now for two years. We have been listening to him for close to two years.

We have still not been able to find concrete policy direction that he is going to say he is going to do. So are we going to say, because of that Peter Obi is the only person who is going to run the country?

He has not even shown us that he knows how to work in a team. Peter Obi has not even demonstrated that he understands how to be a team player.

All of the time, all of the off-season elections they’ve done from his party, I’ve not seen him invest himself the way he ought to. And they’ve not done well. So if he has that much obedience, why are they not putting in for his party? And now, he’s jumping here, jumping there.

Yes, I know he went to visit Atiku to go and deliver a lecture. What does that mean? What did he even say there? Okay, then he wants to combine with Atiku to do what? Like we didn’t try that in 2019.

If That Were To Be The Case Again In 2027 If The PDP Allows That…

Listen, if Peter wants to be a member of our party, he should come back to the party. If he returns to the party and that ticket emerges… No, if Peter comes to the party, then I feel that the party can consider giving Peter the ticket.

Not Atiku?

You don’t understand. The way we run politics, you first of all have to go and look for tickets and primaries.

The South East has never been given tickets in PDP. They can be given the tickets. That nonsense that people are saying, if we give Peter the ticket, he can’t win.

I don’t understand that. Nobody can win alone. We just need to pair him with the good material from the North and they can go and try and win.

Under a strong platform, he will win or he will do so well, it will be clear that he won. But if you are insisting that you are going to reduce the role of Nigeria to Peter and Atiku, what’s the meaning of that? What about me? What if I want to be president? What about other people? Or is this only about them? They have not said it.

Atiku has been quite kind in terms of policy. And he was even the first person to bring out his policy ideas. So in another way, we can even say they are copying him. But the point is that all of them are saying the same thing.

In 2019, Atiku was the first to bring out his policy documents. In 2023, Atiku was the first to bring out his documents. He has been doing a lot of donkey work, a lot of hard work.

But the fact is that everybody is saying the same thing. And Atiku himself has to understand that there is no gain in you being an obstacle to the same democracy you say you want to deepen. You must be able to see clearly.

Shall a leader not get to a point and ask himself that over the years I have been calling everybody the obstacle, but am I the obstacle? That is the kind of thing we want to do with the alternative.

Atiku Has Said If PDP Decides To Allow Peter Obi To Get The Ticket, He Would Support…

Then Peter Obi should get back to the party and try to win the primary. Simple.

In Other Words, If That Happens, Will You Support The PDP Ticket?

Even now I can still support Peter.

I only want us to be sure that we are not going to be frustrated with another president who will not do it. That is why I want us to discuss how we do it. I am not interested in your production to consumption.

I am interested in your details. The details. I have been to Akwa Ibom a few times. Between Obong Victor Attah and Akpabio (Godswill), you can see what has been transformed in Akwa Ibom. What can you see in Anambra? Peter reduces governance to a size. Governance is for people with big ideas.

People of big ideas. I don’t give ‘shishi’, what will the people eat? It is okay.

This place is not for champagne, how will the people that are doing that business survive? Or do you think that the federal government will be running on the idea that when Peter is traveling, he has to be the only one that is going, will carry his bag by himself, and carry the tea by himself? What kind of nonsense is that? The government has to be large to some extent.

Let me repeat that the government has to be purposeful and all-encompassing. Not necessarily large.

Peter Obi Said He’s Against Wastefulness. So Many Officials Follow The President Overseas, Eleven Private Jets…

The presidential jet is only one. All the others are their own. 

If you imagine your village. Two of us want to visit one village. We are going there for something important. You go there like Peter; you carry your bag on your head. I come there with a retinue of quality men in my team.

We arrived together. You put your hand behind your back like a schoolboy. And I come there speaking like a leader and an intentional leader.

Who do you think the village would like to see? Who do you think they will entertain? They will entertain me. A government must sometimes go around with prestige. And the best that Peter would say he wants to do is anti-corruption.

And Peter cannot tell me he ever tried to do anti-corruption more than Buhari. And even Buhari did not succeed. So, what would Peter do with this idea of ‘I will be the only one doing everything’?

The bureaucracy of the government is even too big for such nonsense.

Surely President Tinubu Will Have Ago Again In 2027. What Do You Think The Opposition Needs To Do This Time To Be Able To Have A Chance?

First of all, the opposition political party has to understand that their first assignment is not the next election. Their first assignment is to reform their party until everybody can say wow, something great is happening here. Then the next election.

We cannot bring some of the same to the people. If we bring the same of the same, they won’t get anything.

Why Do You Think It Will Be Very Difficult To Reform The PDP?

Well, because of the PDP, a lot of the leaders in the PDP have never allowed reform.

Senator Enyinnaya Abaribe, representing Abia South Senatorial District, has called on Ndigbo to prioritise collective growth over individual success for the development of Igboland.

Abaribe made the remarks during the 2024 Annual Conference of the Nkata Ndi Inyom Igbo (NNII) held on Tuesday in Abuja.

The conference, themed “Driving Transformation Through Value Reorientation, Inclusive Leadership, and Sustainability,” was convened by former Minister of Women Affairs, Iyom Josephine Anenih, the founder and president-general of NNII. It had in attendance the Deputy Speaker of the House of Representatives, Benjamin Kalu; former Senate President, Anyim Pius Anyim; and the Emir of Kano, Muhammadu Sanusi II, among others.

Abaribe said the tendency to prioritise personal success over communal progress in Igboland has undermined the people’s unity and growth.

“We now emphasise individual success over collective progress. Before this time, at the time we were growing up, we all knew that there were some leading lights but everybody was happy, let the whole Igbo be moving. Right now, all we have is that everybody wants to stand on his own and so when we stay in silos in this way trying to be individualistic brilliant, we find that we fail collectively.

“So, when we come together politically, we find it difficult because everybody will say if not me, it shouldn’t be another person. And today, we have the rather very sad part for Ndigbo, where we seek external validation rather than self-contentment.

“And our people, instead of waiting and making sure that we’re doing things for Ala Igbo and doing this for ourselves, we want to go and look for somebody from outside to come and tell us who is our leader, who will come and point out to us who we are going to make governor, senator and so forth. That is not good for Ndigbo and this impacts our social values,” said Abaribe

He also expressed concern over a gradual shift in the values in Igboland, saying the emphasis on community and education is being overtaken by the pursuit of quick wealth.

“…Education and knowledge were the fundamental underpinnings of the Igbo person and every one of us strived. That is why even though the Yoruba got education before us and met the British and all that, we as Ndigbo overtook the whole of Nigeria between 1950 and 1960 because everybody strived for education.

“Zik (Nnamdi Azikiwe) pioneered this, he paid for people to be taken abroad to go to school and come back and develop their place. But today we find that only women want to go to school. Our young men and our youth are more interested in something called ‘Ego Mbute’. They want to get rich quickly and that has left a very very bad foundation in Igboland,” he said.

Abaribe added, “Ngigbo were known as very hospitable and generous. We used to take care of our people…this hospitality was what made us. If you come to Onyeigbo’s house, he will first bring our Nzu (chalk) to put on your hand and then bring Oji, which is the kola nut that we use to welcome guests. So, if you go to an Igbo person’s house and there’s no kola nut, know that you are not welcome. If he doesn’t have, he will plead and make it up with something else.

He, however, lamented that there’s now a conflict between the traditional Igbo values and the new phenomenon he called ‘Ego Mbute’.

Quoting the senator, “All our youths only want is to be rich, they no longer want to follow the path that takes you through hard work, striving, education and putting in your intellect to get to where you want to go.

“What everybody wants to do is take a shortcut and look for native doctors to give you the things that are going to make you rich. That’s why I said I’m going to make some uncomfortable statements for Ndigbo today. So, please forgive me.”

According to Abaribe, the situation has led to the breakdown of the once thriving ‘Nwa Boi’ apprenticeship system which served as a vital tool for economic empowerment and community building in Igboland.

“This our Nwa Boi system which everyone knows has been the biggest incubator of entrepreneurship in the world and was even studied by Havard to understand how we create so many very wealthy people using this Nwa Boi system,” he stated.

“Not many of our youths now want to gbaala boi. What they want to do is to do a shortcut. They stay with their master and in a short while, they steal their master’s money and run away. They don’t want to wait so that they earn the course and be given their pay off which would set them up because, for us, the Nwa Boi system, none of the people who are invested in it or who do it are afraid of creating another millionaire. They are already millionaires and want to create and they mind if you are the person.

“Today, we now have the twin evil. First is the young men no longer being faithful to their masters and also for some masters, who when the time comes for them to settle their progenies, look for means and avenues of not to do what is already contracted.”

In his view, there’s a need to deemphasise personal achievements which he said have fragmented the traditional Igbo communal spirit.

“We have to reconcile our values so that we can sustain the development of Ala Igbo. First, we must balance individual success with community well-being. Second, we must go back to the old values of education, we go back to where we were, where we had the first vice-chancellor, Eni Njoku, and all the great people in the past who were making waves in Nigeria through education.

“We must also remember to be humble. Our traditional values have degenerated to such an extent that all that we want to know is big titles like Onwa na etiri ora. Things that only mean vanity and not for community. We must go back to having respect for our leadership and elders.”

Other speakers at the event were former Senate President, Anyim Pius Anyim, and Muhammadu Sanusi II, the Emir of Kano.

Anyim argued that Nigeria’s problems stemmed from the breakdown of the people’s belief system and that without commitment to justice and fairness, no amount of value or policy can bring about lasting change.

“Any society that does not promote Justice and fairness will neither have peace nor progress and what this means is that there must be a moral curve of every society from which values derive.

“I think the problem with us today, both in our families, in our nation and in our tribes, is that that moral curve has been broken and so the values cannot stand.

“Whether we like it or not, the problem of Nigeria today is the fact that unless we return to what is fair and just to all, there is no amount of value that will stand and there is no amount of peace you will achieve,” he said.

On his part, Emir Sanusi spoke on women’s role in developing society and the need to prioritise their needs and well-being.

“In my days in the central bank, we declared 2012 the year of women in banking and pushed through policies or compelled banks to make sure at least 50% of new recruits were females, to make at least 40% of senior management female and to make a least 30% of the board female.

“We started this in 2012 and I think the result is that by last year we now had at least 9 female bank CEO’s in this country, And the banking industry has the highest number of female directors on the Nigerian stock exchange. I said this because the woman holds the key to development and as the UN Secretary-General Advocate for SDGs, I’ve always said that if we’re looking for a single silver bullet that goes through most, not all, of the problems that we are facing in development, it is to educate the girl child.

“And you can think of all the issues, starting from antenatal care, malnutrition, lack of immunization out of school children, and child marriage – all of those issues are addressed simply by providing the infrastructure and the support for the girl child to be educated up to the age of 18 to 20.

“Once you have that, it has such a wide intergenerational impact that the numbers that we worried about – infant mortality, maternal mortality, out-of-school children, drug addiction, even poverty, all of those numbers simply crush. Because all we keep you in this country with these statistics, I was in the Central Bank and I saw these statistics, is that we are being fed with numbers after the fact every day.

“Today I was reading the numbers of malnutrition in Kano. Kano State now accounts for more than 10% of the malnutrition burden in the country and every year you tell me this is the number of stunted children and this is the number of wasted children but the question is, [why do] we wait for the children to be stunted and wasted and then we count them? Where are we when the women got pregnant? When she needed nutrition support, where were we when that baby was born? When he needed nutrition? The baby meets the government at the age of 6, when he enters primary school by which time it is too late.

“So, until we begin to look at the women as the centre point for development and build our policies around women, we will never address these issues. Babies are born in villages, in towns, in wards.

“You need to know when a woman gets pregnant, you need to know that this woman is pregnant and what she needs and what the baby needs in those nine months and provide for that. You need to know when she’s breastfeeding and be with her. If you can do that and if you educate her enough to know what to do, you will address these issues. So, for me, I always say a country that does not recognize the pivotal role and the importance and the centrality of its women will never develop.”