Nigeria Content Online

Former Special
Adviser to President Obasanjo on Political Matters, Akin Osuntokun, is
one of the promoters of the reform group within the PDP. He speaks on
the ongoing debate about the zoning arrangement within the party and
the activities of the reform group

Need for electoral reform ahead 2011 elections

Our march to
democracy since 1999 has not been bad, though there are some hitches
and hiccups here and there. One thing the National Assembly should do
as part of the electoral reform process is to insert in the
constitution the need for the president to transmit a letter to his
Vice in case of impairment or incapacitation. When this is done, the
kind of experience we faced when the late president Umaru Musa Yar’adua
was sick and had to go to Saudi-Arabia and then came back before he
died will not arise. But so far, we have not done badly since 1999.
Definitely we would have gone very far if some mistakes were not made
in the past which truncated democracy and paved the way for the
military to continue their stay in the office.

The sudden emergence of the PDP reform

It is
self-explanatory, even at the level of individuals. If you discover
that you need to take some medication to improve something in your body
or system, you are free to do it. But to come to your question, there
is nobody in the PDP today who does not know that the party needs
internal democracy. The overbearing influence on the party, especially
from the Governors Forum, is something that members are worried about.
We are looking for a situation where imposition of candidates into any
elective position is totally abolished. Reform is not a new thing and
even in Britain’s Conservative Party, they have embraced the concept of
reforms. It is meant to bring an improvement into the party so that the
dreams and visions of the founding fathers will not be lost.

The controversy over the zoning agreement within the PDP

What happened was
that a caucus within the party met and discussed the issue of zoning,
but it was not formalized and is not binding .The decision to zone the
presidency to the south in 1999 was to assuage the feelings of the
people, especially in the south west as a result of the annulment of
the June 12,1992 election. It was because there was no binding
arrangement about this that made people like the late Abubakar Rimi to
contest the 1999 and 2003 presidential elections.

And now that the
current president is there and is duly qualified, especially as the
region (south -south) he represents has never produced a president,
either through the military or civilian, he should be given the chance.
This will ensure smooth relationship among the various ethnic divides
in the country. Reports that former president Obasanjo’s men dominated
last PDP reform meeting Look, I am 48 years old. There are some who are
50 years and above who came there for the meeting. I have my own
independent mind.

It was just sheer
blackmail and they did that to attack the current president. People are
just using the media to blackmail others and unfortunately, the press
is yielding cheaply into their hands. Nobody at that meeting, to the
best of my knowledge, took permission from Obasanjo to be there. It was
purely in the interest of the party and nobody was a target.

Advice for the president regarding free and fair elections

He has said that in
many fora that free and fair elections shall be his priority. There
will even be greater burden on him if he decides to run because people
will now use that to test his sincerity. There is no doubt that the
country needs free and fair elections for the system to be viable and
strong politically and economically.