I knew PDP was a dying party – Shaibu, Edo ex-dep gov

•‘I’m mobilising past NANS leaders for Tinubu’

By Johnbosco Agbakwuru

Rt. Hon. Philip Shaibu, a former deputy governor of Edo State, is currently the Director-General of the National Institute for Sports. In this interview, Shaibu talks about the hardship in the country and why it’s necessary. He attributes President Bola Tinubu’s administrative style as the reason for the gale of defections to the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) and why the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) is ‘dying’. He also gives reason why he is mobilizing past leaders of the National Association of Nigerian Students (NANS), among other things in the polity. Excerpts:

2027 is fast approaching. Do you think APC has any chance, bearing in mind the hardship in the country?

Well, first, I will tell you: if it is a yes-or-no question, I will say yes, and that is it. But I will not stop at just saying yes; I’ll give you reasons why. I will speak from a sports perspective. President Bola Ahmed Tinubu came in as President of Nigeria, and he decided to make sports one of his pillars. He made serious, deliberate appointments in the sports circle. He started with the Sports Commission. The budget of the Sports Commission was enhanced to guarantee proper funding. And you can see today that our sports sector is gradually wearing a new look, with a lot of reforms taking place. Now, he appointed me as the DG of NIS, and he asked us to turn NIS into a center of excellence within six months of appointing me. One thing you must give to the President: he knows where to get people to do certain jobs. And those jobs, you see them going well. Within six months, after 52 years, we have revamped the curriculum of NIS. After 52 years, we have left Lagos and Abuja. We are now in all six geo-political zones. The multiplier effect of that is that the over 500,000 gaps we have in coaching are being filled now. These are not physical things you can lay your hands on, but as we move on, these coaches that you are seeing—these elite athletes that you are saying will stabilize Nigerian blood pressure when we have competitions—we may not have to die or have high blood pressure because of that. And beyond that, he uses sports as a means of unity, diversification, and also engaging young men and women. So that is in sports.

When you come to regular hardships, like you say—regular issues, maybe hunger and the rest—I can tell you no reform that you undergo will go without hardship. No reform. Even in NIS, for us to get to where we are today, there was a lot of pain that we had to go through to achieve where we have reached. So, in a nutshell, the President has come to help solidify a foundation that is already cracking. And for that foundation to be solidified, there will be some knocks; there will be some areas that are already cracked that you need to open up and put proper—maybe 25 mm, if there’s anything like 25 mm iron and remixed cement—that will make that thing solidify. For you to get to that level of cracking, those walls that are already broken now join together to have a solid foundation. Obviously, you see the pains—that is the pain we are having now. But I can tell you that those pains are gradually fading off. In the second term, Mr. President, you will see that what he has done in the first term is lay that foundation, that cracking of the walls that is making Nigerians shake. And now, putting a solid foundation—from the second term, when he will now start putting the blocks to build the skyscraper that we all expect—it will be different. There are pains, but those pains—you cannot expect to enjoy when a system has been destroyed for decades, and somebody has come to say, “Look, these cracked walls—we need to fix it.” And to fix that wall, if you just attack only that area of crack, you are wasting time. You expand it; you break some things; some pillars have to be removed, and new pillars put in place. That act of fixing those pillars—destroying the existing walls to make it solid—is the pain we are going through.

What will the APC be campaigning with? What will they be presenting as their achievements?

The President has actually made Nigeria’s economy look like what it is. We had a fake economy. We had been managing an economy that was destroyed and that did not exist. The President has come to say, “Look, let’s be real. Let’s be real.” For instance, you and I know that the first statement the President made during his inauguration, when he said “subsidy is gone”—even you, I’m sure, even me—some of us were clamoring that these new portfolio people that now exist, they don’t have offices, no physical building as office, but they are now billionaires in dollars and in naira, just for what? Subsidy that was not existing—he removed it. State governments now have more funds. Locals have more funds, unlike before. So, I listened to the President recently; he charged all of us in authority—governors and others—and said, “Look, I have been able to get more money to you; go and do your work.” My brother, Nigeria is changing. The President is actually replicating what he did in Lagos when he started in Lagos. The same way people were shouting “pain, pain”—that’s the same way Nigerians are shouting “pain.” But I’m telling you, what will come after this thing is sweetness, and I can testify to that. The President means well. At least in sports, I’m here. If I have to speak about where I am here, and I’m seeing deliberate effort and commitment to change this.

I think what Nigerians should be talking about now is that those who have been appointed to do this work should wake up to their responsibilities. They have been given the saddle to do certain things, and they have been given the direction; they should think out of the box to do it. But as far as the collectivity is concerned, I know there are hardships, but these hardships are hardships that normally follow a system that has been destroyed, and somebody is about to fix it. If I say there’s no hardship, I am being unfair to Nigerians—even the President has said it many times—but we just need to be a little bit patient, and that patience is already yielding results.

Some people have accused the President of trying to turn Nigeria into a one-party state. What’s your take on that?

One-party state? Nigeria cannot be a one-party state, because if you check the number of political parties that are registered, it’s not only one party that is registered. ‘Jagaban’ has brought his Jagaban political acumen to APC, and you cannot blame him for that. Others had the opportunity; they did not use it. So, if the man that understands politics has come to now play politics, let others also go and learn the act of playing politics. He is fighting for his own party. 

He has brought his own innovation on how to make his party bigger. PDP was in this country. They were in charge, and they even prided themselves as the biggest party in Africa, and for decades upon decades, they existed. But what happened to PDP? PDP did not activate inclusiveness like the President is doing now. What PDP did was deregistering people. They became big, and they started deregistering people, and those people that they were deregistering decided to become opposition and decided to form their own party. You remember the era of New PDP. Some governors had to even form a New PDP. But this President did not do that. This President, instead of doing what they did, decided to make APC bigger by giving incentives. For instance, the subsidy removal increased our revenue. This money is not given to only APC governors. He gave this money to all the states. He did not say, “This is my party; this state is my state, the APC state, or PDP state.” All the states got equal share, intervention funds—all the states. And he was doing many things for that. Even before Enugu joined us, he went and made major statements in Enugu. He went to Adamawa; he did not say it’s an opposition party—he made positive statements about that. So, this President is a president that understands politics and understands inclusiveness. He does not believe in deregistering and reducing people. You can see some of the appointments he made recently—some people that were critical about him, that were negatively critical about him. He did not say, because they were negatively critical about him, they cannot breathe. Instead, he brought them to come and also join; those criticisms that they did—let them come and bring their expertise in how to make Nigeria better. So, when you have a president that everything he thinks about is inclusivity, his party will be the biggest in any country. So, President Bola Ahmed Tinubu is one of—apart from Umaru Yar’Adua and Goodluck Jonathan—since 1999, the only politician president that we have. Don’t also forget that this President, among the three of them that are traditional politicians, he is an activist politician. He is the only activist politician among the three that we can call natural politicians.

Who are the three you’re talking about?

Late President Umaru Yar’Adua and President Goodluck Jonathan. But what stands him out from them is that he is a political activist.

The gale of defection—do you think it is healthy for democracy?

It’s healthy because even during PDP, there were defections. People were joining PDP. Don’t forget: what drives a party and what drives ambition is where your interest is. And that is why in politics they say there are no permanent enemies, but there are permanent interests. And when interests meet interests, obviously defection will be the order of the day. So, the issue of defection—maybe, for instance, I had a sojourn in PDP for three years. What led to that? And when I was in PDP for three years that I was there, I saw a party that was going to die, and I made a bold statement. I said it—not now that it’s dead that I’m saying this; I said it that time. And I even said it in Edo that if you don’t take care, because I’ve discovered that there is no internal democracy, and the system is not democratic—even when the party is democratic in its slogan—there is no internal democratic system at play. This party is moving towards collapse. And today, some of them that presided over not allowing internal democracy and democratic tenets to participate have also defected. So, for me, defection is part of politics, but defection is driven by interest. So, when interests meet interests, defection is the order of the day.

I do know that you contested the governorship primaries in Edo State before, and the President has told people who are interested in contesting elections in 2027 to resign. Are you still interested in contesting an election in 2027?

I am still very young, and by the grace of God, I am driven by my people’s needs, and I’m driven also by what I think I can contribute to society. As far as 2027 is concerned, I’m not contesting any election for the 2027 election. I don’t know after 2027, but for now, my project is President Bola Ahmed Tinubu. My second project in 2027 is President Bola Ahmed Tinubu. My third project in 2027 again is President Bola Ahmed Tinubu. And if you watch—if you check my results—the President won without my ward in the last election, my unit, my ward, my area. Now I am back to APC, so the results of my area—from unit to local government—will reflect that. So, I got certain votes for Vice President Atiku Abubakar that time in my area. Now I am working for President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, so my interest now is to double that result that I got against him—it is now to get it doubled for him. So, the only election that I have that I’m putting everything into is to make sure that I double the numbers for President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, as far as the 2027 election is concerned.

Will it be a landslide?

When I say I’m doubling, if there’s any word beyond landslide, that is what he’s going to get. And this is my personal project. I don’t know what target the President will give me, but on my own, I’ve given myself a target. So, anybody that is in my structure in Edo, outside Edo—all my student activists—my tentacles are not just in Edo State. Don’t forget: I was the president—one of the most progressive presidents of the National Association of Nigerian Students (NANS). And we have structures all over the country. Most of us in that structure are spread across all—in business, in the oil industry, in politics—we are all over. And I’ve been able to carry their flag. I’ve been able to be in public service without disgracing them, and some of them still look up to me. So, beyond my state, my target is to convince all my friends and well-wishers—and some of them that were not even in NANS, that I meet on the street, and they say, “You are Shaibu,” and I say yes, “So please, keep the good work going. We are behind you.” So, all those ones that have been meeting me on the street telling me “we are behind you”—all of them, by the grace of God, I will be urging them. When the time comes for campaigns, I will be reaching out to them to make sure that the foundation builder is given a second term to come and now build on the foundation that he has been able to solidify. And that’s President Bola Ahmed Tinubu

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