You were able to maintain your office as Acting National Chairman of PDP, till your successor emerged unlike the trend in which some former chairmen of the party who lost out midway into their tenure. What was the secret of your success?

We thank God for all successes. The success was you, the media. Why do I say that? When I was the National Secretary of the party, I asked you to partner with me. You never disappointed me. One major reason that guided me apart from the guidance of God was the fact that I went along those offices with a high sense of decorum or discipline. I never allowed myself to be deceived by any other phenomena whether money or any other material consideration. I held so much with passion, the idea of integrity, fairness, equity, and honesty of purpose. Those were my guiding principles. I paid the least attention to material gains when I was in these offices.

I want to believe that these were among the things that helped us to achieve much. Also if you are fair and honest and you have vision, you will be courageous to tell anybody the truth. What people have been dodging, what people have been going around to circumvent, I say it the way it should be, no matter whose ox is gored. There was a time when some members of our NWC said the tradition is that people do not last on this chair, not only that you will not last, you will not even spend half of the time. But I think at the end of the day, people appreciated the truth and my courage. I took some positions, which to some people appeared confrontational, but to me it was saying it the way it should and not being confrontational. I had had occasions to tell some people, "you cannot do that, you have been the president or vice president of this country for some years. If you have to talk this way, then you have been deceiving Nigerians and if you are not very careful, I can send you out of this meeting." He knew that I could do it because I had done it once or twice to people they thought were untouchable. If you call someone party leader, he must be able to do that occasionally.

So, I think, the honesty of purpose, passion for being fair, gave me the courage to do such a thing. So when there was the need for a change of baton which came so suddenly, unfortunately, anyway, it came suddenly and we needed to put someone on that chair and the time to do it had not come. The party found itself almost on a dilemma and they did not mince words that the most senior person on the party should head the party, more especially when the Constitution of the party says that "when there is a vacuum in the position of the chairmanship, whosoever the chairman hands over to the national secretary". So I was asked if the chairman had handed over to me and I said yes. They said I should continue. I told them to give me at least 24 hours notice because I needed to consult and think about it.

They were surprised and we had to enter into lobbying too because that was part of politics. They said they were not giving me 24 hours and we went for a break. It was after that lobbying that I agreed to lead.

I believe it was the support of the press, people, and other eminent personalities who had seen in us elements of transparency, honesty of purpose, balance in action and passion for integrity that helped us hold sway. It is not enough to say that those who went ahead of me did not go about it with integrity or honesty of purpose, but I think, it is the way you hold or drive some of these values or virtues is what is important. Anyone of us who finds himself in position of authority tomorrow, must be upright, think about integrity which is the footprint you want to leave on that position. You must also think least about personal gain. We must think how to develop this nation. That is exactly what drove me to be humble.

Towards the end of my service there were a lot of pressures that I should continue. But I declined. We must stick to whatever we say. That is one of the cultures that I introduced in PDP. If we say we are going left, just go that left. Even if we are going to encounter some dangers, let the entire people see that we are keeping to our word. That was exactly what we did, and at the end of it PDP was good for it. If I had conceded and said ok let us play politics with it, yes I could still be there as chairman but I think one would not be as proud as he is today. And by and large it will affect the PDP; it will affect the governance.

The state of insecurity in the country seems to be getting worse. How do you think the problem can be solved?

Insecurity in the country calls for concern, not only from politicians or people in government but also from everybody. I think it has gotten to a point where we have to organise ourselves in groups and associations, and even within the family to educate ourselves about how to be extra vigilant and security conscious. Nigeria is already a very big target for attack. Therefore the issue of being careless, carefree or ignorant should be removed. We should call ourselves to order and sit down with our family and say "if you are going on the road, you should not play with any substance." It calls for education. Also it calls for leaders in Nigeria to come together in small groups, not in national conference, but at a very small group of leadership around Nigeria and proffer solutions and suggestions to government so that at the end of the day, when we are making use of these suggestions, it will be seen to be suggestions coming from everybody.

Another angle is that we should give it a religious approach. Let us talk to our religious leaders, both Christians and Muslims, to talk to God and pray for Nigeria. Also to ensure that they go to their followers and educate them more about what God says, what kind of punishment that awaits people that take lives. Quran forbids the taking away of lives of fellow human beings. It says do not take life. It did not say do not take human life, but any life, because you cannot create it. Life is sacred. They should continue to preach tirelessly about the high degree of sin that is inherent in taking lives.

On the part of the government, it is very important for government to diversify attention and pay more attention in terms of allocating funds to training our security officers to make them compliant with modern day approach of combating terrorism, because it is a different world on its own. It is not about policing or soldiering. It is about a special skill to train. Immediate after 9/11 in America, the money allocated to defence has now taken 30 per cent of the total budget of America and 73.3 per cent of that 30 per cent is used to train personnel and buy equipment for the purpose of ensuring that the insurgence of terrorism is tackled. I see no reason we cannot do that in Nigeria. We have other priorities, yes, but life first. With the little that I know about government, I know that in both the military and the police, a lot money is being released now to train our personnel in America, India, and UK. I think it should continue.

Security is a matter of concern and I think the government is taking the bull by the horn. Training is not something that you can go and buy at the shops; it has to take some time. And then the personnel will come back and you buy the equipment. If you buy the equipment now and the personnel do not know how to use it, it becomes useless. I think about 600 personnel came back before I left office and they were posted to some pressure areas like Borno and Yobe. You can see the kind of arrest and discovery they have made. I also learnt that about 200 were also posted to Kano and they have been able to achieve some feats. By and large, it was because we had taken it for granted that these people ate so deep into us before we knew it. It will also take some time before we can win the war and I know the government will win the war.

What is your view on the controversy over President Jonathan and 2015 Presidential election?

The dynamism in politics makes it to be politics. President Goodluck Jonathan about a year ago was in America and he made a statement that he was not going to contest the 2015 election. I think he made it when he was meeting with President Barack Obama. He came back and some Nigerian politicians did not take it well with him. They said, "You are a politician. You can’t take that decision alone. You have your party, you have your people". You will recall up till this moment, his party, the PDP, has never made a statement on that. This is because the party realises the dynamism in politics. That does not mean that the PDP has accepted that statement neither had they come out to say, "Yes it is true he is not contesting".

He kept quiet except recently when the polity was being heated that he is going to contest or he is not going to contest. So in order to create a balanced relationship between him and Nigerians and his party, he must react. Then he asked people to step down the debate, stressing that he does not want any discussion about 2015 now. It is distractive. I agree it is very distractive. Unfortunately with the incidences going on, is this when we should begin to think of 2015? I think we should leave that the decision with the political party to begin to do its work secretly and not making it an issue. I think the stand of Mr. President on the issue is appropriate. People should keep quiet and leave him to pay attention to governance. When the time comes, the door will be open and politicians will be let out to go and contest. For goodness sake 2015 is still some time away now. Before we start talking about 2015, it should at least be one and half years or two years from now.

What challenges did you encounter while you were in office as the Acting chairman of the PDP?

I had a lot of challenges when I was in office. But to the glory of God, many of them were surmountable. One of the challenges was to make the PDP members obey the rules they themselves made as a result of the population. When the PDP tells you it is the largest party in Africa, it is not for nothing.

Because of the population of PDP, it becomes difficult because we are governing human beings. It becomes difficult to get everybody to agree to obey all the regulations and directives.

When you talk about internal democracy, some of us who are inside know what we are talking about. You are talking about internal democracy where one person speaks out and everybody rushes at it. It does not happen in PDP. We sit down, we argue. Whether you are president or former president, immediately it is party politics we are discussing, everybody is on the same level. PDP is a leveler. It is leveler because when we come together, we discuss. Everybody is the same. And we tell ourselves the truth and when we step out, everybody knows his or her level.

We maintain discipline but not that we dish out orders. The challenge of overall internal democracy was one of the greatest ones that I faced. We were able to tell governors, sit down; you are a governor and do your job as a governor. We were able to tell the senators, you are a senator, go and do your job as a senator. As far as we are concerned we scored very high.

Two, as large as the population of PDP was, we brought in the PDP to the grassroots. The second thing, I did was to ensure that we returned the party to the people. We ensured that people followed structures and procedures in hierarchical orders. So ward chairmen would not by pass their local government chairman, zonal and state chairmen and come to national level for complaint. When an instruction was handed down from the headquarters, it went down. We were able to return the party to the grassroots. The party in my time actually became the peoples’ party. With this, we were able to instill discipline. These were some of the challenges and how I approached them.

There has been clamour from different zones for the slot of the vacant post of chairman of BOT of PDP. What is your view on this?

On the issue of BOT, if you look at the clause of the constitution of the PDP, the business of BOT is purely the business of BOT. The clause says there shall be BOT, which shall comprise a certain category of members of the party. The administration and running of BOT is purely that of the members. It is not the work of the party. But of course the chairman of the party is a member of the BOT. The BOT will appoint its own chairman by itself and not a question for the party or the public. Whether they like it or not, they must obey the clause of the party position which says, "Appoint your own chairman among yourselves." The Constitution did not say when the President comes from this zone; the vice should come from the other zone. It is not in the Constitution of PDP. But if it is at the discretion of BOT to say the chairman should come from this area, it is not the constitution of the PDP. It is the discretion of BOT. And, that is why some of us are just looking at them.

The secretary of BOT remains the highest office there now and he has a right to convene meetings. Also two thirds of members of BOT has the right to ask the secretary to convene a meeting. So if a meeting of BOT is convened today, the chairman of the BOT will emerge because if it does not, they are not obeying the constitution of the party and then the party comes in and gives them instruction of time duration to appoint their chairman.

The issue of whether a personality is being considered or another not being considered is because PDP is a phenomenon that must be talked about.