Brig. Gen.Don Idada Ikpomnwen (rtd) is a
former Provost Marshal of the Nigerian
Army and
a lawyer. He represented retired
officers of the armed forces at the 2015
National Conference. Last Tuesday,
Ikpomnwen defected to the All
Progressives Congress (APC) from the
Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) which he
co-founded in Edo State. In this interview,
the retired general says he dumped the
PDP the very day Gen. Muhammadu Buhari
emerged the candidate of the APC ahead of
the presidential election. According to him,
the fall of PDP was predicted by some of
them which was why he withdrew his
participation in the party following what he
describes as the promotion of mediocrity
by the leadership of the PDP.
He gives an insight into the mood in the
Army when the leadership of the military
told the world that they were not in
possession of Buhari’s certificate.
Excerpts: By Simon Ebegbulem,
Benin City
You were in PDP since 1998 until last
Tuesday when you defected to the APC.
Was the defection the result of the victory
of one of your colleagues,
Gen.Muhammadu Buhari, the president-
elect?
The truth is that I was not just a member of
the PDP, I was one of the founding fathers.
I was one of the pillars from Edo that made
sure that we went into PDP in 1998-1999. I
worked consistently to ensure the success
of this party in this state. I was a senatorial
candidate.
I was shocked at what happened before
and after the primaries. Later the
leadership of the party appealed to me to
calm down, that they will want me to go to
the centre as a party official, I agreed. I got
there and started working to ensure that I
was elected into the position of the
National Deputy Secretary.
The same cabal made sure that another
person with less experience emerged. In
the circumstance, after the rigged and
fraudulent national convention, we went to
court but the next thing was that our
lawyer started saying things I could not
understand and the judge was persuaded
to strike out the case.
That led to my disaffection with the PDP
and I stayed away for some time. Having
experienced all these in politics, I decided
to devote my time to the South-South
struggle, which succeeded when Jonathan
became the President of Nigeria.
Before then, our struggle was almost
rubbished when, contrary to our belief that
the South-South will not take the vice
presidency, some people within the caucus
went and arranged with the Northern
Forum and they agreed that the South
South will take the position if it is given to
an Ijaw person.
That angered me and those like me
because that was not what we were
struggling for. I did not completely stay
away from the movement, we continued to
pioneer the whole thing from Edo under
the South-South Elders and Leaders
Forum, it was in this capacity that we
operated when the late President Yar’Adua
took ill, we kept on pushing that the then
Vice President, Jonathan should be sworn
as the President. Later the National
Assembly agreed with us and went for the
Doctrine of Necessity and okayed the
Jonathan presidency.
But with all my struggles, the PDP has
never treated me like a member and in my
presence, they were promoting mediocre.
They never gave people like us a chance,
all because the powers-that-be felt we are
too vocal, too idealistic, too principled and
uncontrollable. I am not uncontrollable; the
different between me and them is that I
believe that in politics it is service to the
people first. If there is any over flow, then
everybody will benefit because they say
sovereignty belongs to the people.
The PDP almost since inception was taken
over by a cabal that can do anything, a
cabal that wants you to lick its boot, that
wants you to be a slave. I am not cut out
to be a slave to anybody. I was trained as a
soldier, a strategic thinker, a lawyer and I
go for what is ideal. That was our point of
departure. Just before the elections, they
appealed to me to come and play a
leadership role in the PDP but I told them
that all these years they never allowed me
to play any role, so how come now? This
happened after the National Conference
where I represented retired military officers.
But the moment Buhari emerged as
candidate of the APC, I knew they knew
what they were doing. The convention that
threw up Buhari was more democratic and
the moment he emerged I spiritually
became an APC man because this is a man
I had worked with. I have in fact left the
PDP since the emergence of Buhari, I have
no choice. Nigeria deserves a political
revolution and that was why I had to rally
all my supporters to work for him during
the presidential election. I am exceedingly
happy about the development and I want
to express my deepest appreciation to all
those who helped in his emergence such
as Asiwaju Tinubu, Governor Adams
Oshiomhole, Amaechi and the APC
presidential aspirants who conceded defeat
such as Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, Governor
Kwankwaso. It shows that they knew what
they were doing. They have put this nation
on the path of visible change. I have
worked at different times with the general
and I knew that all they are saying about
him was to run him down but Nigerians are
wiser now. There is no way I would have
worked against Buhari or my state
governor Oshiomhole, who has brought
visible change in Edo. That is why I am
telling our people in Edo that there is no
other wise choice than to join hands with
this messiah that God had brought to bring
credibility to Nigeria and make Nigeria a
leading country in the world.
Why Jonathan lost
Jonathan’s administration has never been
able to chart the right course for this
country. Jonathan may be a good man on
his own, he may have been a lucky man to
emerge on the basis of emotions and
sentiments, but certainly he does not have
the liver to lead a country like Nigeria.
Jonathan surrounded himself with people
who did not mean well for Nigeria. That
Jonathan failed to win the election as
sitting President did not come to me as a
surprise. You only win election in the
world now when you are doing well for the
country not this situation where there is no
security, no power, no roads, nothing at
all. The average Nigerian did not feel the
so-called impact of the transformation,
therefore, Nigerians have no choice than to
embrace change. We needed change and
that we got. I don’t care what I will benefit,
all I want to see is a society where those
who work hard benefit while those who are
lazy will have themselves to blame. Let us
have a government that will create the
favourable environment for every Nigerian
to achieve its best. Let us have an
environment where we can move around
freely and happy.
Boko Haram & Nigerian Army
We are all witnesses to how our soldiers
have performed in international operations
in the past, be it Congo, Yugoslavia,
Liberia, Sierra Leone, Chad. The puzzle is
that this same Army winning laurels all
over, all of a sudden became a force that
could do nothing in the face of insurgency.
The only explanation I have for that is that
the military was compromised. The
government contributed to rubbishing and
destroying the army all because it wanted
the military to be loyal to individuals and
to those in power rather than to be a
country. The Army moved away from its
constitutional role and became an Army
doing routine police work until Boko Haram
began to hold towns and cities and
operate as a regular force. I did not see the
reason for our armed forces to be on the
road, supporting politicians in power and
being seen as agents to pull down the
opposition.
But talking about the sudden turn, that is
another intriguing thing. The military that
could not curtail Boko Haram over the
years began to record unprecedented
success when election was on. It means
the capacity to do it was there and you
refused to do it and allowed our soldiers to
be massacred. Nigerians who said
government was supporting Boko Haram
cannot be wished away because it looks
evident that if government under President
Jonathan wanted to stop Boko Haram they
would have done so as they are doing
now.
Army and Buhari’s certificate
What happened was sordid, shameful. For
a professional army, for the military to
come out to say that a former Head of
State, a former Commander-in-Chief, a
general did not have certificate in their
record, the issue really is not whether the
certificate was with them or had
disappeared, the issue is that a
professional army would have said, ‘we are
not politicians, don’t drag us into this
political argument going on. If you are
worried about certificate, go to INEC, if you
are worried about certificate, go to the
school which the man attended’. But for
them to say ‘we don’t have his certificate,
we have not seen his certificate on record’,
it brought the Army to ridicule, it brought
down this country to ridicule. I think it
points out to the fact that some people
have compromised. And I was hearing a
few days ago on the internet that the same
certificate has been found. I think the Army
have given good account of themselves in
the past, they can continue to play that
role as neutral people, as the last hope of
the people.
What were the feelers in the Army when the
certificate saga was on?
Officers will always be officers. We are in
touch with ourselves when all these were
happening. That issue tore the Army apart
because we began to wonder whether this
was really the Nigerian Army that we all
served in. As soldiers, whether serving or
retired, we are friends and many of us were
discussing what was happening. It was
most embarrassing for retired officers to
see what they were seeing and to hear
what they were hearing. The
demystification of the military is
demystification and rubbishing of officers
who have given all they have in the service
of this country. It has always been our
wish that the Army remains an honourable
profession that we knew it to be when we
went there, that we strove to sustain and
anything less than that embarrasses any
good officer and many of our officers are
good. Many good officers that I know
watched helplessly as these things were
going on, even me there was a limit to
what I could say because a good soldier
must run away to fight again. I know what I
went through, I know the constraints that I
had; so for a while I decided to support in
a very subtle way those who we want to
develop Nigeria.
Message to Buhari
Nigeria is lucky to have Buhari. I recall his
days as military Head of State, a few things
made people feel he was too rigid. The law
that visited drug trafficking with death
penalty, that was too harsh and it cannot
happen in a democracy. Nobody is perfect
but three things are important in a
democracy and ensuring good governance,
the right to choose your leader, the right to
change him when necessary and the right
and duty to make inputs into the goings
on in government. If we all take interest in
what is going on, we have already
demonstrated our choice in what is going
on now. If any government falls out of
grace, that government knows it will go.
Even before it gets to that point, if people
continue to make their inputs and say
what is good that government is doing and
encourage government to do it and also
voice out what they think is not good that
it could be going on, the then government
will be challenged. Any government that is
not being challenged by way of having
clear picture of what the people want is
likely to go wrong. So we all have a duty to
make sure that this good man that has
been chosen stays on course, we should
not be afraid to talk. To me, a strategic
thinker, I will always say it as it is and,
also importantly, I will do whatever is in my
power to ensure that we enhance this
government that is coming up. I did my
best in this Jonathan’s administration to
speak out the truth but they never listened
to me.
I was called by the Obasanjo regime to
look at the environment at that time to see
whether we needed an organization that
will fight financial and economic crimes. I
sat down with my team chosen by
Obasanjo and, within four months, we gave
them a blue print. It was that blue print
that gave birth to the EFCC. I did my best to
put forward what I believe in because we
knew what was happening. Like when I
went to the constitutional conference, I
also emphasized the need to improve the
armed forces by improving the Act setting
them up, the need to improve the policy
decentralizing it, the need to have a
decentralized police for effective federal
system. The important thing is that some
of us have done our best even in a hostile
environment but I think we will continue to
do our best now that we know we have a
strong system in place with the emergence
of Buhari.
