Bart Obi, a former member of the Imo State House of Assembly, spoke to Adebiyi Adedapo on contemporary political issues. Excerpts:

What is your take on the crisis that followed the bye-election in Ogwuta Federal Constituency area of Imo State?

I must be frank with you; Imo State is a PDP state. Imo people did not vote against the party; they voted against the individual that contested on the platform of the party. I am talking in terms of the gubernatorial election.

Are you referring to former governor Ikedi Ohakim?

Basically, people voted against Ohakim not against the party. What brought Rochas to power happened not because of the party he belongs, but because the people wanted to vote out the governor on the platform of PDP. The issue of Uguta, PDP won. I am telling you the spiritual truth. PDP was leading APGA with over 300 votes before results from two wards that were manipulated came in. In one of the wards, the number of voters outnumbered the number of registered voters, because of that INEC, had to cancel those wards.

Rochas and I are friends, but that has been his pattern in politics. The first thing he did was to start announcing that he has won because he is trying to play a fast one. Most of the elections conducted during his administration were not won by his party, and he said that if he lost the Uguta election, it will be disastrous. That was the reason.

You said it has been his style in politics, what do you mean by that? He is always crying wolf, it didn't start today. In 1999, it was the same thing, somebody defeated him at the governorship primaries only for him to come to Abuja and declare himself the winner of that election. When Solomon Lar was the National Chairman of PDP, that still was his style of politics; he is always playing the fast one before the winner. It has been his game plan since he started politics. He didn't win in Uguta election; PDP won. I mean the votes that were counted, PDP led with over 320 votes.

Do you think PDP can put its house in order before 2015?

Maybe a lot of you are not aware; PDP is like an institution because of the party's numerical strength. It has reasons to experience crisis. It happened in the days of NPN; it happened in the days of SDP, it happened even in the days of NPC. The larger the number, the more crises a political party experience. Now tell me, is it ACN or APGA or ANPP that is supposed to have crisis? These are smaller parties. The crisis you are seeing in the PDP is because of the party's population, even if 20 per cent of PDP membership leaves, we will still win elections.

The crisis must be resolved and those who will not allow the crisis to settle will leave the party and when they leave, after the election, they will still come back. This is not the first time. This crisis you are seeing today is a small crisis based on what the PDP has suffered in the previous years. It will experience a lot of crisis at the time of the election; members see themselves as one family and resolve their issues. Again, let me tell you, PDP is even going to win more states because on the issue of APC, Nigerians are now aware of the reason the political party is formed.

How do you mean? It is a political party formed out of animosity. Their interest is just to wrestle power from Jonathan. Let me tell you this thing, and I want you to write it down, people like Tom Ikimi are at the helm of affairs of the party and any political party people like Tom Ikimi belongs, that party will never win any presidential election. I belonged to the NRC, he was the chairman; they gave us every assurance saying Abiola will never win any election. They campaigned all over the country and brought Tofa, Abiola licked Tofa like honey. And who were the ones in SDP, the planners- people like Anenih and Kingibe. But who was who in this country belonged to the NRC, yet the party lost. The same people have ganged-up in the new APC, and APC, I must tell you, is a political party whose interest is to take power, not to serve Nigerians. Nigerians have leant these things so fast; Nigerians are aware because their main interest is to hijack power.

What is your take on 2015?

Let me tell you, we have been telling our northern brothers, the language that will cost them the presidency of this country is the use of the phrase 'power must return to the north' come 2015. The only person that can control the issue of must is God. If they continue using this language must, apart from the election of 2015, even in future elections, they will not win any. The people are detested with that kind of language; it is a language that calls for anarchy. That was the same language that gave birth to Boko Haram.

There was a time in this country, if any Igbo man wants to contest an election, he will go to Sokoto to draw support. The Igbo supported the north. There was a time Igbo were serving the north. When Awolowo who was from the south came for election campaign in Aba, people threw stones at him; when Shagari came, he was given a red carpet treatment. This was in 1979 and it repeated itself in 1983. But when it is the turn of the Igbo's to present a presidential candidate, the north will not support. The north has not given Igbo support even for once, and the Igbo are Jews.