21.Sep.2014
Ambassador Yahaya Kwande, a long-time political associate of former Vice-President Atiku Abubakar, speaks with ISAAC SHOBAYO on Atiku’s presidential aspiration and the insecurity in the North-Eastern part of the country.
I find this excerpts an interesting read.
Excerpts:
YOUR political associate and former vice-president has indicated his interest to contest the presidential election for the third time; do you think he will scale through this time around?
As far as we are concerned, it is only now that former Vice-President Atiku Abubakar is contesting. You cannot compare the situation in which he found himself with former President Olusegun Obasanjo, because he was barred.
But as far as I am concerned, he won the election. Because they stopped him from contesting at that time Obasanjo stopped him; everybody stopped him, but he won. The only thing we wanted to show was that he won, but did not contest. It wasn’t a question of winning the election; it was a question of being himself, based on the constitution of Nigeria. He couldn’t have expected anything more.
The second point is that the situation of Goodluck Jonathan contesting election with Atiku and General Muhammadu Buhari was also not conducive for a vibrant candidate, because we kept on talking about whether it was going to the South or the North; it wasn’t a question of freedom of the people; being able to stand election as we expected it would happen. There was no way for somebody to test his popularity on a level playing field; it was a matter of whether a Southerner or Northerner should contest.
We went on like that under the leadership of the Adamu Ciroma-led committee, of which I was a member, was setup to find out, among the Northerners, who would contest, and that wasn’t resolved until a week or two to the election.
And remember that somebody was on the seat and had every instrument to fight his war, while you are fighting on whether he should stand for election or not. Now, as far as political associates of Atiku are concerned, this time, the former vice-president is going through direct primary to test his popularity and this will be the first time he is going to contest on a level playing field. I can tell you that his chance is bright.
Sir, for quite some time now, the former vice-president has not been pulling enough political weight, especially in his state, Adamawa. In the recent governorship primary election conducted, the All Progressives Congress (APC), aspirant who contested from his camp did not scale through. With such defeat, don’t you think he is gradually losing his political base?
You people go by the publication of opponents; that is the trouble with the Nigerian media. You often position yourself as High Court or Supreme Court judges. We have told you that Atiku made it clear before the election that he wanted justice for himself and for other people. In that case, he said everybody that was interested in contesting the governorship election in Adamawa should go and try his luck. But he has the right to cast a vote and he must have one man in mind, but it doesn’t change anything. He paid for the forms of other contestants and just because one man said he was closer to Atiku and, therefore, Atiku should have selected him and such person lost, does that mean Atiku is losing his political base? Why did they go for election, if Atiku was given the right to select any of the candidates? He has no right to say ‘this is my own’ and what he said was that ‘whoever wins, I will support him’. Why do people judge him on that?
Is your party not worried that in recent times, it has been losing its frontliners to the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP); Chief Tom Ikimi is the latest of such personalities?
How could you have a party like the APC for the generality of Nigeria and you are talking about an individual who said because he wanted to be chairman and was defeated, he is moving out? Do you see that person as a party man and a democrat? We have been in this game for a very long time; think of Ali Modu Sheriff; is it not enough for Nigerians to see? The PDP that was saying APC was Boko Haram because of people like Sheriff started defending itself of being Boko Haram 24 hours after he joined their party. The PDP is not Boko Haram, but the man they were accusing has joined them; he was even given the privilege of being the only Nigerian to sit with our president and the president of another country.
People have moved from APC to PDP and vice versa and by this, I think it is balanced; it is the electorate that are important. The question is; have they also jumped ship? That is the most important thing.
APC has been accusing the government at the centre of inability to curb the insurgency in the North-Eastern part of the country; does your party have any plan to arrest the pathetic situation, if elected into power in 2015?
We have what it takes to arrest the situation. Single-handedly, the late President Umaru Yar’Adua handled the problem in the Niger-Delta; these were people who had the same orientation with us and we believe if given the chance, insurgency will not last three months.
But as patriotic Nigerians, why don’t you offer the present government the advice you think will solve the problem or you prefer people dying until you form the government in 2015?
Why do you think we did not offer any advice? We went there as Northern Elders Forum; we put in suggestions to the president and he promised to see us in two weeks, but he didn’t see us until after six months. He only saw us when the late Emir of Kano intervened and we went there. I was there; he didn’t take our advice; he has not been listening. He has only been listening to people like (Edwin) Clark. We are waiting for the opportunity, but he hasn’t given us the opportunity to help him.
Has your group exploited other avenues of passing your advice and suggestion across?
Haven’t you published in your newspaper that somebody is saying this man is weak? He should call us or are we the ones to call him? On the pages of newspapers, people said he has failed; he should look for people who said he has failed, so that they can tell him the area he has failed and ask ‘you said I have failed, what do you want me to do.?’
You are staunch member of Arewa Consultative Forum (ACF). Do you think the forum can achieve its aim of the North producing the next president with its house divided?
In the Northern Elders Forum, we are very few and nobody appointed us, but we have the backing of people of Northern Nigeria to speak on their behalf. Whatever we say, we saw them praising us. We are getting stronger on a daily basis.
At a point, we invited the traditional rulers of Northern Nigeria and we discussed with them, but when the government of the day was becoming nervous of this trend, it came up with another group and called it Northern Elders Council to water down NEF. There is no disagreement; we are still there to help Northern Nigeria, but the Presidency was frightened. It should have formed something different, but it wanted to dilute our forum and it called it the same name and said it is council. Where were they when the Northern Elders Forum was formed? It was a repetition to deceive the Northerners; to divide the Northerners so that they can rule the region.
Your party in Plateau State is factionalised; as an elder statesman, what are you doing along with other elders in APC to address the lingering crisis?
You don’t know what is happening; we have our leadership, but if people are deceiving you journalists, that is another thing. You were all there when the winner of the election was declared; we have no opposition.
If somebody is disgruntled and goes out to make noise, we have no choice than to ignore him. Politics is like that; we have no opposition, but we have no office. Our office is under renovation; that is why we are in a temporary office, because the people who lost, but had given us an office are locking us out on a daily basis. If that is the problem in Plateau, it is now solved.
How is your party preparing for 2015 governorship election given the fact that the PDP is well-rooted in the state?
We are set and ready to form the next government in Plateau State; we will surprise the PDP. Forget all the noise they are making, we will surprise them. Can you imagine 20 people from the same family contesting for the same seat? It is going to be easy for us to win, because the present government has made it easy for us to win. It has not performed well; the dichotomy within it is too wide and through its style of governance, they it is making it easy for us to win.
It is making the mistake that anybody who contests on the ticket of PDP will win. So, everybody within the party wants to contest, but the kingmaker said he hasn’t spoken with his divine leader. By definition, he will now appoint one for us; we are waiting.
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