APC is a political fraud – Gov Lamido

By OCHEREOME NNANNA
After a two-day state-wide sight-seeing in Jigawa State, four
journalists sat with Governor Sule Lamido in his private chamber in
the Governor's Lodge, Dutse for an interactive session.Here are some
excerpts:
The Jigawa landscape seems to have changed in the last six years. What happened?
The role of a person in office is to perform the functions of that
office. Because of distortions and aberrations we have literally
submitted to hopelessness. That is my pain. Why should you be
surprised? What is therethat any other country can do that we cannot
do in Nigeria? It is people; I mean in any human endeavour; in the
sciences, Nigerians can compete with anybody in this world; with any
professor, anywhere. The Nigerian is a very hard-working person. We as
people are very industrious. How can we continue to evoke this kind of
emotion in seeing something being done right, must we only do the
wrongthing as a people?
So, would you consider volunteering yourself to fill the perceived
leadership vacuum in the country?
This country is applying democracy with idiosyncrasies and our own
peculiarities. That it is not the turn of the person yet. It is the
Nigerian chemistry you have to look into, which has been hijacked by
people who manipulate it. Today, if you go to somebody in the
South-South he would say 'my son is there, he must be!' It would not
matter whether that man is killing him. So, first and foremost, the
Nigerian chemistry, is it thoroughly healed? The elites are theyhonest
enough? The people, are they courageous enough to do the right thing."
If you fall into our own compartment like South-South, South-East,
Ibo, Yoruba, Hausa, Fulani, you cannot win any national election. You
must campaign as a Nigerian leader, but after winning election
somebody will come and start saying "he is our son, he must serve a
second term". After winning a national election some people will
claim him as an ethnic or regional property. It is when you win
election then, Chief Edwin Clark would say "our son must have a second
term." If he said he must get the PDP ticket, you can say so because
ticket is a party affair, but even that is to be decided by party
delegates.
But second term is a factor of election. If you are saying his party
must give him the ticket it is okay. Let them give him. But it doesn't
mean he is going towin the election. But when you say he must win the
election, then what are you talking about? What then is democracy? And
this old man … in 2011,the name Edwin Clark was not part of PDP
vocabulary. And then look at it today, it has become the main
vocabulary. And what is the qualification? Emotion and sentiments.And
Nigeria made him to grow till 86 and secured; is he giving Nigerians
thesame hope for them to be 80; those who are ten and twenty now, by
his pronouncements? Is he giving them hope to be what he is to
Nigeria? Because Nigeria made him and dignified him. He was a federal
minister.Would you have preferred that Nigerians ignore him?
No. You see, there are some people who have acquired a kind of status
– statesman – they should be circumspect in whatever they say. There
are some things they should notsay.
The way you speak you sound terribly disappointed in him?
Absolutely! Because it is about politics and about PDP and he (Clark)
had no input in making the president. He met Jonathan as a finished
product, not as araw material. That was why I said Edwin Clark was
never part of the PDP vocabulary in 2011. Was he? Absolutely not!
Because of your proximity to the man in power, you now begin to carry
his fights and wars and all that.
There is something called sobering character – something which
encapsulates what you call the Nigerian mission; the Nigerian
interest, the Nigerian collective interest, which will unify us and
then define us so that we hold it very dear; we would cherish it. We
can defend it with our lives. That is what any credible leader should
hold tightly to, not divisive emotions.
So with people like Edwin Clark and Asari Dokubo who seem to be at the
forefront now, what are the fears you have for Nigeria?
It is just like Chief Bola Ige, of blessed memory and others in
Afenifere and the National Democratic Coalition (NADECO). When we talk
about June 12 they were not anywhere near it on June 11. That is my
worry – that people don't reckon with history. People who take
advantage of a national effort and kind of appropriate it for their
ethnic ends. Where were they on June 11? It is the same thing we are
going through! Asari Dokubo and Clark, where were they in 2010? Where
were they when PDP held their primaries? They were not there. So you
must not diminish Nigeria or the office of the President.
Yoruba Nigeria president
It is true Nigeria president must come from a tribe, a village and a
zone but by the time you get there, you are absolutely a Nigerian.
That was why in 1999, in trying to heal the wounds of June 11, we said
fair enough, let us locate the presidency in the South – west. Truly,
it is not the preserve of northerners only but then in taking it to
the South-West; we are looking for Yoruba Nigerian president and we
decided on former President OlusegunObasanjo. We were looking for
Yoruba Nigeria president and not just becauseof the agenda of the
Yoruba. And that was why we picked Obasanjo and the Yorubas didn't
want him.
So what I'm saying is that today, coming to your question, it is not
about my aspiration: are we cured? Arethe emotions gone; the
sentiments, are they all gone? Are they ready to melt into what you
call a genuine effort to be able to restore Nigeria as the leader of
Africa, leader of the black race? So my aspiration, to me, is not a
big deal. As far as I'm concerned, by myupbringing there are some
ideals I cherish and once they are being followed by anybody there is
no problem. The entire thing is not about personal ambition, it is
about working for a larger picture.
So to me, if the person in place is doing the right thing I have no
problem. Let him remain there forever.Now it is left to us to sort out
what we want. If we keep on emphasising emotions, sentiments,
appropriation of power, of course, we will remain where we are; the
richer will be getting richer while the poor will be getting poorer.
Nigerians have expressed disgust overthe outcome from the chairmanship
election in the Nigeria Governors' Forum (NGF). How do you feel?
The NGF is an informal forum, you don'thave to belong to it. It is
just for our own convenience and issues we discuss are just purely
economic and security, that is all. We don't discuss politics at that
place. Really, the NGF is not a very big issue that you should be
worried about. It is nothing for God's sake. But in Nigeria everything
is for entertainment.
Is the friction really about 2015 as is being suggested?
I'm a Muslim and there is something called destiny in my religion,
which is God's template where before the beginning to the end of more
than billions of years, everything has been put in that template and
by the time the time comes then it becomes. Now who has that guarantee
that he is going to live till 2015? Why are we wasting our energy and
our steam over it?
APC interim national publicity secretary, Lai Mohammed was quoted as
saying that by the middle of July theparty would have 23 governors.
Are you among those about to jump ship?
I'm highly amused. Do you know what they call self-wish? These are
local propaganda which is terribly elementary. In 1999 we had PDP, AD
and APP. After fourteen years in 2013, itis PDP only that has
remained. AD had gone from AD into AC, into ACN, into something else
and now going to APC.APP had gone into ANPP and then later on they are
going to something; they are going to APC. Now, CPC is a one-man
party. Some politicians who lost out in PDP now see Buhari as their
bread industry. So they hang on him and because he is very naïve, he
thinksthey are serious.
Did you say Buhari is naïve?
Absolutely! He is politically naïve. Yes, he is politically naïve. Absolutely!
Could you be more explicit?
I would say he should be walking with his eyes wide open because those
around him in 1999 were somewhere else. Were they with him? Our people
will say if you see a horse fully dressedwalking alone in the forest,
it must have thrown the owner off. Don't ride it because it threw
somebody away.
I have been wondering; they abuse the PDP that we are murderers, party
of riggers, a party of whatever – it is evil. Fine! Why do they want
murderer governors in their midst? Why do they want us to be there?
Number two, this so called APC is again what you call political fraud
because you may change the nomenclature – change it ten times over.
Did people in the newly named party come from heaven? They are the
same old people.