The Coordinator of the Coalition of Northern Groups (CNG), Jamilu Aliyu Charanchi, said it was unfortunate that the Presidential Candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Alhaji Atiku Abubakar said Northerners should not vote for a Yoruba or Igbo Presidential candidate, insisting that the North has benefitted little from the administration of President Muhammadu Buhari, a fellow Northerner.
In an interview with VINCENT KALU, the CNG leader warned that no group in the North had the capacity to impose a presidential candidate on the region. He also spoke on a number of other issues, even as he urged the federal government to allow the Katsina State security outfit to bear AK-47 assault rifles because of the unbearable level of insecurity in the state.
The presidential candidates of the three major political parties – Bola Ahmed Tinubu, Atiku Abubakar and Peter Obi have all appeared before the Northern stakeholders to reel out their programmes for the North and the country. What is your take on this?
The Coalition of Northern Groups was not part of the arrangement, and was also not part of the decisions and the processes that gave rise to the meeting. Secondly, it is important for everyone to be aware that the North has along played a liberal politics at a national spread and has not been interested in ethnic, religious and regional struggle for power. Thirdly, even after independence, the North, unlike other regions had multiplicity of political parties, such as the NPC, NEPU and others. So, by this antecedent, it will be very difficult for any group of persons to impose a single candidate on the region; this is very impossible. The North is known to traditionally play politics at the mainstream, and never clinging to the periphery of the individual or interests of some personal groups. For the North or any other part of the region to decide to singlehandedly pick a particular candidate as a regional candidate, then, the North will isolate itself and consciously pit itself against the rest of the country, which we will never pray for. I still emphasise that it is very impossible for any group or individuals particularly in the Northern part of the country to decide who is going to be the candidate of the region because the younger generation, who gives the bulk of the votes, and who will be at the receiving end when there is miscalculation in the politics on the outcome of the election or if there is a problem, would never allow such a thing to happen. It was very good for the candidates to have addressed the group, but it will be very unfair and a great mistake for the group to adopt any candidate because CNG is advocating competency, capacity, integrity in Nigerian politics, and we don’t believe in regional, ethnic or religious sentiments; we believe that the primary consideration for any candidate to be chosen as a leader of the country should be based on competence, capacity and integrity of the person.
Atiku said at the meeting that the North should not vote a Yoruba or Igbo candidate. He has received condemnation from the region. What is your reaction to this?
That comment was unfortunate. If at all, it was not supposed to come out at this time when the country is deeply divided along ethnic and religious lines. The CNG is stressing on the capacity of the candidate, his competence and his integrity. It is very unfair for somebody to come out and tell the Northerners to vote for him simply because he is from the same region with them.
What have we benefitted from President Muhammadu Buhari’s administration? Is it the insecurity we are talking about, is it the economic hardship that we are talking about, and is it education that has fallen down flat? What development have we benefitted because the president comes from the North other than a lot of our people have been sacrificed in one way or the other? We have not benefitted anything from Buhari because he is from the North. So, it will be overtly bad and irrelevant for somebody to talk about regional or ethnic politics.
We are not advocating for the North alone, but also the entire country that this is a time for us to pick the right crop of leadership. This is the time that Nigeria desperately needs a leader that can bring Nigeria out of the quagmire it finds itself in. This is a time that we should think critically, we should think carefully and we select carefully or elect carefully based on competency, integrity , capacity and even the nationalism of the candidate.
We are very lucky enough that these candidates have political antecedents and we have something to say about them. So, let us study their political antecedents, their pedigrees; what they have contributed to the development of their regions, their states and their areas. What have they contributed to the development of the country? With all these parameters, we can assess the candidates and then carefully know who we are going to vote.
Let me reemphasise that no Northerner will allow himself to be misused by political vultures who might have collected money and want to indoctrinate these masses with their dogma to ensure that they vote along ethnic and religious lines. The CNG will never allow that to happen and we’ll keep on campaigning to the people to vote along integrity and capacity.
You said the North has not benefitted from Buhari’s government, but it is said that most of his appointments are people from the core North, and most of the projects are cited in the North?
Can you compare the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway with the Kaduna-Abuja Highway? What is the percentage of completion of the Kaduna-Abuja Highway? In fact, even the home state of Buhari is under siege by bandits. About three days ago, we visited a village called, Bakiwa in Atagarwa Local government, where over 40 people have spent more than 34 days in the hands of kidnappers, who are demanding for a ransom that the people of the village cannot pay. These bandits spent over three hours operating and took away millions of naira and nobody could do anything about it. Is that what we benefited from Buhari’s administration? Among those abducted included a pregnant woman who was delivered of a baby while in the hands of these kidnappers. There are also children with them and how are they going to cope with the outbreak of harmattan? And nobody is doing anything about it. Is this what we benefitted from Buhari’s administration?
Go to the villages in the North and see how people are suffering. They cannot afford daily square meals. Is it what we have benefitted from Buhari? From Zaria to Katsina, the home state of Buhari, the road is not motorable. Is that what we have benefitted from Buhari’s government? Are you talking about the dilapidation in the education sector – the eight-month strike of the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), and there are rumours that they may go back to strike. Most of Northerners attend public universities because they cannot afford the cost of private universities. So, the North has not benefited anything from this government.
Few days ago, Buhari thumbed his chest and claimed that he had delivered on his electoral promises. What do you say to this?
He can say whatever he likes. Just design a questionnaire and distribute it in the North for them to assess him. He may not score more than five per cent. The reality is that our people are suffering and they have never had it as bad as they are having it under this Buhari’s administration. We sacrifice a lot for him to come on board and this is how he has rewarded the North in particular and Nigeria in general. Nobody will forget the history of Buhari in the history of the Nigerian project.
When the Federal Government gave about N4 billion contract to Tompolo for the surveillance of oil pipelines in the Niger Delta, CNG kicked against it. But from what Tompolo has uncovered, is the government not vindicated?
It was not the issue of the contracted being awarded to Tompolo or another person in that region, the issue was the essence of the security agencies that are earning monthly salaries from the treasury of the nation to guide and protect these pipelines. Every month, there are allocations to the Navy, the Air Force, the Army, the police and other security agencies to do the same job? If it has got to a level where you have to hire somebody for N4 billion to do the same job, then there was no need for all these security agencies. This is what we are saying; it was not the issue of Tompolo. Nigerian security should rise up to the challenge and protect the territory of Nigeria and safeguard all property of the government and the people. It is even enshrined in the constitution that the primary responsibility of the government is the protection and the welfare of the lives of the citizens. This contract is a waste of money because there are security agencies constitutionally empowered to do what Tompolo is doing.
But from what we are reading about how stolen oil and thieves are being uncovered, are you not seeing the justification in what he doing?
We should wait for the response of the Federal Government to know if what Tompolo is saying is true or false. It may be to justify his appointment. After he has found out the vandalism of pipelines in that area, what is the government doing about it? Has it increased the level of crude oil output and export? Let the government justify the contract by probing and bringing to book those found to be culpable in that economic sabotage. The government should also address the issue of duplication of the security. A situation where you give an individual an area to safeguard, what does that portend? In fact, the Buhari administration is just messing up.
When the Katsina governor set up a security outfit, it was reported that the governor said that they would be bearing sophisticated arms. However, Ondo and Benue state governors said they would also empower their own security outfits in the same direction. Where will this lead us?
I have been watching to see any clearance from the Federal Government to the effect that the security outfit of Katsina State should carry Ak-47, but I’m yet to see any. However, I don’t see anybody who can say that it will not be good for the Federal Government to allocate AK-47 to indigenes of the state. Most of the people are staying very far way and they don’t know what is happening to people living in that state. In this state, there are many villages that are in the hands of these bandits, and nobody can do anything about it. There are many no go areas in Katsina.
Even if the Federal Government decides to allocate AK-47 rifles to the indigenes of Katsina State, I don’t think it is bad because the situation is so devastating that the people are scavenging where they will live and how to protect themselves. This state you are talking about was where the Area Commander of the Nigeria Police was kidnapped and killed and many soldiers have also been killed. It is the same state where the advance convoy of the president was attacked. Some villages and local governments are directly or indirectly in the hands of these bandits. This is a state where village heads and some traditional rulers were killed. This is a state where in spite of many military checkpoints, the kidnappers operate without challenge. Our problem is that we are too sentimental; we are not seeing Nigeria as a united country. Instead, we are seeing the country from where we live. If there was any state where the Federal Government should allow its vigilantes to carry Ak-47 rifles, it is Katsina. I pray that the Federal Government one day will realise the implications of allowing these bandits to continue kidnapping and collecting ransom from the masses of this state. The government should allow the vigilantes of this state to bear AK-47 guns under the monitoring and supervision of the Nigerian security agencies. I know what I’m talking about because I know what is happening in that state.
What you are saying is contrary to the position of the Federal Government that it is crushing insecurity?
I don’t know the bandits, which the Federal Government crushed. Is it the bandits in the federal capital? But the local hunters in Katsina would tell you that nobody dealt with any bandits because every day in the state, they are kidnapping people, sacking and abducting communities and collecting huge amounts of money from the people. I had told you earlier that in this state, over 30 people are still in captivity. So what have they dealt with? The federal government is very good in propaganda, spreading false information in the media, claiming what they have not done. The people in that state have suffered enough that they don’t even know what politics or the election will bring to them.