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By Desmond Mgbo
Dr Akilu Sani Indabawa is a leading member of the Peoples Democratic Party(PDP) and former Special Adviser to former President Goodluck Jonathan. In this interview, he touches on several contemporary issues, ranging from the chances of APC in the 2023 polls, the performance of the Buhari administration so far, South–East clamour for Presidency, the Tinubu- Osinbajo contest for APC presidential ticket, insecurity in the North among others.
With the 2023 elections fast approaching, do you see the ruling party, the All Progressives Congress defeating the Peoples Democratic Party(PDP), especially given your judgment of their performance in power so far?
Well, if indicators of performance in governance were anything to go by, one does not expect Nigerians to return APC to power…that is if the votes would count. As you are aware, there is a general discontent everywhere, especially on the part of Buhari’s supporters. The alliance that brought APC to power seems to be collapsing by the day. The internal contradictions of the party cannot sustain it as a platform that can deliver elections in 2023. I will be surprised if APC survived up to the end of 2023, I do not see APC going into the elections and coming out with anything tangible. At any rate, as things stand today, APC stands the risk of total self liquidation by the time they field candidates for the 2023 elections. We (PDP) are ready and we are waiting for them.
Looking at the PDP, the major issue between North and South is who to produce the Presidential candidate. The party seems to be in a dilemma. Recently, we have party chieftains like Kwankwaso and former governor of Niger State, Babangida Aliyu and others saying the North is to produce the presidential candidate and we have heard a couple of Southern governors on the contrast, echo loudly that the presidential candidate of the party must come from the South or nothing. What is your own view?
In this game, people joke a lot to get their interest across by whatever means they consider legitimate. So all those names you have mentioned, in a democracy, it is their right to put their stakes on the table, shuffle their cards and see where that can take them. But the PDP that we have today, the PDP that is driven by Prof Iyorchu Ayu is not the type that would be driven by myopic considerations. Nigerians are tired of these six -plus something years of the Buhari regime. Nigerians cannot wait a minute more to vote them out. All what it takes is to have a credible candidate –North, South, Muslim or Christian; it does not matter. Nigerians are united on that. And people can waste their time debating on where the President is to come from. But for an average Nigerian, it does not matter. After all, the sentiment of where the president comes from used to be very strong in this part of the North. But thank God because of the way the President handled government in the last few years; he has since confirmed that that is a wrong approach to politics in a multi- cultural society like Nigeria. Nobody now believes that by voting for a Northerner, your interest would be secured as a Northerner.
Nobody in the South believes that by voting for a Southern candidate, your interest would be secured as a Southerner. And so people are coming to face the realities of being in contemporary Nigeria where we share the same economic reality, where we share the same political difficulties, where we face the same social and cultural realities- issues of insecurity, issues of poverty, challenges of life inflicted by the lack of policies of the APC government or by poor policies of the APC government, poor handling of the economy and so on and so forth. These kidnappers, for instance, they do not ask what religion you belong to.
They take you. And Nigerians are aware of that. Electricity fare that has been doubled and doubled and doubled and doubled, the service providers do not discriminate between Northerners and Southerners. Issues of mass poverty that is the land, the liquidation of the middle class that used be a bridge between the haves and the have- not, all these issues are blind to ethnicity, to religion, to sectionalism and so on and so forth. Backward forces that are trying to pull this country back are in constant conflict with this reality. I do not see them winning because the objective conditions of living in this country today had abused that kind of perspective to politics. Some people can clamour for President of Southern extraction, President of Northern extraction; it is their business. But by the way, you may not have missed, I am sure, the official statement issued by Ohanaeze about Asiwaju Bola Tinubu’s declaration for President . Ohaneze is a major pressure group representing a very significant interest group in this country, the Igbo people of South East. That is supposed to be one of the major vanguards leading the clamour for the President of Southern extraction. Bola Tinubu is from the South and he has declared and we have seen the reaction of Ohaneze. And so, what does that tell you? That there is no united Southern front, they can only make noise.
There is no united Northern front. All those people can only make noise to promote their personal interests. Some of them have tried to contest the Presidential ticket of their parties and they ended with 200 votes out of 9000 delegate votes at that national convention of their party. Such a character, does he have any moral reason to speak for the North? Your own delegates from your own state is about 200 and the total votes you secured from the convention was far less than the 200 votes and you are here claiming to be talking and speaking for the North because you cannot see beyond your nose.
I know you are talking about Kwankwaso.
Well, Kwankwaso is a politician….. I don’t talk about personalities. I talk about issues
The Igbo people of Nigeria, they have been clamouring that in the spirit of one Nigeria and NO Victor- No Vanquished as was widely proclaimed at the end of the civil war, they should be considered for the Presidency of Nigeria at this time . What is your view on this?
Well, one has to be very cautious when you discuss national questions because there are really national questions. Ethnicity is one and there are many others. And so I do not want to be in a hurry to confuse issues. Secondly, I have just told you that those clamoring for primordial considerations are in hard battle with objective conditions of living that Nigerians face daily. It is battle royal! Whether they would lose or win would depend on so many factors, inter- play of so many factors- political, social, cultural, religious and so and so forth. But when you look at the history of governance in this country, if you are talking from the prism of social, religious, ethnic parameters, you would say yes that there is a certain ethnic group that has never been represented at top- most position of governance of this country. As Nigerians, as a Nigerian, all I will say is that every Nigerian, irrespective of language, culture, religion, section of the country he comes from is absolutely entitled to run for the office of the President and to serve as the President of Nigeria. Every Nigerian is as competent as any other Nigerian.
Your former principal, former President Goodluck Jonathan is speculated to be interested in returning to Aso Rock come 2023. According to the speculation, he is being lured by the APC to succeed President Buhari? Have you heard of this move and what do you make out of it?
Well, I heard the same speculation and I am waiting for my leader, President Jonathan to talk to me about it. Until he tells me, I will not be in a hurry to speculate.
Assuming it is true, how would you take it. There is this report that some of his immediate former aides, people he would be relying upon to embark on the journey do not trust the Buhari?
As a mark of respect to my leader and my boss, I do not think it is fair enough for me to express my views on an assumptive position that he would take until he speaks to me. If he spoke to me as his loyalist, we would close the door and we will talk and I will offer him my own perspective. Out of respect, I do not think I will be fair to offer my views on him on the pages of the newspapers. I will rather wait to discuss with my boss when he discusses with me.
But have you made any effort to ask him about the speculation?
I think we spoke about three or four times over the last one year. But I haven’t spoken to him in the last two or three months. However, if what we read on the newspapers were anything to go by, there are indicators that there seems to be a lot of activities hovering around that. But like I said, until my boss speaks to me, I don’t think it is fair enough for me to speculate. After all, I know that I enjoy his confidence and I will not be the one to betray his confidence.
A number of presidential candidates have started emerging in the APC, Tinubu, Umahi, Osinbajo and Orji Kalu – which is normal at this time. Why are we seemingly silent in the PDP? What is happening?
You see, PDP is the winning party in 2023. When the boys are talking, the men would stop and laugh and when they talk, they talk with finality. I assure you that PDP will be coming up with a candidate, a credible candidate, a sellable candidate that Nigerians would accept. They would surely, be coming up with a candidate at the right time.
What do you make of Tinubu’s aspiration for the Presidency? Some people believe that the North is already standing behind him …
I don’t know the North and I don’t know the South and I don’t know the North that is standing behind anybody ….
Tinubu and Yemi Osinbajo are supposed to be coming from the same political tendency- one is the Vice President and the other is coming to succeed the President. And today, they are rivaling each other. How do you see this playing out?
I honestly don’t know if Vice President Osinbajo has declared.
The hovering is there, his offices are in many cities. Let’s work on the hovering
Let’s wait for the man to declare first. If tomorrow the man now came out to say he is not running, then you would have wasted your time speculating on a matter that does not exist. I would analyse what exists than what I think would exist. Let us wait for him to make a declaration and then we would assess the declaration vis- a -vis the declaration of his former boss, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu and take it up from there.
President Buhari has said that he does not have a particular interest in any of the aspirants coming to take over from him. Do you trust that claim?
Do you trust this President? The same President who said that he is for nobody and that he is for everybody and you end up seeing how he ran his own government. His government is the most nepotistic regime that we have ever heard in this country. This is the man who told us that he is for nobody and he is for everybody and he ended up messing this country, bringing nepotism to the front view of governance in this country. Is this the President you trust when he says he has no candidate? Please don’t deceive yourself. Nigerians are tired of the deceptive, grossly incompetent, very insensitive team of people who by sheer accident of history had found themselves in power -because of a shameless opposition to a government that virtually seventy percent of them have been part of. They have no shame! I said that APC has no shame!!! How many of them can claim decency now? Let the President field anybody he wants, but I want to tell you Nigerians would longer be deceived.
When President Buhari was to come to power, he was seen everywhere as Mai Gaskiya, a reliable man, somebody to trust. Are you saying this trust is no longer there?
You have seen for yourself, Nigerians have seen for themselves and every Nigerian is as good a judge as me and you.
Politically speaking, how do you assess the governance at the state level? The state governors and their performance? I am talking about the state governors, vis- a vis your state, Kano.
A: There are many perspectives. Governors under the present constitution, have assumed a larger than life image and they have proven practically to be above party control; they have proven to be independent actors, each coming out with its polices and so on.
Only recently, Governor Ganduje hinted at some form of reconciliation between himself and his age-long political rival, Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso. How likely is this?
I wished it was true. If Ganduje truly believes in reconciliation, I don’t want to believe that his former boss(Kwankwaso) shares in that vision. If you remember, very recently, Kwankwaso issued a statement castigating Ganduje that he was imposed on the people of Kano State and so on and so forth. And this was coming after the so- called reconciliatory moves had been made. So if Ganduje sincerely believes in reconciliation, I don’t think the other gentleman shares that vision. And I do not see the possibility of them working together. After all, I am one of the few people who know how both of them relate and the relationship has not, to the best of my knowledge from at least the last 20 years, I don’t think the relationship has been as rosy as they have been portraying in public- even when they were together. Both of them have always been the best of mutually hypocritically- minded friends! Mutually hypocritical! Neither of them truly believes in genuine relationship with the other, but they work together. And so, we are waiting to see how things unfold. But I do not believe that if Ganduje truly believes he wants reconciliation, I don’t believe the other side wants reconciliation, given what has just happened. If Kwankwaso truly shares in that reconciliation, it will be odd for him to have issued that statement. If truly you are reconciling with somebody, you don’t go back and start picking him on the negative side. You build on the positive side. But once you have begun to say that “Yes, we are talking reconciliation but you who stole my votes”, then something is odd. The arithmetic does not add up. I hope they would reconcile. That would be good for Kano politics as it would douse tension. I will certainly be glad if they did because it would send signals down the ladder that we should play politics of maturity and mutual respect, that our political differences should not cancel our personal relationship. We can disagree on policies, we can disagree on principles and we can disagree on everything political, but our personal relationship should not be in any way jeopardized on account of our political differences. That would be very good. Because then we can begin to have a peaceful political environment in Kano. I wish that that reconciliation would succeed. But from what I heard and saw the red cap chief say recently, I don’t want to believe that he believes in sincere reconciliation.
There is the assumption that Governor Ganduje is already weakened by the internal strife within his own party and would make him more amenable to the reconciliation move.
Let me tell you that if Ganduje has that shortcoming, he knows better than anybody that he cannot get succour from that front or from the direction he has taken. He knows that. But I take this to be mere speculation.
Still on Kano politics, what do you make of the Shekarau -led rebellion within the APC in the state and against Ganduje?
I don’t think it is a rebellion as such. My take is that Shekarau and the G- 7- that is what they call themselves- are only trying to push for their stakes to be recognized in their party. I don’t see how that can become a rebellion. Telling your party establishment, “Look I belong ooooo, involve me in the affairs of the party”. I don’t see that as a rebellion. But it is in the nature of power games. For me, there is nothing new. We have seen worst situation than that in Kano and that has changed political calculations in the last for four or five decades. It has led to so many realignments of political forces. And even if it was a political rebellion, then it is a welcomed rebellion. I like rebels, especially those who rebel on grounds of principles. Like I told you earlier, governors under this constitution have become so powerful, larger than life, that at the end of the day whether one can wage a struggle against governors and succees is something that has to be debated.
Let us talk about the security in Northern Nigeria. Where do we go from here? What is your assessment of the efforts that have been put in place to battle insecurity in Northern Nigeria?
I am not a security expert but my take is that the government is not serious in tackling insecurity in the region. Look at how long it took for the Federal Government to declare these bandits as terrorists. Our security forces are some of the best in the world. Highly trained, highly competent…. If they are given coordination, if they are given the correct orders, they would crush the terrorists in no time.
