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•Nobody gave us one kobo to endorse Tinubu
The National President of Miyetti Allah Kautal Hore Socio-cultural Organisation, Abdullahi Bello Bodejo, has given reasons his group endorsed the presidential candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Bola Ahmed Tinubu.
In an interview with VINCENT KALU, Bodejo claimed as false accusations that Fulani herdsmen were responsible for the recent abduction of train passengers in Edo State
Few weeks to the presidential election, you have seen all the major candidates. What is your assessment of them?
I have seen all of them, but I will advise that our choices should be based on candidates, as opposed to political parties. This is because in the All Progressives Congress (APC), you have very good candidates. It is the same with the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP). The other parties also have very good candidates. We decided to choose some candidates that we are going to support irrespective of their parties. I cannot say any bad thing or condemn any of the presidential candidates, but election is about choice. So, I have decided on whom we are going to follow.
Who is that candidate?
We have endorsed Tinubu/Shettima as our presidential candidate and running mate.
There is this rumour that you collected huge sums of money to endorse the APC presidential candidate. How true is this?
Miyetti Allah Kautal Hore Association is not a political party. I’m the leader of the Fulani and I decided to contact some of our strong members all over the country, including the Fulani youths; and after several meetings and consultations that lasted for over three months, we decided to follow APC. In Bauchi State, the governor, Bala Mohammed is in PDP, but we have endorsed him as our candidate to continue with his good works. Shettima, the vice presidential candidate, and the National Chairman of the party, Abdullahi Adamu came to our office to seek our support and that is why we endorsed them.
If you are in your house and somebody looks for direction to your house and implores your support, after listening, you will welcome him and follow him. We have to follow them because they recognise us.
Could it be that the visit of Shettima and Adamu to you fuelled the rumour that you received money from them to endorse APC?
Nobody gave me one kobo to endorse anybody. The only thing about the Fulani is that once they endorse you, they are in solidarity with you. The person, who is accusing the APC of giving me money, let him also go and collect his own from the party. Nobody gave me any money; we are not doing it because of money but for the good of the country and our association, like creating grazing reserves, cattle routes and tackling other challenges that the Fulani are having in the country, and how we can have a good understanding with APC in the management of Fulani affairs. We are not looking for any kobo from anybody. I’m the leader, if there was any monetary transaction before the endorsement, I would have said so, but there wasn’t anything like that. However, anybody who is accusing us of collecting money to endorse the ruling party should prove it.
You mentioned the grazing reserves and cattle routes. Were these some of the promises they made to your group?
They have not promised us anything; it was just about support and endorsement. It is just about plans to win the election first and thereafter, we begin to talk about the programme for our people.
You mentioned Fulani solidarity, but the presidential candidate of the PDP, Atiku Abubakar is a Fulani man. Why are you not supporting him?
Atiku is a Fulani, but we don’t know his members and how he is operating. I can’t deny that he is a Fulani, but the time you want to start to do something like this presidential election, you should start from your home. He is an influential Fulani, and he was supposed to have started with us; he was supposed to have contacted us, talked to us as his children and people, but he didn’t do that. This means that he doesn’t have any regard for us. What do you expect us to do; to force ourselves on him? It doesn’t happen that way. But the APC called us and we gave them an appointment and they came and met with us. Some governors visited us and asked for our support for their candidate, like Kebbi State governor and other APC governors. For Atiku, nobody from him or his campaign council ever thought it wise to approach us.
Kwankwaso is also Fulani, but your people are not thinking towards him?
Yes, Kwankwaso is a Fulani man. If a person comes to knock on your door, greets you and tells you his mission and calls for your support, you are bound to follow that person instead of going to look for a person that didn’t ask about you or didn’t know that you existed.
If they come now to tell you the good programmes they have for your people and ask for your support, what will you do?
We have already decided; we cannot go back. It is already late for them to make any promise to us and for us to change our position. We are not the type that will say, ‘yes’ today and tomorrow turn around to say, ’no’. Nothing can change us; no amount of money will make us change our resolution.
Now that you have chosen APC, if the party doesn’t win, do you think that the party that wins will be very happy with you or listen to your agenda?
Politics is about interests. If five persons are contesting for a particular post, one must win. It behoves on the others to come together to support the winner for the good of the country because Nigeria is one. If Tinubu wins, it is expected that the others will congratulate him and join him in building the nation. But if he doesn’t win, the winner should show that he is a good sportsman by accepting everybody, including those that supported him and others that opposed him.
If he begins to wage war against those who didn’t support him, he would not end well. For us, the winner is supposed to call us and listen to us to know how we will work together for the progress of the country. If the winner wants to be angry with me, will he do that for four years or eight years? I have a right to support whomever I want and if because I didn’t support him to win the election and he decided not to carry us along, good luck to him.
A good politician who wins an election will not bother over who supported him or who didn’t, but he will work with everybody for the good of the country. Any politician who only thinks of those who helped him to win the election is still a baby politician.
Some people also insinuate that the Muslim-Muslim ticket was another strong point for your support for the APC candidate. What do you say to this?
It is not so. Those alleging that my support for the party was because of same faith ticket are not being sincere with themselves. Before I was born, there had been Christian- Christian ticket, and nobody cared. Why is this an issue now? Tinubu, Atiku and Kwankwaso are Muslims. For me, I’m yet to understand the fuse about the Muslim-Muslim ticket. It is propaganda by some desperate politicians to confuse people. If at this time of our history, the issue of Muslim-Muslim or Christian-Christian still dominate our campaigns for elections, then it will not be easy to manage the country. The issue should be the competency of the candidates, what they can offer to the people and the nation and not their religions.
I endorsed the party because of the recognition and respect they have for us and not because of religion or money.
Herdsmen were accused of being responsible for the recent kidnap of train passengers in Edo State. What is your reaction to this accusation?
I don’t want to comment on that because the security agencies are carrying out investigations to know those responsible. The Inspector General of police and the director of the Department of Security Services should know better than I, but all I have to say is that we have to be very careful in accusing people. However, I don’t think that Fulani herdsmen were responsible for the kidnap because I don’t think that Fulani will go and do that kind of a thing. Some people would go and do something bad and it would be interpreted, as if it was the Fulani that committed such atrocity. It could be that because of insecurity, which has made the Fulani to be moving from one place to the other, some other people have entered into their area to commit this kind of crime. More so, Fulani from other countries could have taken advantage of the security situation to commit such crime and people would be calling on Fulani in Nigeria. We thank God that the insecurity is coming down and it is not like before.
If the security agencies have come out to say that Fulani herdsmen were responsible, I will believe. But up till now, they have not come out to name those who carried out the abduction. If you say the herdsmen were responsible why have you not arrested them to show to the whole world the people who carried out the attack on the train passengers? If the Fulani were responsible, which states do they come from – Kano, Kaduna, Sokoto, etc? Some people come from outside the country speaking the Fulani language and they commit crime, but Nigerians would say they were Fulani from Nigeria. This is a challenge to us. People should stop accusing the Fulani herdsmen unnecessarily.
Don’t you think the insecurity here and there will affect this year’s election?
The Federal Government is now very serious about the security challenges in the country. If the government wants to do anything it would do it. So, I don’t think the insecurity will affect the election if the government is determined. The INEC chairman has assured Nigerians that the electoral umpire was well prepared for the elections. The real insecurity has been reduced, what you hear is the propaganda side of it; which has also gone down.
