From Romanus Ugwu, Abuja
Former National Secretary of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Waziri Bulama, is a man of many parts. He is a Fellow, Nigerian Institute of Architects, and member of the ruling party’s National Advisory Council.
Speaking to Sunday Sun in Abuja, he expressed fears that the introduction of electoral technology like the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS) may constitute serious challenges to his ruling party in the forthcoming general elections.
The Borno State-born politician, however, claimed that his party would overcome the threat from the other party’s candidates he joked are splitters from the PDP and still win the presidential election, stressing that Tinubu has the capacity to turn around the country for the better.
A few weeks to the presidential election, how ready is your party, the APC?
Our party is well positioned and well prepared for the February 25 general election. Our campaign is going on in several tracks coordinated by the Presidential Campaign Council (PCC) which President Buhari is the chairman. This campaign council is fully representative and inclusive of all the interests and structures of the party. We also have a grassroots PCC, created and populated by stakeholders all over Nigeria to complement and supplement the efforts of the PCC. So, both these national organisations with membership cutting across the whole country are working very hard campaigning for the election. We also have candidates for the positions of senators, House of Representatives, governorship, and States Assembly in all the constituencies in this country. All these people are campaigning vigorously for the APC and focused on winning the 2023 general elections for our party. Our campaign is so rich because all the candidates running on the platform of our party are campaigning for the party, selling the programmes and manifesto of the party in their own constituencies, where all the elections will take place. We go beyond the campaign to also educate and enlighten the electorate on the use of BVAS to take advantage of the electronic voting system in such a way that they will not commit errors or mistakes. We also tell them to be patient enough to withstand the rigours and process of going through the BVAS machine to vote. So, in a nutshell, we are fully prepared and ready for the presidential, governorship, and other elections, coming up at different times.
Will the various harsh economic government policies causing problems to Nigerians like fuel and currency swap, will these affect APC’s fortune in the elections?
The point is that these two issues you mentioned, fuel shortage and currency scarcity, are policies that have to be isolated from the programmes of the APC as a party. These problems are being tackled right now and I am telling you within the next few weeks, there will be sufficient fuel supplies in the country selling at a controlled price. I assure you that they will not be problems that will be carried into the election. The problems have been clearly identified by the courageous, professional, and determined leadership of the NNPCL. These hiccups will definitely be a thing of the past few days before the election. As for currency scarcity, this is also a very good policy in conception, but its implementation has faced lots of hiccups and brought much hardship to Nigerians. The good thing, however, is that the National Assembly is already taking some steps and the president has also promised to intervene.
We believe that the problem will also be resolved and that this crisis would be managed and not be carried into the election. It will not count against our party because we believe that the party has done many positive things. We believe that the party is strong enough to make a very good outing in the elections. We believe that Nigerians will understand and consider many of the good things APC has done in their lives.
What are those challenges you feel may affect your party during the presidential election?
For me, national interest is more important than any partisan considerations. So, to be honest, we are all Nigerians and professionals in politics because of national interests which supersedes our own personal or parochial interests. The major challenge APC will face in this election will be the complete automation of the voting system with the use of PVCs and the BVAS. If they are strongly and strictly implemented, it will be a serious challenge to APC. It will not only be the decider of the outcome of the election, but will also change the pattern of elections in this country. In fact, BVAS will be the real game changer. The election will be decided by the number of Nigerians convinced and persuaded to go through this BVAS technology system. The voting system and the electronic transfer of election results have removed self-help and a great deal of interference and intimidation that happened in previous elections. There is a greater level of commitment and autonomy for INEC to implement a very credible electoral system. So, that will be the major decider in the next election. Then the other thing that will be very obvious is voter apathy. It has always been a problem in elections all over the world and a big issue in Nigeria, where people abstained from participating for one reason or the other. However, that is why in our own party, we are engaging Nigerians very vigorously. We are persuading Nigerians to come out and vote the APC. We believe that the general election is like to be a referendum on democracy. So, if there is serious voter apathy, it will affect all the parties, including the APC. But if we have a situation where this election will be strictly based on the vote counting, it will affect the APC. However, the PDP, as a matter of fact, has no culture of direct engagement with Nigerians because they have always relied on government machinery to influence the outcome of elections, especially during their heydays from 1999 to 2015. Our fall back would be that we have grown in confidence because the voting system has continuously improved since President Buhari allowed the election institutions to grow. The security agencies, as well as the judiciary have already been given some measure of autonomy to implement the laws in line with the Nigeria constitution. Yes, this is going to be a huge challenge, not only for the PDP, but also for us in the APC. It means that we have to do more to engage Nigerians to come out and vote.
What are the implications of APC, PDP and NNPP sharing the decider votes from the Northwest and Northeast?
If you check the registered number of voters, the statistics, and the distribution of voters in the country, obviously the highest numbers of registered voters are from the Northwest because they have seven states with very huge population centres like Kano, Katsina, and Kaduna. These three states combined raised the figure because of the number of states in that zone. Northwest, for instance, has seven states while others have six and Southeast even has five. But whether Kwankwaso coming from the Northwest zone will have an advantage, or Atiku being from the North, though from the Northwest, will take advantage is something within the realm of speculation. For me, what is practically strategic in line with the voting pattern is that the political parties with a strong presence in those states will get more of those votes than personalities. The voting will follow the pattern of party presence rather than the candidates, the popularity or presence of candidates through the governors. What is certain is that APC and PDP have a strong presence in those states. Yes, other parties like Kwankwaso’s NNPP are visible in a state like Kano, but despite that NNPP is very weak in all those other states in the Northwest. You need a combination of both party presence and the candidate to make an impact at the presidential election.
Are you convinced that your party will win this presidential election?
Well, I am convinced that APC is not just going to win this 2023 presidential and other elections, but will win it by a landslide.
Which among the presidential candidates poses the bigger threat to the APC candidate?
I don’t see any of them as a threat to our candidate because don’t forget that the trio of PDP, Labour and NNPP candidates were all under PDP when we defeated them in the 2019 poll. Today, they have split themselves, while APC has remained one and is waxing even stronger. Even as good as they were in 2019, APC was in control of over 20 states, but today we are in control of about 22. We are going into the election even stronger together with many more governors, more senators, and more Reps members. The PDP has split into three. So, how can any of the three splitter parties pose any threat to our candidate? I cannot understand why people describe APC as a party divided against itself. Where are the divisions, fragmentation, and separation that people talk about in the APC? There is none. We came out of a national convention that produced the current National Working Committee (NWC) united. We registered 41 million members. We carried out congresses that produced the wards, local government, and state and national leaderships without any dispute in the party. We also organised a democratic primary that produced our presidential candidate out of the 23 aspirants and still remained a united house. None of the presidential aspirants has so far left the party. I have not seen legal or political division within the party. You will make reference to the outburst by the governor of Kaduna State, Nasir el-Rufai, but you will understand that he was referring to the fuel and cash swap crisis in the country. I don’t think there is any division or any opposition to our campaign or against our candidate, Bola Tinubu.
How impressed are you with APC presidential campaigns, especially over some of the gaffs by Tinubu?
This is the fourth presidential campaign I am participating in at the leadership level. I am very confident with the campaign efforts so far and I am very happy with the candidate we are presenting to Nigerians. Tinubu is someone with a very good political pedigree. He is well known in this country having been senator and governor. He has also played a great role in the transformation of Nigeria from a political dictatorship to a democracy. His antecedents show that he is someone who contributed towards the transition of Nigeria from military dictatorship to civilian rule. He is one person who has made sacrifices with the role he played in teaming up with President Buhari, who is committed to transparency and rule of law, to form the APC. He made contributions to the success of the APC, not only in terms of governance and transformation in terms of infrastructure and implementation of the rule of law and ethics, but also to the success of APC in 2015 and 2019 elections. Everything we have done as a party and succeeded in remaining stable and united, Asiwaju has a hand in ensuring the success of all of them. In terms of his political contributions to Nigerian democracy and the success of APC as a party his capacity in governance cannot be compared with anybody in this country today. When you consider his capacity for good governance, he has the capacity to transform and change the face of governance, make Nigeria more peaceful and more prosperous, all over the country. So, we are marketing him very seriously because we are sure he will be able to make Nigeria more peaceful and prosperous if he wins this election.
What are your fears for the forthcoming presidential election?
I don’t actually have any fear for my party. I have no fear for democracy in this country. I know a lot of pundits have reservations about the issues of justice system in this country, but our democracy has been guided to maturity. I believe that INEC will be independent to conduct free, fair, and credible elections. I believe that the security institutions will rise up to the challenges of ensuring that the electoral environment is peaceful and orderly. The judiciary is well prepared to ensure that in the event of disputes arising from the elections, they will give fair assessment and judgment. Democratic institutions in Nigeria have really improved to the extent that they will be able to manage free, fair, and peaceful elections. I have no fear whatsoever about self-help, which happened in other countries like in the USA when Donald Trump attempted to prevent the American Congress from pronouncing the election of Biden from happening here.
Where institutions are strong, they tend to give stability to democracy. I believe that under the APC government and a statesman, a leader, like President Buhari, we will not progress to such a point that we will not have credible, free, and transparent elections acceptable to everyone.
To what extent can vote-buying influence the outcome of the forthcoming election?
Politicians are actually aware of the assertiveness of the voters. So, vote buying will not be so prominent in this election, because it is already becoming like a useless tactic that Nigerians are beginning to resist as they resisted violence and intimidation around polling units. Vote buying will also be seen as a very illegal tactic and Nigerian voters will resist that. It is going to appear old-fashioned. I believe that the political leaders are also aware of that and will rather intensify their engagement with Nigerians and incentivise people through various other means of persuasion, and encouragement than election day vote buying. I believe that vote buying will work against any of the candidates that openly attempt to do it because voters will resist it. The security agencies might even arrest some people, and their leaders and charge them to court in line with the Electoral Act 2022 to possibly sanction them. Vote buying will really be minimal.
Do you think the 2023 election will reflect the decision and aspirations of the electorate?
I have no doubt that if we are able to strictly follow the steps taken so far by INEC to conduct this election, the outcome will be a marked improvement from what we have achieved previously. The electoral system has continually seen improvements since 2015. This election will truly reflect the will of the Nigerian people. And indeed, if there is any breach or abuse, of course, you cannot rule out the propensity among some people, or among a few selected candidates, in trying to influence the process or the outcomes in one way or the other, but it will truly reflect the will of the Nigerian people. Some of the steps so far taken, especially the automation, are in the experimental stage. BVAS will accredit registered voters and transmit election results electronically; we can only hope that there will be no hacking by someone in Nigeria or elsewhere in other continents. We hope they won’t break into the system and influence the outcome. At the level of the polling units, much of the outcomes have already been determined before they are transmitted. So, that would give confidence and some level of trust to the system. There is, of course, the issue of insecurity in some parts of the country is inaccessible. There are tensions in some states, but this election will be fought very hard. As we get close to the election, there will be less emphasis on intimidation, fear, or disruption of the process. It will rather be on engaging and persuading people to vote. Even the people promoting violence know that they are stakeholders that can make a difference with their votes. I believe that the preparations are okay. The 2023 poll will prove that democracy has matured in Nigeria, that the Nigerian elite are now succumbing to rule of law, and that our country is sufficiently democratic.