Bafarawa: Foundation of the APC Government is Built on Corruption

Nseobong Okon-Ekong holds a conversation with the former governor of Sokoto State, Dr. Attahiru Bafarawa on some of the knotty issues in Nigeria. He suggests how the country can get out of the quagmire. Excerpts:

What is your position on zoning especially against the backdrop of agitations in the South that after President Muhammadu Buhari power should rotate to the region?

That is a very good and interesting subject when you talk about zoning. All these are politics. The APC as a party was formed in 2013 and I happened to be a founding member of the party. The constitution was drafted in my house in Abuja. You can see the group photograph of the members here. These are the people who put together the constitution of the APC. So, when you are talking about zoning, the APC and PDP are national political parties and everybody has his own way of picking a candidate. When the APC was formed, everybody believed that the life of the party was Buhari. There is no question about it and then no Southerner contested against him. By 2023, he would have served eight years. So, automatically, the APC is expected to zone its presidential ticket to the South. There is no dispute about that. For the PDP, it was formed in 1998 and it formed the government in 1999 and in the 16 years that the party ruled, the North had it for just about two years. President Obasanjo ruled for eight years and Jonathan was there for six years. So, in the PDP era, between the North and South, who were the beneficiaries? The South was there for 14 years but still the PDP was magnanimous enough and said they are throwing the race open for everyone irrespective of zone. It is not a question of argument and just talking. The race is open and whoever is qualified to get the ticket is free to do so. So, there is no question of whether North or South, the thing is for the best leader to emerge whether you are from the North or South provided you are a Nigerian and you can do it well. Let us understand that our unity is paramount. Take for example, I come from North-west and President Buhari also is from North-west, but the zone which has suffered most in Nigeria is our own. So, what is the essence of the president coming from our area? Talking about insecurity, no zone is more affected than the North-west. There is nothing to show or talk about in the North. So, the important thing is to have somebody who has the interest of the country at heart and who would move the nation forward.

As a foundation member of the APC, why did you decide to leave?

I did not leave the APC but was pushed out of the party. Before, I had never been a member of the PDP in my life. I was a governor for eight years and not under the PDP. Even when there were issues, I did not join the PDP but went to form my own party-DPP. So, it is not a question of leaving but being pushed out. Today, that is part of the prayer that I thank God for that I was pushed out of the APC at that point. We formed the party and unfortunately, some PDP governors decided to leave and they joined the APC. I was a victim of that movement because my governor by then was one of those who left the PDP and joined the APC. When he joined the APC, the party asked every state chapter to handover the party structure and leadership to them. I asked them a question on the criteria they used in telling us to handover the party to the governors who were just coming in and did not know anything about the APC. We were the people who formed this political party. They told us that they (governors) had the money to share and manage the party and that was where corruption started since the formation of the APC. They said these governors have the money and I asked which money; where did they get the money? They said they were going to give the party N100 million each but I said I was not a governor but I was ready to give N100 million so that they would leave my structure. They said no and that if I can accept to handover the chapter, there is no problem. My supporters said no that it was over their dead body they would accept that condition. That was when we left and joined the PDP. And it is the same government that did that that is now telling me they are fighting corruption. Which corruption are they fighting when in the beginning, the foundation started on corruption?

If the conditions are right, is it possible that you could return to the APC?

What will I do there? I have already made my position known. I am not going to look for any elective or appointive position for the rest of my life. The only thing I am interested in is who is my president or my governor? What would make me go back to the APC after I was pushed out? I think I have seen it all. The only thing is to be grateful to God.

Is that what you meant when you were widely quoted that you had retired from active politics?

I did not retire. I am still in politics until I die. I am not taking any elective office or appointment but I will be in politics until I die. But I want to know who my president is and my governor. I cannot sit down at home and see all these happen. I have to work to see who will be my president and governor. So, I was misquoted to have said I quit politics. Never!

You are fully supporting your governor, Aminu Tambuwal to be president of Nigeria in 2023; are you convinced that he has what it takes to lead the nation?

I am one hundred percent convinced that Governor Tambuwal can competently lead Nigeria to greater heights. He is a politician to the core. He is a professional politician. He is an all round politician. As a lawyer, he has judicial knowledge; as a former speaker, he has knowledge of the workings of the legislature and as a governor, he has knowledge in the executive arm of government. So, put the three together, he is really qualified. I believe that if he gets good hands in his team, he would turn Nigeria around as a great nation that God created it to be.

From your vantage position as a statesman, what are your reflections about the state of affairs in Nigeria today?

We are talking about democracy in Nigeria but honestly speaking, it is very frightening the way we Nigerians play politics generally and more especially in this era. Talking about First Republic, Second Republic, Third Republic and now things are getting worse with our democracy. This is because in this era, it is only one player. The player is the referee and umpire also. The essence of democracy is to give equal opportunity to both the electorate and those looking for elective positions. But the fundamental issue that everybody is ignoring is the foundation. When the foundation is not laid properly, the building will certainly collapse. So, Nigeria’s democracy is shaking because it does not have a good foundation. A good foundation is the heart of a political party; a solid one that can discipline any member of the party. The leadership of the party must be supreme. What we are saying about the leadership of the party is that the party is supreme to anybody. Whoever that is occupying any position is an agent of that political party. But if the party is there just for the sake of contesting election, it is not right and that is where we are now. This is because presently, whoever is the governor or president becomes the leader of the party either in the state or the nation respectively. They become the Chief Executives even when they are players. The essence of the party is to blow whistle for the agents of the party. A party has its own manifesto and constitution and the governor or president has to follow the rules and regulations. They have to follow the priorities whether in the education sector, power, infrastructure, health or whatever is the manifesto of the party to develop their own vision for the people. The party is there to supervise those elected on its platform. Based on that, they can say yes we are doing well or not doing well. If you are not doing well, the party would call your attention and say look this is not part of our agenda or manifesto. In that way, things would be much better but now, in the way we are currently playing politics in Nigeria, the governors and the president are the overall. As I said earlier, they are the referee/umpire and the player at the same time. So, with that situation, things may completely collapse unless we have the right discipline within the political parties. Again, the fault is not only from the political parties. There is also another problem from the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC). A political party is registered by the requirement of the INEC. So, it is the duty of the INEC to be supervising the political parties’ constitution and manifesto. It is not just there for conducting elections. The electoral body should be supervising the political parties to ensure that they are doing what is in their manifesto. But all these roles are ignored. There is no check and balance from the INEC and there is no check and balance from the parties on the elected officers. That is why things are collapsing in Nigeria. The president is supreme over the party nationally and the governors are supreme over the state chapters of their parties. This is how we are playing Nigerian politics up to date and that is the problem.

This picture you are painting did not happen in the Second Republic; it is only in this Fourth Republic that we are noticing all these anomalies; so what has actually gone wrong?

In the First and Second republics, we had professional politicians. Many of the players then took politics to be their profession. So, they played the game the way it should be. Some of them started from councillorship positions and they devoted their time just to serve the public. That is the difference between politicians of that era and the people we have now. You are a professional military man or a member of Customs or Police and you are above 65 years and you retire and now you want to be a politician. People will retire from service and the only thing they think they can do is to join politics. You cannot be a general without starting from the Nigerian Defence Academy(NDA). You cannot be a PhD holder without going to the primary school, secondary school and the university level. When you retire from the service, the only thing you are looking for is to be president just like President Muhammadu Buhari. He is a military man. When he joined politics in 2003, the first thing he did was to be president. He did not look for the chairmanship or secretary of the party; the only thing he looked for from 2003 to 2015 was to become the president. That is how everyone of them is. I started politics from the councillorship level and rose to become the Local Government chairman, to state party chairman, National party chairman and then governor. So, for almost 45 years, I have been in politics. But for others, it is like they have exhausted their energies in their chosen profession as military or paramilitary officers, medical doctors, engineers and so on and they say they want to join politics. When you are head of department in the university and maybe you are trained as a medical doctor, when you reach 65 years you retire because the thinking is that you now lack the energy to continue to carry out your job effectively. But in the case of Nigeria, after all these and you retire, you say you want to be the president when you just retired as the Head of department within a ministry. You want to join politics after you have retired from active service. For some, the first position they want to occupy is that of the governor or president. But the truth is that unless you are trained for something, you cannot be an expert in it. If you are not trained in something, no matter how you try, you may never be good at it. If you want to start a business and they give you one billion naira, you are bound to fail but if you start with 100 thousand Naira or so, you are likely to succeed because you started from the scratch. By the time every Tom, Dick and Harry join politics because they feel you can make money in it, you see the problem we are experiencing today. The foundation of our democracy is wrong and if we continue on this route, we are not going anywhere as a country. We are bound to fail unless we leave politics for the professional politicians who are ready to sacrifice anything for the public and not for their personal interest.

But that is contrary to the view in some quarters. There are those who insist that we need also the professionals to work with the politicians; some say politics is not supposed to be a profession but a vocation. What is your take on that position?

No, we are not saying that you would not involve the professionals. What we are talking about is government and governance. There is definitely supposed to be team work. You have the professional politicians who through team work will collaborate with the people you are talking about. They are there to advise the politicians who are directly dealing with the public. Let me give you an example. Former President Olusegun Obasanjo, when he came to power in 1999, he assembled experts from every part of Nigeria who were like the Think-tank of his administration. He achieved a lot because of that. The idea is for them to give their expert advice to the professional politicians. But when such people say that they are going to lead, they will fail. The essence of having a politician is the will to take decisions for the public good. So, everyone has his own way of building the nation. You cannot just occupy a political position because you are a PhD holder and so on. Paper qualification is not enough. Some of the politicians, their experiences, you can never learn it in any university. They got their own training in dealing with the people. The truth is that people need good roads, security, health, good schools, good economy and so on. What you need is to get the experts to continually advise on the best decisions to take to achieve your set goals. As the president, you must have the will to implement the recommendations of the professionals. But if you say only the technocrats and so called professionals should occupy all those positions, they will never get it right. The important thing is that as a government, there should be team work between the politicians in government and the technocrats. In the business of governance, the key to success is to assemble a good team. I am not giving a long history; I have just given you an example with the Obasanjo, Yar’Adua and even recently Jonathan administration. When Obasanjo came in, he did not adopt the system of the winner takes all. In his cabinet, he gave a member of the Alliance for Democracy(AD) ministerial appointment, ANPP and the ruling party then, PDP. But when President Buhari came, it is winner takes all. They took all and you can see that they have failed because their government is not inclusive. The truth is that whether you are of the APC, PDP or whatever, you are a Nigerian. You want to contribute your quota and because you did not win election or you are not a member of a particular party, you are sidelined. You sideline some people and bring those you think are members of your party; that is why we have all these problems today.

That brings us to the issue of lack of national cohesion among the people. How can the nation achieve unity like it was in the past?

There is nothing new in all of these. If we continue the way President Obasanjo and others managed the country, you would not have all these problems. Go and check Obasanjo’s cabinet including in the villa, you saw an Igbo man, Hausa, Yoruba, Muslim, Christian and everybody. You have to be for all. But when you say only me, my brothers, relations and friends, it becomes a problem. Like me, I don’t know what people mean by cabal. It is now that you hear about cabal but in the past, nobody heard about it. The country was for all irrespective of whether I belong to this party or that. Past leaders had put into practice measures that ensured unity among the people of Nigeria and it worked. It is not something that is new.

There is the monster of insecurity in the country today; is there more to all of these and what is the best way to tackle the situation?

It is very simple; there is no way you can get rid of insecurity in Nigeria without getting rid of the APC government. When they came, their vision was just to get the PDP out of government. That was their only agenda and manifesto. After they succeeded in getting the PDP out of power, it took them six good months before they were able to constitute a cabinet. So, when you are talking of people who did not have any vision, you should not expect Nigeria to enjoy security of their lives and property. It is a leader who has a vision that will sit down and plan how to secure the country and to say what is the way forward of checking the situation. Security is for all. It is not only for the military or police; everybody should be involved. The government cannot do it alone and the way and manner the present administration is managing it, they cannot do it unless they involve everybody and find out the solution. People are ready to give advice on security. For instance, we are the people buying the weapons for them. When I say we, I am talking about the ordinary common man. They arrest you and they say they are looking for N10 million, they would only spend N500 thousand and they use N9.5 million to go and buy the weapons to arrest you. You will buy the weapon for them and they would use that to harass you. It is the money they are getting from harassing the ordinary man that they are using to buy the weapons. So, if they know where to buy the weapons, what is the government doing to ensure they do not get those weapons. What is the government doing to ensure they stop where the weapons are going? Some of the bandits are in and some are out. The Fulani people don’t know how those bandits are getting the weapons. They are being assisted by communities. First of all, let us agree that we have a problem and the politicians, media and everybody can contribute to solve the problem. It is not a question of government alone. And this government does not have that idea; they just do what they want to do. So, unless, we get a government that would say okay, this problem is our problem, the situation would remain the same. But if you do the right thing, within a short period, the problem would be gone.

QUOTE

Tambuwal can competently lead Nigeria to greater heights. He is a politician to the core. He is a professional politician. He is an all round politician. As a lawyer, he has judicial knowledge; as a former speaker, he has knowledge of the workings of the legislature and as a governor, he has knowledge in the executive arm of government. So, put the three together, he is really qualified. I believe that if he gets good hands in his team, he would turn Nigeria around as a great nation that God created it to be