Engineer Babachir David Lawal is the national vice chairman (North East) of the All Progressives Congress (APC). He bares his mind on a range of issues affecting the party in its bid to win the 2015 presidential election and the forthcoming by-election in Adamawa.
#Excerpts:
Some are saying Buhari cannot win the APC presidential ticket due to recent changes in the party. What do you think?
You see, whether or not General Buhari becomes a candidate of the APC or not, his involvement in the political process will be a strong determinant in 2015. He has become the symbol of opposition in the country and everybody rallies round him because of his determination and large followership which even the PDP has acknowledged. So a presidential contest without him will deprive the masses of their candidate. Even if the party decides in its wisdom to take somebody else, if General Buhari does not adopt that candidate and actively work for him, it will be very difficult for that candidate to win the heart of the people. So for us General Buhari is important to our success in the 2015 election.
So what role do you envisage for Buhari in 2015 since age is not on his side?
General Buhari will run for president in 2015, take my words on this. Now about age, how old is Goodluck Jonathan? I think he is about 56 or thereabout, and he is running the worst government Nigeria has ever witnessed to the extent that even Obasanjo whom I am sure might be close to 80 did better because at least during his time there was peace. His government was a much better government than the one we have now under Jonathan. So it is not about age. Look some of these governors, are they not young? But some of them have Ferraris and Bentleys in their garages. They have houses in choice places and countries in the world.
Is that the reason Buhari will not allow a younger person?
He had problems of trust with most of them.
As a youth I anoint you to become a governor or a president and suddenly you became the worst governor or president.
Today, Nigerians have not forgiven Obasanjo for bringing Yar’adua whose untimely death paved way for this administration which is tormenting Nigerians. Nigerians have been accusing him of deliberately bringing the late president who is sick so that at the end when he dies or becomes incapacitated, Goodluck will take over. I am sure Obasanjo is still regretting what he did, because the whole blame on the failure of this government is traceable to his choice of successor. So a normal human being will be wary of these young boys, and it has been demonstrated, he has seen it many times, he has been betrayed not even once but many times by different people at different times. However there is also the issue of followers. We the followers will not trust these possible successors. We don’t trust them, because some of them are our governors, we know what they are doing or what they did, they oppress the people, they think they have monopoly of knowledge. You don’t argue with them.
There are agitation by various groups asking President Jonathan to contest in 2015….
My wife told me that she believes that Jonathan by his character might be planning to retire to the village or even go back to teaching in the university or a college of education if he will have his way, but some people there who are close to him and have bought private jets and bulletproof cars, will want to be maintaining those jets and expensive automobiles. So they make sure that they don’t give him that option.
Sometimes the followers dictate what the leaders do. But APC was not formed for us to be holding meetings and having a good time. We want to remove a bad government. We want to replace this bad government with a good one. We need somebody who Nigerians will vote for because of the love and hope they have in his ability to take the country higher and ensure justice.
The exit of Senator Ali Modu Sheriff has caused a lot of ripples in the North East APC….
I don’t like to discuss individuals in politics. I have known Senator Ali Modu Sheriff for a long time, especially during the Sani Abacha era, I respect him a lot. He is a man of immense financial resources, the sources of which I am not in a position to tell you since his sources are not easily verifiable. My experience in relation to his politics is that since the time of the merger to form the APC, Senator Ali Modu Sheriff won his election in ANPP if you can remember, on the back of General Buhari who was then the presidential candidate but he became an Obasanjo man than any PDP governor at that time. So he has played his hand since that time, we have known who he was.
Successive PDP governments have inherited this relationship with Sheriff. Even after his tenure he has been a Villa man and more so during the time of Jonathan. So when we went into the merger, initially it was purely between the ACN and CPC, that was the original plan, then the ANPP came on board saying, oh, we are just reluctant because of our past experience. Initially we did not want to accept them but we considered that there are some good people among them.
Those people since that time have tried to sabotage the merger, some of these people we have known their game plans. As soon as we finish our meetings they will rush to their masters and deliver their reports. They tried but they were unable to scuttle the merger. They planted their boys in the party hoping that they will cause problem to undermine the party but it did not work.
During the registration one of the leaders of the party, who is a very close associate to Sheriff printed registration materials, we caught them and we reported it and we sabotaged their plans. Their plan was to hijack the party since the time of the registration of our members so that they will have as many of their people as they can in the party so that when the time for the congresses and convention come they will actualise their plans and hijack the party machinery because, these are people that are not used to good governance. That is why Sheriff was not getting it easy with the governor in Borno State and wanted to do everything to produce a replacement by trying to impeach the governor. But the party is solidly behind its governor. We think his defection is a return home, because that is where he belongs and is good riddance.
What about the defection of Chief Tom Ikimi who left the party alleging that he was schemed out of the party chairmanship race at the convention?
When Ikimi said he was denied the chance to contest, I said I was an example because my zone tried to deny me the chance to contest on account of a bogus consensus but I refused. I bought the form, I was cleared and I won. So any democrat who insist that election must be by consensus has a weak foundation. There is no way the APC will deny anybody the chance to contest for any elective post unless of course if the party doubts his intentions. If you think you will only emerge through consensus you are not a true democrat. We have had challenges anyway, but despite that the party has made all efforts to see that its aggrieved members were made to understand the situation that in a contest there must be somebody who wins and another who loses.
APC has picked a candidate for the Adamawa election. What is your take?
Well you see, the party in the first place has done well in the conduct of the primary. It shows that the party is really serious about ensuring internal democracy in the sense that it allowed all the candidates to have a sense of belonging while giving them a level playing ground to express themselves.
PDP seems to be regaining strength in Adamawa, is that the effect that led to the impeachment of Nyako?
The impeachment is a temporary victory for a selfish self centered clique that doesn’t wish the state well. They brought embarrassment and shame to the state and its peace-loving people. We are not happy but it will eventually translate into an election victory for the APC at the election in October like it happened in Nasarawa in 2011. Al-Makura crossed over from the PDP and joined the defunct CPC when it denied him the right to a legitimate democratic process to contest on its platform. He defected at the last hour and won the governorship election on the platform of the CPC making him the only governor in the country on the same platform with Buhari.
When we went for the presidential election campaign , the then governor of Nassarawa State instructed all traditional rulers in the state not to host Buhari when he visits the state, but when we arrived at the state capital and as a policy wherever we went for our campaigns we visited the traditional rulers but the governor and the emirs travelled out of town. The stadium which was supposed to be the venue of the campaign was locked, but the masses broke the gates and thousands and thousands of Nasarawa people filled the stadium. They even threatened to attack the emir’s palace but Buhari pleaded with them to remain calm. So whatever the PDP is planning to do the APC is up to the task, even though the PDP does not have a clear rule of engagement.
Source: #Daily_Trust
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