Dr. Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso is the Governor of Kano State who last year decamped to the All Progressive Congress (APC) from the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) along with four other governors. In this interview with journalists in Kano, Kwankwaso spoke on State Police, resource control and the race for the 2015 presidential election. TED ODOGWU was at the interactive session, where the governor accused President Goodluck Jonathan of divide and rule instead of adopting human-oriented policies for the unity and stability of the country. Excerpts:
Do you share the notion in certain quarters that President Goodluck Jonathan initiated the holding of the National Conference to further impoverish the poor in the North?
I agree with that notion 100 per cent and I said that the day he mentioned it. The worst aspect is the extension of his tenure. You have seen recently that he took a bill to the National Assembly, wanting the National Assembly to approve a six-year one-term. The implication of that is that he wanted more years for himself. He got two years after the death of Yar’Adua and now, he is spending four years.
What he wanted was another six years of one term, making 12 years. That seems not to be working. We learnt that they smuggled a new constitution through the Confab. The arithmetic of the handlers there is that they want to throw away the six years, have a new constitution and in 2015 start another eight years. We have seen it during the first term of governors of Yobe, Taraba, Ogun and Kogi. These were friends that were governors during the aborted third Republic and people took them to court so that they don’t ave more than one term. The court said no, this is a new constitution.
Now, there is a new constitution on the ground to start another eight years by 2015. And then, people are saying okay, another eight years, after six years; but do you want us to continue like this? With this level of corruption, this level of insecurity in this country and we have seen that the only corrupt people in this country are APC. If you are not in APC, no matter what you steal, even the unbelievable money of Abacha, it won’t matter. Even when you have cases in more than 10 countries outside this country and you have bank files and documents all that would be dropped. Look at even our Emir: Muhammad Sanusi 11, what was his crime? That he said some money was missing? If in your newspapers, somebody comes to say some monies are missing, you should listen to him and he shouldn’t be an enemy.
Look at what happened in Ekiti where they made people to surrender with arms. Look at what is happening now in Adamawa? I was involved. I was there and I sat down with all of them and we discussed. The governor of Adamawa knew the situation better than anybody. All these are interference from the above. Look at other cases and look at Rivers State where with five members, they want to impeach the Speaker and remove everybody including the governor. Look at Edo; they are being supported by the police. Look at what happened in Kano, just to appoint Emir and something under local government, Federal Government wanted to come and put their friend there.
They have been appointing our enemies and because of who? The last three appointments in Kano were from one Local Government. Aminu Wali is from Nasarrawa Local Government, the Minister of Education (Ibrahim Shekarau) is from Nasarrawa Local Government and the Adviser on Agriculture (Baraka Sani) is from Nasarrawa Local Government. We have 44 Local Governments but there is no sense of distribution. Who can fight him (Kwankwaso)? Whether they are from the same family, it doesn’t matter. In Nigeria, we have two senior Ministers from the same Local Government, Nasarrawa Local Government. They just want to destabilize the state. I have never seen anything like this, where the beneficiaries of this democracy are working towards destabilizing it.
Based on the fears you have expressed and the precedence you have enumerated, how do you view the preparation for the 2015 general elections?
Well, I don’t know. But we are praying it will be better. We are working to have free and fair elections. We want to see one united country. But from the way they are working now, I think people are worried, both locally and internationally because they want to win election by force. They are desperate. They want to continue by all means and that is the whole idea behind divide-and-rule. They want to rule forever and I think he (Jonathan) want to be life president. We have seen precedence in the past. Look at this our 486 young men and women who were being detained in Abia State: almost 500 people were arrested. Now, this is a very serious issue and, maybe, they don’t understand the size of the problem and the consequences of that, and, probably, that is what they want. If we close our trench leading to the south within one hour or two, you will get more than 500 people from the South-East. By the time we do that, it becomes a crisis. By the time I ask my people to come back from the South, other northerners or people from Kano, most of them, if not all of them will come back. And, we may not know the consequences of it.
All these put together is what is giving people this decisions and concern about 2015. Now, people are being detained, we all know they just had 486 and we don’t know if there are more and we don’t know what they have done wrong. We are here in the North and everybody is concerned about the state of insecurity. My own father was attacked in the Mosque. People piled on him in the Mosque. Three people were killed and 13 people were injured because of insecurity. I am not supporting the insurgents or insurgency, or any crime. We are fighting it here. By the grace of God, with the police, with the Army, we have been promoting peace in this state. But some of these decisions that people are taking because of their selfishness will continue to create problems and unless they understand and I hope they have the capacity to understand, I foresee a situation where we run into more crises.
We are Nigerians and this country belongs to all of us. So, the best way to do it is to get a way of uniting us, looking at the areas of strengths, not areas of weaknesses. Many of you here are Christians and I never looked at anyone of you to even imagine or to say oh, you a Christian. We are all friends and we shall continue to be friends. Christians and Muslims should see themselves as one. Recently, we had a meeting with the leadership of Christians under General Yakubu Gowon and all the leadership of Muslims, different sects were all here. We talked about how we can work together. And any politician in this country who decides to divide this country from these lines is not a politician.
That is why we have political parties. I see my friends from the South as my brothers and sisters, the same party. If there is election today, I am ready to go there and do whatever I can to support them and vice versa. But when you start to talk about the South or North, they are abusing themselves. But we know that at the Confab, that what is happening is much less than what we were expecting.
The agenda certainly is wrong, even though we are yet to see the end of the Confab. But we told our members to be vigilant, though the outcome will go to the National Assembly, but we want a situation where what we can get from the Confab will be good enough to be presented at the National Assembly. If you have so much and I have nothing, you should assist me, and vice versa. Now, look at what is happening there, people are saying we are Middle-Belt, far North, South, we have oil. All that cannot help us.
What Nigerians want is what is happening here in Kano. I have over 2000 young men and women of Kano State origin in 14 countries. We have given them free education. All our children are encouraged to go back to school. I have over 200 students in Katsina, a private university; 250 students in Igbinedon University in Edo; 200 in Bells University; 200 in Crescent University; 25 in Auchi. Here in Kano, I have two Universities, and people are going there. Everybody is engaged. We have 24 Institutes which almost on daily basis, they are graduating people. There are some three months, five months or one year courses and people are happy.
Are you nursing the ambition to contest for the Presidential race in the 2015 general elections?
You see, our party is a relatively new party and we have people from other parties, who have come together to form the All Progressive Congress (APC). We are in the APC to bring in change as many of us are not conversant with the status quo because maintenance of status quo is not conducive for this country. We need change and life is all about change. Some PDP members are predicting that PDP will last for 16 years. Sixteen years is the maximum, if we want to have a good country.
Therefore, 16 is the answer and we will continue to pray for Jonathan to sail the ship to the shore in 2015 and stop there. As at today, I have not told anybody in or outside the shores of this country that I want to contest for any election. I did not because we have to build the party first and also I want to present the constitution and outline what the party will do for the electorate.
However, from this moment to the end of October, the issue of who becomes the President will be in focus. I want to assure you that if my party (APC) finds me worthy of flying the Presidential flag, I will be very happy to do that because I believe I have the experience, the qualification and I have the wherewithal to perform much better than what we are doing now. Not only that, I am so lucky that I am being loved by the APC members across the board and at the same time, I am well known in the PDP, as most of the members, who are still in the party are my friends. One-on-one, I am sure they will vote for Rabiu Kwankwaso. So, it’s up to the party and you see, this big position, you don’t just go and start shouting.
I am happy that there is clamour and that even that in itself makes me happy. I did not say that I want it; people found me worthy to the extent that many of them are printing posters and printing campaign posters. But I told them that I don’t have anything to do with 2015, just take them out. Most of my supporters came to me in groups, informing me that they have printed posters, during which I told them to go and distribute it and we are still looking at ourselves. We have leaders and we have friends that are at the lower cadre in the party.
The idea is to get the right candidate, who can be acceptable to everybody. But we must have to ensure that he must be somebody, who can do the job and the capacity to do much better. APC is not just here to do one term and start claiming that it is much better. The bottom line is that we want people who can bring positive change and people who will never go to the mosque or church and start kneeling and begging and start introducing measures that those in other religions will feel bad.
The President of this country should be President. He should neither be an Imam or Pastor and he should be somebody, who will look at every Nigerian, including atheists and treat them equally and love them. He should unite people and not divide them because he wants to be President. That is the kind of character we are searching for. It must be somebody who has contacts in the South and north, including all the regions. It must be people who are exposed, people who have a truck load of experience, both within and outside the country.
These are the people we are searching for because the entire world is on the move. Our enemies are laughing while our friends are wailing all over the world. Every day you tune your television; there is an announcement that not less than 20 people have been killed. What we are saying is sit down and look at the problem and take action. Let us do something.
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