WHAT is your assessment of President Goodluck Jonathan in the last two years?
I need to congratulate our president, he has performed very well. You have to see his performance in the light of the security challenges he faces on a daily basis.
In spite of that, he has performed creditably well on his transformation agenda. For example, look at the issue of fuel scarcity, it is a major problem we have settled.
There is improvement generally on electricity; he has performed well in giving women the desired 30 per cent participation in governance; no government has ever done that. There is also this programme of Sure-P, it’s wonderfully being carried out; it’s meant to address the issue of youth’s unemployment. I think he is doing well in those areas.
There is also the issue of railway transportation; he is trying to link up the North with the South. My only complaint is in the area of security, he took time before taking the drastic step which he has taken now. The state of emergency in the three states is going to work and it’s working already. The area which the president should also focus on to effectively tackle security challenges is on our borders and our neighbouring countries. These small neighbouring countries that depend on us to feed and for protection are now causing problems for us; we can’t take this. He should send a note of serious warning to all these neighbouring countries: Niger, Cameroon and others, that Nigeria will not take it lightly for somebody to come through their countries and harass us when they are not harassing their countries. It means they have no control of their security agencies or they are part of them. So he should warn them, address the UN, OAU and other stakeholders.
Many would say the incursions were because we did not protect our borders well…?
I have told you, if I have protected my house and someone jumps over your fence to assault me; then it means I will have take over the security of your house too.That’s the reality. An armed robber comes through somebody’s house to my house and robs me and he didn’t rob you and escapes through your house again, shouldn’t you work on securing your house? So, I think this is the area where the president has to act and that will stop and calm the security problem because all the insurgents are coming from other countries. Tafewa Balewa said during independence: “Nigeria has appreciated in its size, its magnitude, its strength; the only way there will be peace is to protect the integrity of all smaller countries. We have no aggression; we don’t have aggression intention, we will protect your entity so that there will be peace.” Now, these smaller countries we were protecting are now the ones causing our problems; that cannot happen. If during independence he had said that we wouldprotect them to make sure we stay peaceful, is it not their responsibilities to also help us to have peace, especially with the fact that they are solely dependent on Nigeria? Why should they allow people to come through them and create havoc in our country?
As a prominent member of the PDP in Kano, how do you see the emergence of APC?
As far as I am concerned, the merger you are talking about looks so big and it looks like a big threat; but if history is anything to go by, that merger is not going to work, it will fizzle out. Why is it going to fizzle out? The circumstances and operations at the states are different from what operates at the national level. Two, you have to look at the fundamentals, who are the people coming together, we all know them: ACN, ANPP and CPC. These are very incompatible people; there is no clear and sincere intention to come together. If you look at it critically, there has never been a time the South-West and the North agreed to work together politically right from the first republic till date. If you remember Awolowo, Sardauna and the rest, they could not come to work together. If you come to the issue of Abiola, did the Yoruba really help Abiola? They didn’t. It was only when the mandate was seized that they came and took the mandate as theirs. But we in Kano were the ones who felt bad that the June 12 election was cancelled. It was Kano that really voted for Abiola more than our own son, Bashir Tofa, as the result showed. So these are some of the factors which I think will disintegrate the merger. So, I believe the merger is just temporary and PDP will get even stronger.
Will you be surprised if the merger works?
Certainly, I will be surprised but it will not even work. If you go by history, it is the same trend that will happen. If you remember there was the progressive governors’ merger against the National Party of Nigeria (NPN), did it work? It failed. Nigerians seem to forget history.
But don’t you think Nigerians are more educated now politically?
They are more educated politically I agree, but this merger will not work because they are not coming together with a clear intention. If you are just coming to take power, it doesn’t work that way; you have to be committed to a common principle.
Don’t you think the internal crisis in PDP will affect the performance of the party in 2015?
Yes, there is crisis in PDP but I hope our party will sit up from the states to federal levels and resolve the issues; there is enough time. They will be able to resolve whatever issues they have. Fundamentally, the crisis in PDP has to do with exclusion and some people trying to dominate. It is all about people playing a big role and not being recognised. The president has to get everybody on board; we need to be honest with everyone and everything will change. Look at Muhammadu Buhari, he is a good man; he is a leader we hope to get, but it’s like they want to push him to be Awolowo, the best president that never was. Awolowo would have been the best president but he was betrayed. The same people also betrayed Abiola; they betrayed Obasanjo. Buhari also needs to look at the people surrounding him, they are just appearing to be loyal; but they are just people interested in using him to get to power.
You were made to face trial in court as the former MD of the Nigeria Ports Authority, what led to this?
As a Muslim we take things as they come; but personally I have to feel bad because it’s something to do with my integrity. As far as I am concerned, it was just a political issue. I am a victim of Yoruba’s dirty politics. I was not convicted as chief executive of NPA; I was tried as a board member, it was not the MD that was tried but the Board and being a member I was among them. The whole issue of NPA was about a quarrel among South-West leaders and they dragged NPA into it. First I want to talk about the politics; it’s just a conflict of politics basically between Obasanjo, Bode George and maybe Tinubu. It was Obasanjo who brought Bode to NPA Board as chairman for a purpose. That was the beginning; after Bode was removed from NPA he was given Vice Chairman of PDP (South-West); after that he was given Director-General of Yar’Adua campaign organisation. But when they wanted to try him, why did they leave these two important positions and went back to NPA? So, I don’t know where we went wrong but Obasanjo and Bode had their quarrel, where I don’t know; but they chose to settle it in NPA and that was how we became victims. So our trial was political, it had nothing to do with corruption in NPA.
Why didn’t you appeal the judgment of the lower court?
I am challenging it, we did appeal. My case is coming up soon. I didn’t believe in what they did to us and so I am challenging it to get justice. I believe I will get justice. NPA is a federal agency; I served a federal agency, why will you try me in a state with state law? So, I think that is a fundamental error, I can’t be tried under the state law. They tried us with the Lagos State law, not the federal law, so I believe justice has to be done.
You are a prominent politician in Kano and a leader of the PDP, why have you distanced yourself from happenings in the party in the last two years?
Actually, I have not been silent; the most important thing is to do the work rather than do the talking. In the last two years, I have been engaged in so many things in my constituency- helping my party and my governor to achieve the desired mandate. He has done very well and he is making us proud, the people are feeling the impact and we can now beat our chest to say our governor is one of the best performing governors in the country. He recently got two awards from the Black African Mayors for uplifting the quality of life of his people- for his prudence and transparency in the use of public funds. Those are the two latest awards he has collected which tally with his delivery of dividends of democracy.
You said you are proud of your governor, what has he really put in place?
I am very proud of Governor Kwakwanso’s achievements. We are proud of him because everybody is seeing the results of what he is doing to better the lives of our people. Even the enemies are giving up as a result of his performance; the result is transparent and everybody is commending him.
Can you lead us into some of the remarkable achievements that have made you say you are proud of him?
It will take the whole day to list the achievements; they are so many that space will not be enough in this interview. But I will take them sector by sector. The first sector which is the most important one is how he was able to convince people to have confidence in his government, a government that is working and they believe whatever the government says is going to work. So, specifically on policies and system change, he has fundamentally brought to history some changes which are very important and have affected the lives of the people. Look at the removal of achaba (commercial motorcycle), people never thought it would be possible, but it is history now. If you go to the hospitals, the record of accidents has reduced drastically, pollution has reduced, insecurity associated with achaba has reduced and it has gone for good. Secondly, if you go to Kano now, there are no mentally-retarded people walking on the streets, the governor has removed all of them and taken them back to rehabilitation centres. He didn’t make it public; people didn’t even know; but that policy has been achieved. He has brought a new revenue drive policy, people are paying taxes now and the revenue has improved because people believe they are putting their money where the government is working. So these are areas of policy. The biggest project he is going to start now is one that people are very supportive of. His Excellency has concluded plans to remove all the Almajiris from Kano; and some people had said there was no basis for it. But we believe he can change the system to a system where poverty is not going to be visible. And I am sure with the support of all our Mallams and traditional rulers he is going to achieve that. So, these are just areas of policy and system change which have brought about fundamental changes in our state.
We can also take area of education, starting from the primary level. He has rehabilitated most of the primary schools. He has built new classes of over 1,000 blocks, which are about five each for every local government area. He has equipped the primary schools; he has provided the teachers with houses and welfare and this is the first time in Kano State where teacher were given loans to buy cars to make them proud of the job as well as providing them with teaching materials. There is a programme of feeding, you can go round and see students being fed in primary schools and they have free uniforms. So, in the primary education sector, he has achieved a lot. For the secondary schools, which are also being rehabilitated, there is a new concept; he has established three mega comprehensive secondary schools in each of the senatorial districts. These mega secondary schools are equipped with facilities so that the best student from other secondary schools can be admitted and you will have quality students going to secondary schools. In the area of higher education, everybody knows he has established a working Northwest University; he has used the Ado Bayero House, which was abandoned for many years as a temporary site for the university. It has taken off while the permanent site is under construction and it has gone far. Furthermore, he has re-introduced mass education at every local government. There is a centre where he has recruited people to teach basic education to house wives and traders, so that everyone can at least have basic education and be able to read and write.
He has also brought a new concept of establishing crafts schools in very local government so that dropouts from secondary schools can go to the crafts school and learn a trade. With that they can still be useful to the society. If you take another sector, that is infrastructural development, Kano has changed from a decayed state in the last eight years to a very beautiful environment. If you go to Kano, the street lights are all functioning, the pavements and roads are working.
Rehabilitation of culverts and drainages is on-going. In the night, you will feel like you are in Dubai. There is also general road infrastructure; all the roads leading to Kano are being expanded with street lights and drainages.
Kano used to be known for its water problem. How is the present government tackling the problem?
The biggest problem of water is now being addressed properly. There are two areas: the generation and distribution. Now he is putting one-metre pipes to distribute to the centre and all the old pipes within the city are being changed. They have decayed and rusted over years, so you have to essentially remove all the pipes and that is being done. The issue of water scarcity will be a thing of the past in Kano very soon. Do you know that for the first time, the governor has addressed the traffic congestion problem in Kano? There is now a big flyover in the centre of Kano. This is the first time the people of Kano are seeing a flyover in their state. They are just seeing a road in the air and thinking it is impossible. By the time he solves that problem, the congestion in the city will be a thing of the past.
What about the area of Housing?
He has realised that Kano is congested; it has to be opened up. All these security challenges are due to congestion of the city. Everybody wants to stay in the city.
So he identified three distinct areas of expansion with a view to providing new cities. So there is a new city along Zaria Road, there is infrastructure, electricity and the houses are modern. There is also Anana city, and another one along Dambata Road - all equipped with modern infrastructures that will decongest Kano and this is a laudable project.
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