By OMONIYI SALAUDEEN

Photo: Senator Mahmud Kanti Bello

By OMONIYI SALAUDEEN

Since the advent of the present political dispensation, Katsina-born Senator Mahmud Kanti Bello, erstwhile Senate Majority Whip, has literally traversed all major political parties, including PDP, ANPP and CPC. Now, he is a member of the newly registered All Progressives Congress (APC). In this interview, he laments the danger corruption posed to the future survival of this country, insisting that only Buhari can deal with the menace. Excerpts:

You have traversed literally all major political parties- PDP, ANPP and CPC. Are you now comfortable in APC?

Yes, so far I am comfortable. We just had our stakeholders’ meeting and I am happy that the Interim National Chairman has set out a well articulated manifesto for the party. We are out to check insecurity, devolution of power, agricultural development for food security aS well as free education. As you have said, I have been in this political game for quite some time. My own understanding is that we are giving this country something that will salvage the economy from the clutches of indiscipline, high level of corruption and insincere leadership. I am also happy that all our governors and leaders are committed to moving this country forward. You know I am a grassroots politician and from all that I have heard, Nigerians are very happy about the party. Nigerians want a party that is different from PDP. They don’t want what has happened in the defunct parties. They want an honest democratic party. They want people to be elected on merit. And this is why this interim leadership must live by example. If they do very well, their names will be written in gold. If they mess up with their selfish interest, there will be problem for the party and it will spell doom for Nigeria.

Are you in a nutshell saying that the party is now well positioned to bring about the change people are yearning for?

I will rather say that the party is now well named. You cannot say a party is well positioned when you have not elected your executive. The people that are there are all interim. They were selected or appointed by our previous parties. Yes, we have confidence in them, but Nigerians should be given opportunity to elect their leaders when the time comes for election. And it should be from ward level to the national level. So, if this interim management is honest from registration to congress, then they have done great for Nigeria. If they mess up and bring certain interests in, then they mess up this country, mess up the party and mess up the hope of Nigeria. At this movement, a savior for Nigeria has been borne. The only thing is that this baby should be nursed very well.

As a core Northern leader, how acceptable is APC in the north?

Northerners in general wanted a change because they are not happy. The reason they are not happy is that they have seen that their standard of living has gone down. If you go to Kano, so many factories have closed down. There is no longer textile industry you know. Before this government came in, we knew how many mega wattS of electricity we were generating. Today, we are generating less than 3,000 mega watts. There is nothing to show for the trillion of naira invested in the power sector. People are no fools.  No industry can grow without regular electricity. Even we cannot cope with our domestic consumption. Every single northerner wanted a change from what is happening today. I joined the CPC because I followed the people. I wanted to be where the people are. It has been made clear that if we are able to win and get to power, we are going to pursue devolution of power, we are going to do our best to develop agriculture to ensure food security, and we are going to provide good health care system. These are not mere wishful thinking. The security situation must be improved; educational system must be improved, electricity must be improved, if this country is to move forward. People must have gainful employment. And the great sector that can employ people is Agriculture. No northerner is happy to see young Al-Majiri on the streets begging because it is a time bomb; it is like explosive ready to blast off. Something should be done.  That is why some of us out of patriotism prayed so that there will be merger.  And thank God that merger has now become a reality. Now, the next stage is for the people who are put in charge to move the merger forward. This is the most critical period in the life of the party. So, the Interim management must live above board.  I am not saying we haven’t got confidence in them; we have. But we are watching. They must make sure that they do things right. If any of them is interested in going for any elective position, he must resign from management position. I believe not only northerners but the entire Nigerians are interested in embracing the party. It is a necessity.

There is a general apprehension that there may be a clash of interests when the time comes for nomination of presidential candidate of the party. Don’t you think so?

If you have listened to me carefully, not only the presidential candidate, but even election into party positions must be done transparently because that is what will show to Nigerians whether there will be honesty or not.

What about zoning matter?

There is no zoning in our party’s constitution. After the registration of members, there will be congresses. If the registration is hijacked by some people for personal interest, then there will be problem. Every Nigerian who wants to be registered should be registered and should be given equal treatment. I know there are some bad gangs within the party, but we are watching them. Some of us are in this party with our lives and our souls for the interest of this country. And we will do everything possible to make it work. We are not going to leave any stone unturned to make it succeed.

There is also insinuation of a crack in the party. Is there no crack in the merger?

I am yet to see it. This is a new born baby. It was born a couple of weeks ago when it was registered and we just did the naming ceremony at our stakeholders’ meeting. Now, we have to nurse the baby to become a man. This is a developmental stage. At developmental stage, you cannot have a crack. Anybody who talks of crack is just speaking for PDP.

With your Interim Management, how do you think APC is going to cope with the aspect of the Electoral Act that stipulates that election must take place six months before the handover, which is likely to be November or December next year?

God willing, we should be able to conclude our congresses by the end of November. If we conclude congresses by the end of November, we have thirteen months within which to field candidates. And every hand will be on deck to move this country forward. If we are willing, we can make it. All we want is that it must be different from PDP. Nigerians expect a party that is different from PDP and crisis-free.

Putting the card on the table; is there a way your party can actually run away from the issue of zoning because majority of northern political elders want power shift?

Which zoning? Zoning is not part of the constitution of APC. There is no where zoning is mentioned. But there is what they call fairness. The most important thing is capability, credibility and someone who can do the job. So, don’t bring in the issue of zoning. It is not part of our constitution. It is part of the constitution of the previous PDP. I said previous PDP because Jonathan kicked against it. And that is one of the things that made me to disagree with him. If I sat down with you and agreed on how we want to live together, you cannot just change the rule because you want an advantage. And that is what makes the difference between APC and the PDP.  I am not against Jonathan because he is from the South-South and I am a Northerner. There is a rule that is supposed to be obeyed. If we start disobeying rules, there will be trouble and that is why the PDP is in crisis today. And they will continue to have problem because a lot of people want to cut corners. That is what I am saying to the new party; don’t allow that to happen. Be honest in your dealing with people.

Apparently, if power shift cannot be actualized under the PDP, the North will be looking towards the APC.

(Cuts in). That is what will help the APC to win. If it is a strategy to field a northerner so that we can win, so be it. But then, we should field a Northerner that is good enough, we should field a Northerner that is not corrupt, we should field a Northerner that is strong, we should field a Northerner that is liked by the people, we should field a Northerner that has the capacity to do the job. And that Northerner we know is in the party and he can do it.  We need somebody who can stamp out corruption. Corruption is our cancer in this country. Why do we spend trillion of naira on the power sector to generate just 3000 mega watts? Why is it that somebody who collected pension and embezzled it is still working freely?  We need somebody who will kill that corruption. And we have it from the North. But if members of the party decide that other person from other part of the country should run, so be it.

Majority of core Northerners believe that we have had a divided nation under this presidency. Do you agree with them?

Yes, of course. And not only that, we are drifting dangerously towards religious dispute. But thank God, there are lot of sensible people who kept quiet. Some did not even want to talk about it because it will fuel the crisis. No country has ever survived a religious war. We have had sectional war; we were able to come out of it stronger. But God forbid, it is going to be very difficult for us to survive a religious war. I am not a religious bigot. All I want is a Northerner who is honest, who is not corrupt and who is not a religious bigot. What Jonathan has done to this country is not good. Look at his appointment, his little Bayelsa State with eight local governments has the highest number of political appointees. Bayelsa is far less that my senatorial district where I have run and won senate seat four times.

It is one and a half times bigger than Bayelsa. Yet, the total number of people he employed since he came into power is the highest in the country. Where is the honesty? What is he trying to portray? We need open and large hearted president. We need somebody who is ready to listen to criticism without any ill-feeling towards anybody. What we have been suffering in this country is a situation where little boys without experience are being made our leaders. And that is why there is no respect for the party. We need a disciplined society and that is why we need Buhari because he has the capacity to instill discipline and stop corruption. If the North presents him, I hope the party will accept him.

What then is the assurance that APC will not drift towards sectionalism when election time comes?

Our party is built on certain principles. I have never thought or agreed with devolution of power. But now that my party has come up with it, I see a lot of wisdom in it. We say we want to generate power; we have to have a way of generating it. With all the noise Sule Lamido, Rabiu Kwankwaso and their group of five governors are making, have they ever talked about the incapacity of Jonathan to produce goods for Nigerians? Rather, they have been talking about power shift. If power must come to the North, it has to come to the North for a purpose. Nigeria is 53. When are we going to stop the issue of North, South, East and West? We need a leader that can really change this country. If we don’t, there will be problem in this country. Out of population of 160 million people, over 90 million are here in the North. And I can assure you over 50 million youths are roaming the streets without work and proper education. It is a big time bomb. I have to contribute my quota to make sure it doesn’t explode. People are angry. And we are not even improving agriculture. We only rely on oil from Bayelsa. We are jokers. We can produce enough food for the whole of African continent, but we are not doing that. Instead, we are importing rice from China and Thailand. We need a leader to change this. We need a patriotic leader. When I say we need Buhari it is not because he is a Northerner or he is from Katsina, it is because cancer is our problem and we need to deal with it.

Isn’t that at variance with the current agitation for the younger generation to assume the mantle of leadership?

My friend, where were you when Mandela became President in South Africa? We need somebody who can rule for four years at least to stop this cancer. Do you agree with me that Buhari is not corrupt? Do you agree with me also that the problem of this country is corruption? We need to stop corruption. We have sold our properties at a corrupt rate. God has endowed this country, we only have useless leaders. We have to change it. That is why I am sacrificing myself to help.

Is there any assurance that some of your party members will be ready to drop their ambitions for the general interest of this country? 

That is what we are saying.  We are saying that if you have an ambition, drop it and let’s build something first of all. I said it from the beginning that there are some people even in the interim management who have ambition. I am begging them not to show the ambition now. But if they are really ambitious, they should move aside and let people who have no ambition and are willing to serve take over the affairs of the party. The party has come up with a noble objective. But it is one thing to have good plan on paper, implementation is another. And, of course, to implement, you need honesty of purpose. Besides, people have to be convinced that you are not a crook.

Concerning the issue of tenure elongation in the ongoing constitution review, what is the duration of tenure you think we need in this country?

It is not even the tenure that bothers me, but the pervasive corruption that we have had to fight over the years to the extent that the judiciary is becoming one kind of thing.  Today, the judiciary interprets the constitution, gives judgment and even makes law outside the thinking of the legislature. There are certain things that have been done unconstitutionally which the judiciary just left like that. As far as I am concerned, it is not how long you stay in power that matters, but how effective you were while in power. The late Gen Murtala Muhammed only stayed in power for just six months and he was very effective. He was fully in charge and well focused. As far as I am concerned, the four or eight-year tenure we adopt is okay. But when somebody died, you took over, served out the term, and then you still want to serve eight-year term is typically African. Even if you correct the constitution, once a president is there, there will be one High Court Judge who will say constitutionally it is right to do it.  For me, the important thing is for us to make sure that the Electoral Act is implemented by the umpire. If you elect the right person you want, you feel comfortable. In my own state (Katsina State), for example, Shema claims to be a lawyer but what he is doing doesn’t portray him as a lawyer. Or possibly, he doesn’t know what he is doing.  In the last three years, we haven’t held local government election. This guy is running the state and the local governments.

But I know that the first chapter of the constitution says, ‘from the day this constitution comes into effect, no part of Nigeria should be governed outside the constitution.’ This means you cannot have a sole administrator or caretaker; it has to be by election. And I believe that Shema should know it but he is running the local governments and the state together. He can continue for as long as he likes, but he will answer for all the mess in the last three years because he is the sole administrator running the local governments. Whatever he might have done is unconstitutional. He is supposed to know it. Even if he decides to conduct the election, how sure are we that the election will be free and fair? I think the first priority of the National Assembly in the ongoing constitution review is to scrap the state INEC. No matter how useless the national INEC is, it is still better off than the state INEC. In any case, since we have a national body we are funding, why do we need the state INEC? The national INEC is better equipped and more experienced that the state electoral body. At least they are not under the control of one tin god called state governor.

Do you subscribe to the idea of a part-time legislature?

This is the fault of Nigerians. Human beings are selfish by nature. You cannot have a beautiful wife and somebody asks you to go and make law that will make you a bachelor again. Of course, every Nigerian knows that we cannot afford the system we are operating now.

In the whole world, only Nigeria and the US are operating the bicameral legislature. The economy of California is many times bigger than the economy of Nigeria.
Even Texas is larger in size and everything than Nigeria. But while the United States has 100 senators, we decided to have three senators per state, making 109. And, of course, our states are like what they call counties in the US. Yet, we decided to have 109 senators and 360 members of the House of Representatives. And we want to live and function like the United States? Are we as rich as the United States? The truth of the matter is that if we want to reduce this cost, we need to reduce the number to half of what we have now and make it one single house. You cannot reduce their remuneration because, if you reduce their remuneration, you are also reducing their functions. And they have responsibility to the people that elected them.

With the way things are going, do you see Arab Spring happening in Nigeria?

It is going to be worse. I want to believe that Egyptians are more educated than Nigerians. They haven’t got Al-Majiri as we have in Nigeria. They haven’t got to a situation where graduates or doctorate holders are becoming truck drivers. If we don’t get it right this time, we will be sitting on a time bomb. Our people think that north is the problem. What is happening in the North is a virus. We either give it a normal vaccine and stop it or allow it to spread and affect everybody. By then, everybody will be in soup. The Arab people are better educated, they know what they want. But here, we have millions of young people begging on the streets and we are not doing anything. If Arab Spring happens, it is going to be worse than that of Egypt.

Source: The Sun