N/Assembly not imposing direct primary on political parties – Sen Musa

Senator Mohammed Sani Musa represents Niger East senatorial zone in the National Assembly. He is also one of the top contenders to the All Progressives Congress (APC) national chairmanship ahead of the February 2022 national convention. In this interview, he spoke on the direct primary election, legacy parties, his chances, among other things.    Many […]

Senator Mohammed Sani Musa represents Niger East senatorial zone in the National Assembly. He is also one of the top contenders to the All Progressives Congress (APC) national chairmanship ahead of the February 2022 national convention. In this interview, he spoke on the direct primary election, legacy parties, his chances, among other things. 

 

Many believe that it is the exclusive right of the Congress for Progressive Change (CPC) bloc in the APC to produce the next national chairman of the ruling party. What do you make of this?  

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 What I know today is that we have the APC. And what I know as legacy is what President Muhammadu Buhari has continued to lay for this country. That is what we will pursue. We will try as much as possible when we are given the opportunity to lead, to provide the best architecture on how we can take care of the security of this country, provide education, agricultural implements to catch up with the rest of the world; how we can provide those basic things and ensure that the infrastructure development policy of this administration is sustained because governance is a continuum. 

 I believe I have all it takes to see to it that it benefits everybody. I have three things going for me. I believe in my conviction as a human being, to go with everybody. If I stand and somebody else becomes victorious, I go with him. I will give him 100 per cent support for the benefit of the party and Nigerians. We have had the legacy parties – All Nigeria Peoples Party (ANPP), CPC and Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) and factions of the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA) and the PDP. The first three parties are defunct and what we now have is the APC. 

Some people say their group was there before; what work have they done to win the hearts of party supporters? So it is not an issue. The party is not divided into mine or yours. This party belongs to all of us, and I believe that we will be in a position to bring everyone on board. 

 Many bigwigs in the APC are in the race for the party’s national chairmanship. Do you see the need for a consensus option? 

I believe in consensus because it is provide for in our constitution. I am a believer of anything enshrined in the books. If I have a contrary view I will wait for the opportunity to air it when there will be an amendment to the constitution. I will make my case, and if it is taken by the majority, so be it. Referring to what happened in the states during the ward, local government and state congresses, it depends on the state. In my state, I was part of whatever happened. 

 Would you advise your party to adopt direct primary election in the choice of candidates ahead of the 2023 general polls?

 Whatever the law says is what the party should abide by. We should be governed by the rules. And whatever the rules are should determine what we should do. But I need to clarify this notion: the National Assembly is not imposing direct primary on political parties. I happened to be a member of the harmonisation committee and I knew what the interest of each member was. Yes, they say the majority can always have their way but the minority would always have their say. 

Nigerians have the notion that there is more poverty, hunger and insecurity under the APC-led government than the previous administration of the PDP. What is your view? 

Was there a time there was no hunger in this country? There will continue to be hunger until we become very dependent on ourselves, until when we can drive the kind of economy this country needs. We are living on a borrowed economy. What are the indices of our imports? What is the capital inflow to this country? What are we taking out of the country to generate foreign exchange? How many of us have produced or brought capital into our country? There is no basis for comparing the APC and the PDP. Look at the infrastructure on the ground.  

Why do you want to quit your lawmaking business for party’s chairmanship? 

 It is a sacrifice to make this country great. It is from the selection of leadership that you can make it work. We are living witnesses since the inception of the 4th Republic in 1999. Has every Nigerian been able to achieve his aspiration through the ballot box? 

The sacrifice I am making is to go and contribute to change the narrative, the trajectory of what used to be. We have what we called the books of law. The books are there. The party manifesto, the guidelines. We create the guidelines but don’t want to abide by them. I want to see to the implementation of what would guide us in what we want to do as we follow the constitution.  

I want to assure you that if we do that we would make our leaders accountable to the people. You elect us with your votes for the good of this country, that is why I believe that we should aspire to be chairman of this great party that would create the platform to be an institution of its own and give Nigerians the best and qualitative leadership. It is even a larger sacrifice and contribution to my constituents.