The maximum allocation I got as a governor was N65m –Onu

What are you doing to reconnect your party with the people in preparation for the next election?   Our party is strong and is doing very well. When it comes to election time I can tell you that the party will do far better than it did during the last general elections. Regarding the elections, […]

What are you doing to reconnect your party with the people in preparation for the next election?

 

Our party is strong and is doing very well. When it comes to election time I can tell you that the party will do far better than it did during the last general elections. Regarding the elections, we have done a number of things. We are working very hard to make sure that our structures are very strong. We are also working to create harmony in the party. The ANPP is one party at present in peace.  We are making very important contributions towards national development. We have always made our position known on all issues that are of importance to the nation.

Former Governor Bunu Sheriff was rightly or wrongly linked with Boko-Haram  issue, yet you made him Chairman of the Board of Trustees of your party. Are you not concerned about the public perception and its implication on your party?

The position of the Chairman of Board of Trustee was zoned to the North-East and the leaders in the zone selected the former governor  to serve as chairman, board of trustees. It was a decision that all members of the board of trustees had to take because by our constitution, the chairman our party board of trustees is elected.  There was no other person who contested for that position so it was only him. In terms of associating him with what is happening in the north, the security agencies have said that they are doing their investigation so I think we better wait for this investigation.

But the concern is about the public perception and whether your party is passing the right message. Does it not appear the gesture is out of place?

The Nigerian public knew that ANPP has done so well in the past two years and we are working hard to reposition the party so that we would be able to take over government at the same time. You know that the duty of the national chairman is to carry everybody along, build a united and strong family so that when you go into election you move as one. All the leaders in the party, without any exception, have given me their pledge that they are going to work one hundred percent for the party.

Two of your states have been brought down by Boko Haram. What are you doing to restore peace in these states?

You must remember that in the constitution, matters affecting security is the responsibility of the president. It’s very clear, governors can only give instructions to commissioner of police and the same commissioner gets another instruction from either the Inspector General of police or Minister for Police Affairs. The constitution says security is the primary duty of the federal government so it won’t be fair to say that it’s that of the state and I want to tell you that these two governors in Borno and Yobe have been working very hard. They are very good governors, they have done a lot for the state to make sure that within what they can do the problems are better managed. I believe we are losing a lot because without the security challenge we would have seen more development in those states because of the quality of the governors we have in the two states.

Have you ever challenged the president on why he has not visited any of these states since the problem started?

Yes, we have had a number of meetings on security across the country and the issue came up for discussion. Our views were very clear that it’s the responsibility of the federal government to secure both human beings and properties across the country.

It was alleged that the rivalry between your party and PDP to take control of the affairs of government caused the crisis in the two North-East states. What is your take on this?

We can’t say so even though we were very disturbed because we have lost some of our key leaders, particularly in Borno state.  Innocent people have  also died, we were concerned. We have called for dialogue as a party, we said there must be an end to this situation because it’s not good for anybody. We only hope that the advise would be taken seriously for the good of our nation.

You earlier said you were making efforts to reposition the party. What are the strategies to take ANPP out of the restricted area it is now to other parts of the country?

Yes, we are working very hard, the ANPP is a national party, don’t forget that we started with nine states. We are working hard in terms of strategy, we are winning back many of those who had earlier left the party. Once we have stopped movement out of the party, new people are now joining us. We are really doing a lot.  We have started a Centre for Democracy and Leadership Studies that will help us to train our members to understand their rights with respect to the Electoral Act and the Constitution. And we will be bringing experts to discuss important issues affecting the nation and, very soon, we will be launching our journal that would be highlighting the things that we are doing. We have a committee now that is not only helping us to rebuild but making contacts with other parties because  we believed it would be easier if all major opposition parties are coming together to ensure we effect positive change in the country.

You have remained in ANPP since inception. You are one of the few national figures who have stayed in one party. Why didn’t you leave the party like others did?

Really, it’s extremely difficult to be in the opposition in this country but what is motivating me is the love of my country. I believe if we all go into the ruling party we cannot have democracy. There should be some Nigerians that are ready to pay the price in terms of depriving themselves whatever they might have benefitted in the ruling party this would make our democracy grow. My continued stay in ANPP has been very helpful because from my state we have a member of House of Representatives and state House of Assembly I think that opposition is good for development and democracy though we don’t want to permanently remain in the opposition. But we must make sacrifice so that our nation can grow.

When you were governor in old Abia state in the third Republic you were charismatic and dynamic. Why didn’t you  contest the governorship seat again?

No, no we are now in Ebonyi state. Just like Kogi state was formed from Kwara and Benue states, Ebonyi was created from Abia and Enugu states. That was why they referred to me as former governor of old Abia state. I must tell you that  the time I served as governor was a very good time for this country. We had just two political parties and there was competition in the political arena. At that time I was the chairman of the Governors Forum. I was the first Nigerian to be the chairman of the conference involving the  30 governors we had then. Then we were working very hard to serve the best interest of the people. Every governor then knew if they didn’t perform they would be kicked out. That was the good thing about competition in the political arena, unlike what we have now.

In 1999, ANPP nominated you as its presidential candidate but we learnt the party bargained away this. Were you part of the plan to give it to AD or what happened?

Oh no I have explained this so many times and the party also had made an explanation. That was the first time a political party apologized to an individual. Really, there was no way I would have said ‘nominate me’ and I would go and give it to another person. Don’t forget I was a governor and chairman of the Governors Forum. Who else would have been more qualified with all these political advantages. At that particular time, what happened was a very sad and very painful. You would not even wish your enemy to experience it. Many people wanted me to come out and start creating problem but because of our nation, (no big individual is greater than the country) so if something happened and people were sorry about it, for the sake of your country, you should accept it. I  said whatever it had cost me could happen anytime.

For you to have done your primary and some people went behind to change your candidacy sound somehow. Was it a teleguided democracy that was practised then or what?

You need to talk to the leaders. Some of them are still alive. Some of them are in other parties. It was a very sad and unfortunate development but, for me, I have always held that my country should come first in everything I do. That was why you found me in the opposition. For those who had gone up to the position of the governor to remain in opposition, they lose so many things. But I don’t look at all those things. I want to be remembered as someone who did a lot for the good of the country.

Were you not tempted by the PDP to either become a moule or a PDP member?

There is no person at my level that would not be tempted, but like I said it depends on why you are in politics. If you are in politics for your personal gains then, but if you are a very principled person who puts the interest of his country first, there are certain things you can’t even look at. Many things you can’t even look at. So from the word go, God has been so kind to me to make me governor of a state like Abia and so when that sad event happened some people said I should forget and take it calm for the sake of my country I should make that sacrifice.

There have been this much talk about alliance by opposition parties in the country. What are its terms and conditions? What makes this different from other alliances?

We have not got to that level.  We are just beginning the process, the process of coming together  but many people might not know. It was my party they started the process, the ANPP met with the ACN and then ACN met with CPC, but later all of us, four political parties came together. But by the time we started, it was already close to the time of the 2011 elections and many people had already made up their mind. But this time, it’s different It was ANPP that started it again. We have not got to the root but we initiated it and we are very optimistic. By God’s grace it would work this time around. And because we have started early all those constrains would not be there. The whole thing is on the table; you come, we discuss, though the ultimate thing is for us to get a merger. But if we can’t get a merger, then coalition or alliance, as some people may call it.

Under what conditions do you think the merger will work?

We don’t have any condition. By going into all these talks you shouldn’t have conditions. Everything should be open, we should be able to discuss because if you are going to merge, don’t forget that you will collapse into either an existing political party or a new political party. If it’s a new party, you have to think of the name, and all that so you can’t do with conditions.

What did you see as ANPP is relative strength in this coalition?

Our strength is multi-dimensional. One, we are a very old party. Don’t forget that we were three parties – the APP, PDP and AD. So in terms of age, we are as old as PDP. We have age on our side, this is a sort of strength,  we also have the experience, we have done this kind of relationship with other parties before  and then we have capacity, acceptability, we are accepted in every part of the country. There is no part of the country that we have not won elections. The current Plateau state governor ran election on our platform. Then the current governors of Ogun and Oyo ran elections on the platform of our party in 2007. By that time we had eleven members in Oyo state House of Assembly.  In 1999 we produced the speaker in Cross River state House of Assembly. We had 13 members in the states House of Assembly, we had 5 out of 8 members in the House of Representatives and one Senator. There is no part of the country that we had not made impact because ANPP is acceptable everywhere in the country. We have 10 senators and out of them, 4 were former governors. You can see that we have the age, experience, capacity, acceptability and the reach so we have a lot for going into this discussion.

You were once a governor. How will you assess this present crop of governors in terms of the resources at their disposals and what they are able to put on the ground?

Well, I don’t think it is really fair for me to answer this question. It would have been better for me to assess governors from ANPP but in terms of resources, there is a lot of resources now. We have good and bad governors, if you will permit me to say that. But in ANPP, the three governors we have are excellent. They are very good, not because I’m the national chairman, but it is based on what they have been doing in their states. If you look at the three states we are controlling, the party has never lost election in any of the three states. Even though we are in the opposition. You know when you are in the ruling party it’s easy to win election but in these three states we have never lost election. So if they have not been doing well people would have rejected us.

How much were you getting when you were governor in old Abia State?

Very little. The book I wrote after leaving office was very instructive. I got a minimum of forty something million naira, the maximum I got was sixty five million naira. Immediately we got in, the military decided to reduce the percentage of what was going to states. They did it twice. I had to go against it but that was the truth at that time.

So you give seventy percent to the president?

No, no if you are talking of the president, I just told you that the most of the responsibilities of any government is security. I’m sure the ruling party would not expect seventy percent. If you look at the constitution it was clear on who controls security. Unless we amend our constitution, it’s the function of the federal government to secure both humans and properties.

What is the position of your party on the amendment of the constitution?

We believe that as we make attempt to amend our constitution, we should give priority to those aspects that will help us have free and fair elections. The reason is that until we are able to fix political problems, it would be very difficult for us, as a nation, to solve our economic and social problems. You cannot solve social problem, if you cannot have free and fair elections. Its only free and fair election that will make the wish of the people supreme. So there are many things that we would want. We would expect that all matters concerning elections are concluded  before swearing–in. This was the situation before. If you recalled the presidential election in 1979 all electoral issues were concluded before the president was sworn-in. This is what we want. It is not fair for whose election is being challenged to sit in that office. We want a situation where elections are held in same day. The reason is  that if you don’t hold elections in one day, you would have bandwagon effect and that would deny people the opportunity to express their will. Once you have determined that this party is leading many of those who belongs to other parties would just go and sit down they won’t come out again to vote. But if elections are held same day, it would reduce the cost of the election both for INEC and even for the parties and increase participation. We must also make sure that those who manage our electoral matters are true referees not people who belongs to any of the parties. What I’m saying in all is that free and fair election is very important to ANPP this is one thing that is of great importance to us.

Elections were not held in some states during the election year particularly in the South-west. Do you see this as normal?

No, it was the circumstances. But you would agree with me that there were still logistic problems. Even  when one state is conducting election. You see, there are  certain things that are fundamental. You must ensure that the wish of the people is supreme and you must move away from  anything  that will jeopardize it. We cannot afford to have bandwagon effect. Other countries have passed through this phase and they all decided that it was important to protect the supremacy of the people.

Some people said it would be better if INEC conducts local government elections. What is the position of your party on this?

Yes, we preferred INEC because what is happening now is not right. When we were growing up, we all noticed that the local governments were very effective, they could build roads, schools, hospitals. Then they could do all these things, but now they cannot do any of them again. The reason was because of the way the state, have taken the issue of local government election. They will just go, write names of some people and announce them but if it were INEC that is doing it you would find that it will be more competitive and then it becomes more difficult for anybody to do what we are witnessing now. The local government should be autonomous, it ought to be independent, made to contribute to development because there is no reason creating them if not for development but now I’m not sure we are getting the development.

Most states have not held local government elections. What the governors did was to appoint care taker committees to oversee the affairs of their councils. Is ANPP not guilty of this in the states it controls?

No, Zamfara  has conducted its local government election and if it was not because of the situation we have in Borno and Yobe states they would have held their local government elections too. When we were governing Kano other parties were given free hands to participate in local government election because we are tolerant and because that was the right thing to do. Allow the people to express their will, if they want other parties to control other local government oblige them.

How can you tell Nigerians that you are different from the PDP, particularly when we considered what is happening in  the states that you control?

We are and we can. For instance, if you go to the states we control you would see that the ANPP is more accommodating because we want democracy to work and it can only work when you allow people to express their will. That was why when we were controlling Kano other parties could still win elections at the local government level. But it would be difficult for you to point to any state that is being controled by the ruling party where something like that happened. We are also very interested in development. When we were in Kano, we put in place a lot of infrastructures that was why our governor was able to get second term which no other party had done before then in Kano. Also if you go to Borno and Yobe, minus this insecurity you will see that our government are really for the people. Go to Zamara and see what is happening there. It was because of what we are doing there even when our governor defected to the ruling party people said no and decided to vote for us. The manifestoes which we are going to present would show clearly that ANPP is unique and that it’s a party that stands on its own and determined to continue to make contributions to solving the problems affecting the nation. So I must say that we are different.

What can you tell us about this manifestoes?

We would have preferred you wait until its out but then we want to define ourselves because some people sees us as ultra conservative but we are a progressive party. If you go to the internet you see people saying it’s a party to the extreme left, extreme right for that matter. Other people are trying to define us but we must define ourselves so that is one. Second, We are very interested in development, we are interested in educational development.  it’s in our constitution so we now want it in the manifestoes so that any candidate running on our platform must pursue it. There are other very important things particularly areas that people would not look at. We will soon present it.

You said many of those who left the party are coming back. Has Bafarawa returned to the party?

Oh yes, he has come back. He came back fully. His return even affected our party positively in the last gubernatorial election in Sokoto state. You know we came a  very strong second in Sokoto state.

Do you think you can still make it back to your glorious days when you control nine states?

I tell you very frankly its good we work with other political parties but I can assure you we are working very hard and by the grace of God we would get back beyond where we were then. It took us almost 12-13 years to get from 9 to 3 and this last elections was the first time in the history of the party that we came out of the general elections with the same number we entered with. We entered with 3 states and came out with 3 states. You can see the party is stabilized now. We lost one and gained one. The Kano margin was very narrow. We got over a million votes, they got over a million votes, we lost with about a hundred thousand votes even the votes that were voided were even more than that but we believe that in subsequent elections we would do better.

It was said that Shekarau’s bid for the presidency cost the ANPP the control of Kano? What is you view on this?

I  don’t want us to go there, it has happened. We have learnt our lessons and we are working very hard to keep the party together because all we need to win election in Kano is just to keep the party together in the elections. Many would want to move to the ruling party because of patronage to get one or two things but as the national chairman it’s my duty to keep them together, let  them know that four years could be a long time but it could as well be short time so why not let us work together to gain the state back. For us in ANPP we don’t look at the past because if you are running a race and you are looking back you might fall.

But if you don’t learn from history you could repeat the same mistake. What do you think?

You need to learn but not when you are running. When you are running your attention must be on the race. If you are looking back, if there is an obstacle you might not know and when you fall you lose momentum.  I  became the chairman of this party when it was undergoing a very serious crisis and so far, by the special grace of God, we have stabilized the party. People no longer associate the party with crisis. At least we can celebrate now as opposition in democracy you celebrate landmarks, the party is united, its starting a centre for democracy and leadership studies, its starting its own journal, getting a new manifestoes and so on.