We’ll resist militarisation of Adamawa bye-election – Atiku

You are visiting Adamawa after the release of-time table for the conduct of the governorship by-election. Are you here to mobilise support for the APC?Absolutely not! I actually came to visit my family because I have not visited them after the Eid el Fitr festival. I just returned from abroad and felt I should come […]

You are visiting Adamawa after the release of-time table for the conduct of the governorship by-election. Are you here to mobilise support for the APC?
Absolutely not! I actually came to visit my family because I have not visited them after the Eid el Fitr festival. I just returned from abroad and felt I should come and see my family; incidentally, there was the announcement of the by-election.

I learnt that during your visit you had series of consultative meetings with party stakeholders. What were the highlights of the meetings?
Basically, we had three kinds of meetings. One, the state caucus of the party and the third with the State Executive Committee of the party. We tried to assess the strength of the political parties and the challenges ahead of the forthcoming election. We also devised ways on how to face the election.

There have been defections from your party in the state to the ruling PDP. Are you not worried, especially with the by-election around the corner?
Actually, there is nothing to worry about because the structures of the party have not been affected in all the local government areas. At that level nobody has defected from the party to the PDP. What has actually happened is with the elected council chairmen who were blackmailed to go back to the PDP.
It was a combination of blackmail and intimidation. First of all, they were threatened that if they did not go back to the PDP they were going to be dethroned. Secondly, they were also blackmailed and intimidated that if they did not go back to the PDP they would not get their local government subvention.
It is, however, surprising that they succumbed to such because most of them are educated and they know the position of the law and they are supposed to be an independent arm of government. It is just like saying that because the federal government is PDP-controlled therefore it would not release the allocation of the opposition APC-controlled states. I told them that there is no basis for such intimidation and blackmail, but unfortunately, they became frightened and moved to the PDP.
But like I said earlier, their defections have not affected the APC structurally. Where we were going to have problem was where the structures of the party at the local government collapsed; they have not collapsed and therefore there is nothing to worry about.

Governorship elections were held recently in Ekiti and Osun states and your party lost in the former and won in the latter. But even at that there were issues raised, especially with regards to what has now become known as the militarisation of elections. What is your take on this?
I have always challenged the PDP about the issue of militarisation of our democracy and electoral process. I will continue to tell them that it is not the best way to nurture democracy. Our democracy is a very young one which is barely 20 years old and when it comes under the strain of militarisation of our electoral process, it is going to crumble. Again, the PDP government is acting against the law because there is a Federal Court of Appeal ruling which said that no military man should be involved in electoral process and the federal government is going against that judgement.
Therefore, we will continue to protest and resist the involvement of the military in our electoral process. It is either they kill all of us or they allow us to exercise our democratic rights. They should know that we came out some decades ago to fight the military to leave governance, and if we could do that we would also fight the military to stay out of our electoral process.

Are you anticipating heavy military presence during the forthcoming bye-election?
We are already under military occupation in the state because we have a state of emergency. In fact, one of the things I would want to call fast is that the federal government should remove the emergency rule in Adamawa to ensure free and fair election. I do not believe that with a state of emergency we can conduct free and fair election in Adamawa State. For instance, how do we campaign if we want to campaign throughout the night?  
What happens? Supposing few days to the election or even during the poll, the federal government uses security agents to clampdown on the opposition and allow the ruling PDP to go about unhindered, what happens? Therefore, to ensure free and fair election in Adamawa State the state of emergency must be removed.

Still talking about security, we have been facing insurgency for quite some time now and the situation appears to be getting worse, especially with the abduction of over 200 schoolgirls who are still in the custody of the insurgents. How worried are you?
It is a worrisome situation for everybody and it shows that the federal government does not have the capacity to deal with the situation. I cannot imagine a situation whereby for two years running, the whole Nigerian armed forces have been battling insurgents in a very small corner of the country, yet they cannot overcome it. As far as I am concerned, it is the lack of capacity on the current political leadership in the country to tackle insurgency.

You are yet to make a categorical statement on your perceived presidential ambition in 2015…?
No, we are facing the Adamawa bye-election so don’t let us jump the gun.

Finally, we are currently facing the threat of the dreaded Ebola virus disease in the country.  How best do you think we can tackle its spread?
Well, I understand the federal government has set up a committee and voted an amount of money to control it.  I hope it works, but it is also worrisome that in spite of the challenges we are facing the federal government would go ahead to terminate the appointment of resident doctors. I really don’t know how serious they are in tackling the challenges in the health sector.