What should guide APC in picking Buhari’s successor – Waziri Bulama

Architect Waziri Bulama is a former National Secretary and currently a National Caucus member of the All Progressives Congress (APC). In this interview with newsmen in Abuja, he speaks on the party’s journey so far, restructuring, issues of governance, among others. There are serious waves of crisis in the APC and some have already predicted […]

Architect Waziri Bulama is a former National Secretary and currently a National Caucus member of the All Progressives Congress (APC). In this interview with newsmen in Abuja, he speaks on the party’s journey so far, restructuring, issues of governance, among others.

There are serious waves of crisis in the APC and some have already predicted that the party would die on the convention day while the final interment would be done in 2023 when President Buhari would be leaving office. What do you make of this?

Of course, at the moment, we are united; we are strong; we are growing. Clearly, yes, there are internal interests and contestations for people wishing to run for positions or wishing to run for various posts within the party. But we have not seen any sign that these contestations or ambitions would create crisis for this party. Let me tell you, all the members of the party are united. We all answer the name, APC. We all respect the leadership of our party leader, President Muhammadu Buhari, who is the rallying figure in the party and who has a lot of influence on the party and the decisions in the party.  So, we have no fear whatsoever that we would witness any serious crisis going forward just because of convention or divergent interests.

Agitations for power shift to the South in 2023 have continued to gather momentum. Some stakeholders in the APC have specifically argued that there was a gentleman pact within the APC that the party’s 2023 presidential ticket should be ceded to the South. Are you aware of this?

Well, if there was a zoning agreement it would have been known. One thing that is obvious is that this party is a party built on trust. A party where leaders from all parts of the country came together consciously to dissolve their own parties to fuse into one party; the APC. APC emerged as a broad-based national, progressive political party. All these different parties and leaders decided to dissolve identity-based politics – parties that are aligned to region, religion and ethnicity.  This was a huge and historic achievement in Nigerian political evolution. So, in the APC we are all one. We do not see ourselves as people from this region or that region. We are all a family of progressives and we came together as equals to form this party to serve Nigeria and our records show that we have worked to serve the entire country – all the regions, religions and zones of the nation. So, decisions in the APC are family decisions.

The leaders of the APC are men of honour, men who are known for sacrifice. Going forward, every decision we take in the APC as to how to zone positions of course, will be based on our history of sacrifice for the nation to ensure that we treat one another in trust, as brothers, as friends, as family to continue to implement the APC manifesto. For me, this is my response to the idea of whether there was zoning or not but clearly, we have a history because without the formation of this party as a broad-based national platform, we would not have gotten votes from all the parts of the country to reflect the desired constitutional spread to win the presidency. We would always be conscious of the history of the APC and how national unity led us to win power in the centre.

There are divergent views on the issue of restructuring. Where do you belong? 

Personally, I do not believe that the problems of underdevelopment that we see in Nigeria and the economic, social and political problems in Nigeria can be solved by restructuring. I am an advocate of good democracy and good governance. This structure that we are seeing today in Nigeria came out of many years of trial and error i.e. federal, state and local government. My belief is that if we are able to make them work properly, they will address the major problems of Nigeria i.e. fairness, justice, prosperity and security.

What is the state of governance in your home state of Borno?

At the state level, we are working very closely with the governor who is highly applauded and admired. The governor of Borno State, Professor Babagana Zulum, is an outstanding intellectual and a very hardworking person so we are working closely with him to generate ideas to make our state better.  You see, one does not have to necessarily be in a position to make his contribution. Of course, there are political and governance positions. However, one does not have to be in any of these things to impact. The way I am now, I have relationship and access to everybody in this government, so I am always free to walk into any office and give advice and also receive feedback. We work day and night to promote our party as well as our government and that gives me a lot of satisfaction.

What is your interest in the APC?

My overall aim is to ensure that the APC survives and succeeds. I am also a team player and a family member of the party. If within this party family my leaders, colleagues and stakeholders find me worthy of playing any specific role; if I can play that role, I would accept to play that role to enhance the party’s success. In the next convention, I have no specific ambition for anything that I have thought of personally.

You have been a key factor in the Buhari political story, even as former National Secretary of the APC. Would you say he has made this nation better than he met it or the other way round?

I can say with all sense of seriousness that President Buhari has made Nigeria today better than he met it in 2015. The fundamental responsibility of government is to ensure stability and continuity, and to prevent chaos and break down of law and order. That is the number one responsibility of any government. What President Buhari met in 2015 and why Nigerians rejected the PDP administration and voted him in was, number one, because of massive insecurity in the Niger Delta and in the North East. Many territories were, that time, out of the control of the government. Secondly, Nigerian economy was literally not working because the government was broke. It was not even paying salaries and procurements. Both federal and state workers were not being paid. Nigerians lost hope in that government and they voted in President Buhari because he is known as a man of integrity; because of his reputation for prudence and frugality in the management of national resources.

He got down to work and ensured that peace and security was restored in the Niger Delta where the production of oil and other economic activities were restored. In the North East, through his effort, the Nigerian security forces were able to liberate and recover territories controlled by Boko Haram and as at today, all organized crime under Boko Haram and ISWAP have been neutralized and they are surrendering in their thousands every day. Peace has been restored and people are returning to their farms and business transactions.

But kidnapping for ransom, banditry and other heinous crimes are daily being perpetrated in the country. What is the way out?

Nigerian government and leadership at all levels must have zero tolerance for crime and violence of any type. Our ability to detect, prevent and punish crime should be raised.

There should be collaboration between local leaders with both the police and the military to achieve this. We must have a climate of deterrence to make it difficult for people to commit crime and if they commit crime, they will not get away with it. All the agencies and the three tiers of government must collaborate to ensure that there is prevention of crime. Political and economic inclusiveness must be seen to work here so as to ensure that hopeless, anger and frustration is minimized in the country.

How do you think the herder/farmer crises can be addressed?

What I do not agree with is the politicization of the crisis; to raise it to a point where it requires some kind of national intervention or a situation where either farmers or herders are criminalized. I do not see herdsmen as criminals. They are people simply in search of pasture for their cattle and in the course of doing that sometime their animals stray into farms by mistake and even where such things happen, the local authorities and communities are brought in to resolve this crisis, compensation is paid. I do not see this as a national crisis because at the moment, quite a lot of propaganda has raised this matter to a point where herdsmen are seen as criminals, gun trotting bandits who kill people with farmers at the receiving end and people generally in the country made to live in fear of herdsmen.