Samuel Bello, Abuja

Presidential candidate of the Advanced Peoples Democratic Alliance (APDA), Alhaji Shittu Mohammed, speaks on how formidable his party is in Kano, Sokoto, Zamfara and other states in the North.

Do you have a presidential candidate at all because people have not been really seeing your campaign?

Yes, we have. I am the one. I am here sitting with you.

When it comes to winning elections, which state do you think you are sure of winning Senate and House of Representatives seats?

For now, we will not say, but we know we have very strong presence in Kano where we have Mohammed Abacha. We have a very strong presence in Zamfara where we have Sani Takori.

We have strong presence in Sokoto where we have people like Mahe Dangari, we have a very strong presence in Kogi, we have very very strong presence in Port Harcourt, Rivers State and others.

We have states we didn’t need to blow our trumpet. Let election come then we can now see where we are stronger.

What’s your relationship with PDP and Chief Raymond Dokpesi? Where is he now?

APDA and PDP are on their own, APDA is a party of its own. Dokpesi is not a member of our party. You know better than me where he belongs. 

We don’t have any alliance. Because I know we have programmes to develop Nigeria, but they want us to go the normal Nigerian way and we said no, we must make a difference and that is the only difference between us.

What’s your plan? What will the party, APDA government do differently in terms of diversification of the economy? 

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First and foremost, we’ll take comparative advantage of what our country has. We have the solid mineral, we have aquatic resources, and we have agricultural resources. 

We’ll not allow foreigners to come and be taking our fish and our streams and our crawl out. We’ll buy vessel and give to our own young men to go to high sea there. We close our border. You go into one trade organisation to negotiate. They have to give us ten years holiday for us to rebuild our country. What that means is that we have to recheck our agreements with other world industries where we want to discourage dumping of goods in Nigeria.

And then I as a president will wear whatever we are able to produce in Nigeria. Let’s say by the time you give this our young men trawler, encourage them and put up good security they will go up there. Stream is costlier than crude what are you doing with crude? Fish is there. Prawn is there, then we need to encourage our Northern youths to go into agriculture and mechanised agriculture. We allow state to take comparative advantage of crops that they know is within their own state. Then we put up industrial zone in each of the state.

If you put up industrial zone where farmers can bring their goods and process and we process it for them and they go to market and sell, then, the value chain is increased. You’ll not only farm, but your produce will now be processed, you will sell processed goods not raw crops and we will ban the exportation of our raw materials for ten years, so  you can’t go out with any of our raw materials. 

What’s the level of your involvement in Ajaokuta steel? What do you think is the challange?

Ajaokuta Steel Company could have been the industrial hub of Nigeria’s development. Just like Abuja was designed to be the Federal Capital Territory, Ajaokuta was designed to be the Economic Hub of the nation, where industrialisation would have kicked off. If you look at China, they have the same concept. Today, they have developed and have become the second largest economy in the world. What then went wrong with ours? Corruption. What breed corruption? Lack of patriotism breeds corruption and corruption has destroyed our nation. That is a typical example of what is wrong with Ajaokuta Steel.

But Ajaokuta can be revived. If I were to be in government, I would declare Ajaokuta Steel Company a national emergency and would treat Ajaokuta like the seat of government for one year in order to see that we complete it. When they say one per cent and now we are at ninety five or ninety percent yes but the remaining ten percent is more than the ninety percent. It requires a lot of infrastructure. What are these infrastructure? You have to now build it up. Complete the rail line between Ajaokuta and Alaja. Then, you also have to now kick start the rail line from Ajaokuta to Abuja here.

In Durumi here in Abuja you have Dolomite. In Awe, which is in Nasarawa State, you have coal. You must build your infrastructure either road or rail into those zones. You must be able to now start bringing in new technology with which to excavate this dolomite and also the coal. And you find out that Alaja is not a deep sea area. So I would have advised as government, we move into Agge which is the deepest sea level in Bayelsa State. Do the Agge port, move rail line there, it is deep so ships can come in there. Then you come through the place and even through Agge instead of Alaja. Through the Agge port you can also bring raw material through the Niger River into Ajaokuta.

A lot of infrastructure is required. Then, if you put up this infrastructure, you can now put up your blastering funnel because the law behind blastering funnel is, you cannot kick start blastering funnel and you off it again. So it’s not possible. All these infrastructure must be put in place. This is what my government wants to do if I get there

Are you saying that the present government is deliberately delaying the project?

I don’t know what the remaining percent is waiting for. He has been saying it for like six months now. So, I don’t know why he’s still saying it even when he was doing his three years accomplishments? You see, the problem with Nigeria is that we don’t look at merit. It’s not necessary somebody that read steel. What is the passion that the person you want to take there have for the place? What is the managerial skill with which he’s taking to the place?

Until our reward system is based on your skill contribution and merit, we may never get there.