By Omoniyi Salaudeen
Presumably in search of an ideal democracy and good governance, Alhaji Buba Galadima has traversed virtually all the major political parties in the country.
In this interview, he speaks about the goal of the New Nigeria Peoples Party (NNPP) to emancipate the poor from the shackles of poverty, deprivation and oppression, boasting of the high chances of the party in winning the next presidential election.
What is your opinion about the Muslim-Muslim ticket that is generating controversy in the polity?
The controversy is raging because a lot of Nigerians are governed by emotion, sentiment and primordial considerations. Otherwise, does it really matter whether it is Muslim-Muslim or Christian-Christian or husband-wife ticket, if we have developed to a stage where we have the nation as a goal and everybody is working towards the realization of that goal? We are dissatisfied with these primordial considerations in either the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) or the All Progressives Congress (APC) that is why we left and joined the New Nigerian Peoples Party (NNPP) with a commitment to build a new Nigeria. If Tinubu wants, let him pick Senator Remi, his wife, as his vice presidential candidate, it is left for Nigerians to vote for them or not to vote for them. Why do we have to raise political temperature and our blood pressure because of this? Every political party is free to do what it feels it can do to win an election. Why do we need to talk about religion, why do we need to talk about tribe or section where one comes from? We are all Nigerians. How many South Americans have become president in over 200 years of the US democracy? Are the Southern Americans not American?
Your claim that the ideal of NNPP is to form a new Nigeria. But does it not sound curious to know that those of you who came together to form the party had one time or the other been members of either the PDP or the APC. So, how is your aspiration different from the ideals of the parties where you are coming from?
In my opening remark, I told you that we were dissatisfied with the two leprous political parties namely PDP and APC. In NNPP, we are looking for a new Nigeria different from the one built on religion, tribe or where you come from. Our ideal is based on a class struggle to emancipate the poor. Today, you could see that nearly 10 per cent of candidates for this election across the country are the children of the current leadership because their agenda is to keep the people in perpetual poverty.
This is the 23rd year of Nigeria’s democracy. In spite of all the oppression and deprivations Nigerians have been subjected, you and your other colleagues have dined and wined with the two leprous parties, as you put it. Why is it now that you suddenly woke up to realize that a new Nigeria is possible or that the ideal of the leading political parties is to impoverish the people?
Everything is time in life. All the revolutions that took place in the world happened because members of bourgeois agreed among themselves on how to do things. But one of them later burst out and led the revolution against the rest.
But you also know that in places where the revolution took place, the leaders later realized that the ideal of a classless society you are trying to preach here is an utopian dream. Do you think that your rhetoric will sell in this coming election?
Let’s assume what you said is true, even if the ordinary people in this country will have a temporary relief from these oppressors, Nigeria needs a change of leadership. The man we are presenting can show you what he had done in the past not rhetoric. Given the opportunity, he can replicate it in all the 36 states of the country, including the Federal Capital Territory. If you know of anybody who has record of performance better than Kwankwaso, bring that person.
What you are saying is that a man who had dined and wined with the PDP and APC for several years in the past has now turned a new leave to the extent that he can evolve a system that can guarantee a level playing field for all Nigerians to be free and equal citizens. You need a lot more work to do to convince Nigerians of how genuine is your intension rather than rhetoric…?
(Cuts in) Go back to what he did in Kano when he was the governor. There is no governor in Nigeria’s history who has performed to the advantage of the ordinary man on the street other than Kwankwaso. Today, Kano remains the most peaceful state in the whole of the federation, whereas it is supposed to be one of the most volatile states in the country. It is because he did justice to the ordinary person and everybody has something to do, which is what we are preaching. He built 11,000 primary schools, he built six polytechnics, he built four colleges of education, he built 84 secondary schools one per local government, he sent over 3,000 poor children to school abroad and he conquered almajiri by integrating them into the formal education system. He also built two universities with a combined intake of 75,000 students. As I speak to you, Kwankwaso has built 320 in 13 universities in Nigeria. He lifted 20 million people out of poverty in Kano and that is why there is no security issue in Kano.
Yet, there is menace of Almajiri and the associated social problems. Isn’t that a contradiction?
Let me tell you how he did it. He mopped up all the bad boys in Kano, trained them and rehabilitated them with startup capital. Today, they are not only useful to themselves, but also Kano State as a whole. When Kwankwaso left office as governor there was no almajiri in Kano.
Absolutely?
Yes, there was none.
As Nigeria prepares for another election, some of the issues now in the front burner are ethnicity, religious division, insecurity, and economic recovery. What are you bringing to the table to surmount these challenges and restore back the nation to the path of unity and progress?
These are not the issues.
What then are the issues?
I will tell you what the problems are. The problem of Nigeria is not insecurity, it is not poverty, it is not corruption; it is the issue of leadership. When you have a selfless leader, who have genuine desire to build the nation, all these things will be a thing of the past. When people have the opportunity to actualize their potentials, there will be peace, unity, and economic prosperity. Why we have religious and ethnic divisions is because there are no opportunity for people to realize their full potentials.
The formation of your party is coming very close to the next general elections, which means you have a few months to prepare and mobilise the electorate for the polls. Do you have the structure to confront and wrest power from the two leading political parties?
Let me tell you that NNPP is older than APC and PDP. ANPP is older than both parties, but it is not in public knowledge until we came up with the NNPP a few months ago. Can you believe that in three months, NNPP and its candidate is the party to beat. Do you believe that APC, PDP and other political parties are crawling before us begging us to support them? If they don’t think we are important, why should they come to us? Do you know that 90 per cent of Nigerians believe that if Labour Party and NNPP come together, the election will be over before 12 noon on the Election Day? In ten months’ time, we will be the most dominant political party in Nigeria. If you put APC and PDP together today in Northern Nigeria, we will beat them. That is why they don’t want us to contest.
What is your take on excessive vote-buying and excessive spending on delegates we recently witnessed in the just concluded presidential primaries?
We have two sets of laws. One for the preferred people, and the other for the unwanted people. You can only commit an offence, if you are not wanted. If they love you, even if you kill, they will look the other way. If not, how on earth can someone spend N50 billion to claim a party’s ticket and you expect that person to work for the interest of the people. In the first place, where did he get the money? Secondly, what will he do when he gets there? I know that money plays a significant role in elections in Nigeria and that is why we left the APC and the PDP because we don’t have that kind of money to play around with. We will continue to pray, we will continue to talk so that God can touch the hearts of the INEC people to be just and fair to all political parties. We hope they will live to expectations.