Romanus Ugwu, Abuja
Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) candidate for Borno South senatorial district, Kudla Santumari, has expressed sadness over the insincerity of President Muhammadu Buhari-led government in fighting Boko Haram in his state.
Fielding questions from Daily Sun in Abuja recently, he argued that the menace of insurgency would have long ended if former President Goodluck Jonathan had remained the president beyond 2015. He equally spoke on several other issues including how Senator Ali Ndume robbed him of his mandate during the recently concluded National Assembly elections.
You contested against Senator Ali Ndume; can you bring Nigerians up to speed of what transpired?
As they already know, I contested for the Southern Borno senatorial district on the platform of the PDP and the immediate result is not what we expected which is also not different from the presidency. Many people have been calling to find out what is in the offing. We have been evaluating the outcome of the election in order to take a decision on what to be done. But there has been an overwhelming appeal from my people and people who were there at the polling units that have hard facts to prove that there was substantial breach of the electoral process and they feel that we should not allow it to go like that.
People have been calling, including those from other political parties who participated in the election to confirm to me that we won this election and that it was upturned between the polling units and the collation centres.
For us to deepen democracy and ensure that the processes of election is adhered to, we decided to accept the decision of the party and my supporters to take the case to the election tribunal and the petition has been served on all respondents.
Why are you challenging the outcome of the election?
I worked assiduously for him to become a senator representing Southern Borno in 2011. I even built a primary school in my area and named it after him. It is not that I am fighting him or not happy that he wants to be Senate President. But just like Obasanjo would say, we should not reinforce failure. For the past eight years that he has been in the Senate, I cannot say for certainty that this is what he has done to justify his being there to represent the good people of Southern Borno. Apart from getting involved in controversy, if you go to my senatorial district, you will know more about this person who is larger than life in Abuja. This is somebody that could not go to his senatorial district as a candidate to participate in his own primary. He is there because the governor of Borno State and the powers that be wanted him as a candidate. Otherwise, the people resisted him and did not want to see him.
In Gwoza, the senatorial headquarters where they held their primaries, he could not go there because the people did not want to see him. This is somebody who has never gone out one day to campaign. This is not the Ndume that we know. By the time things started unfolding, the people said they wanted him removed from the seat. That was why there was a consensus among our people, irrespective of religion or other considerations, to vote him out. In about seven, out of nine local government areas, by 4.00pm, the polls already suggested that we have won the election and people were screaming, running around and shouting my name that I have already won. Within a short time, when votes were being collated at the polling units to the collation centres, figures began to change.
In his own local government, a bomb exploded on the day of election and that was a local government where election held in two places because the people are displaced. Yet, they retuned 113,000 votes, the highest in any of the local government areas, when Biu, the senatorial headquarters where people have never moved since the insurgency began brought only 54, 000 votes.
In Abuja alone, we have 14 IDP camps, with 75 per cent of the population from Gwoza. About 75000 people are behind the Gwoza hills on the Cameroon side. We have camps in Taraba, in Keffi, in Abuja, in Jos and in Kaduna. How did he mobilise these people to vote on the day of election? Is it that people came out from their hidings behind the hills to vote and came up with 113,000 votes, higher than Maiduguri Metropolitan with the highest number of registered voters? How can you justify that you have 95 per cent voter turnout in two towns out of 13 wards? Any discerning person knows that elections may have held, but there were other things that took place.
Will you accept out of court settlement?
Never! There are people that by their fruits, you shall know them. In 2015, I contested election. I was the preferred candidate to win. In my local government, we have a tarred road separating two towns. On one side of the road, is Adamawa and on the other side, is Borno State. They told me that there was insecurity on my side of the road and they refused to hold election there and moved it to the IDP camp in Maiduguri. Because of the insecurity, the shortest route you could take then was about 12 hours from my constituency to Maiduguri yet they took the election there. Meanwhile, on the other side of the road which is Adamawa, they were holding election and insecurity did not bother them, then fast-track it to 2019 when a bomb was released on the same day and election still ahead. With regards to settling out of court, this is not about me, but about my people. When I say about my people, I don’t want to go emotional, but the level of insecurity in my area is so much that I don’t know what is happening. I don’t know if we still have men of character and integrity to question what is happening. It took a legislator from Jigawa State to visit Maiduguri to observe what was happening and almost cried on the floor of the National Assembly. Yet, we have people representing us as senators. We have a member of the defence committee from Borno State, we have a member of the committee on Army from Borno State, and we have Ndume who was a Senate Leader but could not say a single word about the circle of insurgency that is happening.Nobody is bringing the menace of insurgency to the centre stage. My 80 year old mother slept in the bush by 3.00am early this month. They come here (Abuja) and tell us that they have degraded Boko Haram.Under Jonathan, it seemed worse because they can take over a whole local government, sit down and operate from there. But the kind of hit and run that we are having now and the seeming lack of concern or tangible effort being made by those in authority makes one wonder whether we are still part of this country.
So, I will never accept any form of out of court settlement. Let the court decide and say Ndume has won. If that happens, I will appeal and let the Appeal Court also say he has won. If that also happens and since I cannot go further than that, I will leave it to God. But there is no amount of threats that will stop me. My life has been threatened several times. There is nothing that has not been done.
There is nobody on the surface of the earth, including my mother that I cherish and respect so much that can prevail on me to step down the matter for whatever consideration. I will never concede. Even if the lawyers refuse to defend me, I will defend myself.
Don’t you think the Buhari bandwagon effect affected you in the election?
The good thing is that even President Buhari himself asked the people to vote for the right people, credible people and candidates of their choice that they think will represent them well. He warned against the bandwagon in many of the rallies he went. That is what made us come together. In Southern Borno, there was no APC, no PDP. We called it Sothern Borno project. It was about rescuing Southern Borno and that was the agenda that people went to town with.
We had more votes coming from APC than the ones that came from PDP. In my Senatorial district, my picture and that of Buhari were printed together. There was no issue of Buhari bandwagon despite the fact that the election was on the same day. If there was bandwagon effect, PDP will not be winning the number of states they won. PDP will not be winning Bauchi and Adamawa and other areas that we won in the North East. People like and love Buhari in the North East, but they don’t like APC as a party.
You said insecurity has been on the rise. From your point of view, what is the government not getting right in the fight against insurgency?
First, I may not be able to speak authoritatively on security issues because there may be things they know that we don’t know. I speak the way I did because I am from the North East and have experienced the bitterness and the pain of losing 13 of my direct relations in one day and another 35 members of my extended family in one day. I am a live witness to the extent that I know that if in six weeks that Jonathan sought for extension of election, he was able to reclaim and degrade Boko Haram capacity to the extent that election held in every part of Borno State including Chibok, then, I want to believe that if he had three years, he would have rout them and push them farther than what we have today, that people are saying its only Buhari that can do it. When I was in the University, I had two pictures on my wall. One was Thomas Sankara and the other was Buhari. That was how much I idolised and respected him. But right now, I am disappointed with his leadership in this dispensation. Why will my 80 year old mother be running away from a house that is secured with gates and security fence to look for succour outside? It is because she does not feel secured even with military presence in the villages to protect the people. I want to believe that the Armed Forces are doing their best, but some politicians who may be benefiting from the insecurity want to continue to use it to win election by gathering people in the camps. In 2015, I was shut at from a helicopter by Boko Haram, yet, I still insisted that I must participate. If we don’t change the current group of leadership being recycled in Borno State as elected representatives, we may have Boko Haram beyond 2023; it will change if something drastic is done. We have to change the strategy because if you use the same strategy every day, you will have the same outcome. How can the president allow his Service Chiefs to remain after this colossal failure?
Do you know how disgruntled military personnel are right now? There are people who have stagnated and their years of service are almost ending because some people are left there permanently.
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