Kano State Governor Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso spoke with reporters in Kano, the state capital, on the National Conference, the insecurity and preparations for 2015 elections. Correspondent KOLADE ADEYEMI was there.
You kicked against the National Conference when it was convocated. Can you tell us your reasons?
You see, in politics, like any other business, you know one plus two is three, as far as it is the normal arithmetic. Everybody knows the answer, especially when you have the capacity to understand that arithmetic. Since 1st of October, 2013, on hearing the broadcast of Mr. President, when he mentioned the issue of the conference, I knew very well that it was just going to be a waste of resources and a waste of time. I knew it was going to be very harmful to the people of this country. Even those who could not understood what I was saying, can now have every reason to believe that we were doing the right thing.
Now, what have we achieved in the conference so far? This country is being divided further by the conference. You see them talking about Muslims on this side and Christians on the other side. They are talking about the North on this side and the South on the other side. People are talking about those who have oil and those without oil. People are talking about ethnicity. I believe the same issue are being discussed in the Churches and in the Mosque, markets and beer palours. What we need today is how to unite our country.
You have seen it that at the end, the poor will be poorer and the rich will be richer. What we want to see is fairness. Fair distribution of wealth, fair distribution of education, fair distribution of industries, electricity and so on and so forth. But what we are seeing now will certainly not help anybody, and whether anybody likes it or not, there is this correlation between poverty and what we are seeing today in this part of the country. All our friends, the United States of America, Britain, Germany, anywhere you go, it is the same story about us. It is common arithmetic like the one I have mentioned that one plus two is plus three. All of you here, I am sure will not be too happy to go and terminate your life. I am not even talking of Northwest or here in Kano and by the grace of God, even by the history, we are not doing too badly. In the Northeast, we are appealing to the Federal Government to show interest. If you are talking about distribution of wealth, now you are talking about additional five per cent to 13 per cent. At the end of the day, who is losing because it is the same project? Somebody must be a winner and somebody must be a loser; and from what we are saying, everybody knows who is going to be the loser.
What is the implication for this?
The implication is that, with the way the issues appear, the level of insecurity, the people are made to be poorer. Everybody has reasons to lose one or two things. Many of the goods that are coming from the South have big market here in the North, but with crises, with violence, hardly can they sell anything. So many things that are happening in this country, as long as we don’t have peace in any part of the country, it affects all other parts of the country. That is why I don’t see anything wrong with the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. I don’t see anything wrong with formula of this country. But I have seen many things wrong with the operators. I think what we need in this country, is to change the operators and bring better ones. Every part of this country should participate, every part of this country should come out. I knew very well that the Conference is going to be a waste of time and a waste of resources. It was allocated N7 billion and in the budget, only N2 billion was allocated to the Northeast to alleviate poverty. What is N2 billion?
I remember during the Musa Yar’Adua days, there was this issue of militancy in the South-south, Yar’Adua came with his own version of support to that part of the country; and as far as I am concerned, to a very large extent, it is working. And that is the type of thing the Federal Government should come up with.We have seen so much money going to that particular part of the country. We are not angry about it but what we are concerned about is that fairness should be shown to people from the other parts of the country. That is why we are telling our representatives, the delegates to the Conference that they should do whatever possible to ensure that peace and unity of this country remain. The poor should not be made to be poorer, they should as it is, and not to worsen the situation, but I am surprised that many of our delegates unfortunately went there, as far as I am concerned, not to represent us because anybody who will go and say he is giving them additional five per cent, 10 per cent, must go and also ask for 100 per cent. We have seen a situation whereby monies are being allocated elsewhere which is against the constitution and against any law of the land. That is why many of us are concerned, not because of the poor, but also because of the rich, because if you make the poor poorer, that means the rich cannot sleep.
It is alleged that the conference is organised to further make the North poorer. How do you see this?
That is what I am saying. I agree with that notion 100 per cent. I said that the day he mentioned it. The worst of it, is all about the extension of his tenure. You have seen recently that he took a bill to the National Assembly, wanting the National Assembly to approve a six-year one-term. The implication of that is that he wanted to lift himself. He got two years after the death of Yar’Adua. Now he is spending four years; and he wanted another six years of one term, making 12 years, at least, for now. That seem not to be working. Now, we are hearing that they smuggled a new constitution through the confab. The arithmetic of the handlers there is saying that they want to throw away the six years, have a new constitution and, in 2015, start another eight years. We have seen it during the first term of governors of Yobe, Taraba, Ogun, Kogi.
Now, there is a new constitution on the ground to start another eight years by 2015. People are saying okay, another eight years, after six years; but do you want us to continue like this? With this level of corruption, this level of insecurity in this country; because we have seen that the only corrupt people in this country are APC! If you are not in APC, no matter what you steal, even the unbelievable money of Abacha doesn’t matter. They have dropped all the charges. Even when you have about more than 10 countries outside this country that have cases, who have bank files and documents all that should be dropped. Look at even our Emir, Muhammad Sanusi, what is his crime? That he said some money was missing.
Look at what happened in Ekiti. they surrendered people with arms. Look at what is happening now in Adamawa. I was there, I sat down with all of them, we discussed, especially, the governor of Adamawa who knows the situation better than anybody, all is interference. All these are interference from the above. Look at other cases, look at Rivers State with five members, they want to impeach the Speaker. They want to remove everybody including the governor. Look at Edo, they are being supported by the police. Look at what happened in Kano, just to appoint Emir, somebody who is under the local government, the Federal Government wants to come and put their friend here. They have been appointing our enemies. The last three appointments in Kano were from one local government; Aminu Wali from Nasarrawa Local Government, the Minister of Education (Ibrahim Shekarau) is from Nasarrawa Local Government, even Adviser on Agriculture (Baraka Sani) from Nasarrawa Local Government. We have 44 Local Governments but there is no sense of distribution. Whether they are from the same family it doesn’t matter. In Nigeria, we have two senior Ministers from the same local government.I have never seen anything like this, where the beneficiaries of this democracy are working towards destabilising it.
Looking at these precedents you have enumerated, how do you see 2015?
Well, I don’t know; but we are praying it will be better. We are working to have free and fair elections. We want to see one united country. But from the way they are working, I think everybody are worried. They want to continue by all means and that is the whole idea of divide-and-rule. They want to rule forever and I think Jonathan wants to be the life president because we have seen the precedents. Look at this our 486 young men and women who were being detained in Abia, almost 500 people were arrested. This is a very serious issue, maybe, they don’t understand the size of the problem.
If we close our trench leading to the South within one or two hours, you will get more than expected who will feel the impact. And all these put together, is giving the people concern about 2015. We here in the North are worried, everybody is concerned about the state of insecurity. My own father was attacked in the Mosque. People piled on him in the Mosque. Three people were killed and 13 people were injured because of insecurity. I am not supporting the insurgents or insurgency, or any crime. We are fighting it here and by the grace of God, with the police, army, we have been promoting peace in this state. But some of these decisions that people are taking is on selfishness, will continue to create problems. And unless they understand and I hope they have the capacity to understand, I foresee a situation where we run into more crises. We are Nigerians, this country belongs to all of us. So, the best way to do it is to get a way of uniting us, looking at the areas of strengths, not areas of weaknesses.
Many of you here are Christians. I never looked at anyone of you to even imagine or to say oh, you are a Christian. we are all friends, and we shall continue to be friends. Christians and Muslims should see themselves as one. Recently, we had a meeting with the leadership of Christians under General Yakubu Gowon and all the leadership of Muslims, different sects—they were all here; and we talked about how we can work together. Any politician in this country, who decides to divide this country, from these lines is not a politician. That is why we have political parties. I see my friends from the South as my brothers and sisters. If there is election today, I am ready to go there and do whatever I can to support them vice versa. But, when you start to talk about the South, North, they are abusing themselves. But we know that at the conference, that what is happening is much less than what we are expecting. The agenda certainly is wrong, even though we are yet to see the end of the conference, but we told our members to be vigilante, though the outcome will go to the National Assembly, but we want a situation where what can get from the conference will be good enough to be presented at the National Assembly. I f you have so much and I have nothing, you should assist me and vice versa. Again, look at what is happening there, people are saying we are Middle-Belt, far North, South, we have oil and all that cannot help us. We are dividing ourselves.
What Nigerians want is what is happening here in Kano. I have over 2,000 young men and women of Kano state origin in 14 countries. We have given free education. All our children are encouraged to go back to school. I have over 200 students in Katsina, a private university; 250 students in Igbinedon University in Edo; 200 in Bells University; 200 in Crescent University; 25 in Auchi. Here in Kano, I have two universities, everybody is going there. Everybody is engaged. We have 24 institutes, which almost on daily basis, they are graduating people, some three months, five months or one year courses. People are happy.
What is the way out of the Adamawa political crisis?
I don’t want to go into the details of what Governor Murtala Nyako has done right or wrong. But all I know, is that he is not the worst governor in the country. Look at Nassarawa and see what is happening there. They are only after the APC governors. Look at how billions are being looted from Abuja in the name of ecology or whatever and nobody is talking about that. It is only APC governors that they are after. They want to destabilize us. Look at what they did here. They instigated young men with money and bribes that we are fighting. They came to streets of Kano and were destroying street lights, setting bonfires simply because we selected our own Emir through due process. They sponsored these young men to destroy bill boards and what have you, blocked the road to the Emir palace, simply because this is an APC state. But it is only foolish men that can foment trouble in his own domain. We don’t know where it will end. People who are beneficiaries of this democracy are the ones that are getting the masses to start the crisis. This will not help the country, divide-and-rule doesn’t help the leader, and will not help this country.
Do you foresee Governor Nyako going back to PDP?
I don’t know what is written in his mind, but I know very well that right in him, the last thing he will want to do is to go to PDP.
Do you still believe that state police can be part of the therapy needed to solve the problem of insecurity in this country?
You see, I didn’t like state police. But many of my colleagues, including Rotimi Amaechi of Rivers State, wanted state police. The group was headed by Amaechi and my group was headed by me. And literally, we stopped the issue of state police at that particular time. However, recent development and because every day we are learning, the recent development made it necessary for me to support state police. I have seen what happened in other states, especially Rivers State. I have seen what happened in other states and also what happened in Kano. On Friday, the Emir (late Ado Abdullahi Bayero) died; on Saturday, I called the kingmakers, we chatted and I said okay, tomorrow come by 12 noon; before they came, it was already in AIT and Abuja had installed their Emir. And everybody, even the social media and their party congratulated him. It was here that my boys came and say look at AIT, that they have congratulated him. And that was when I said go and call the kingmakers because they were all there waiting. And by the time we went and followed all the procedure, we came up with the real Emir. I can tell you that all of them had Sanusi Lamido Sanusi, who is now referred to as Muhammad Sanusi 11, as their candidates.
All kingmakers of Kano sat with and they said, okay, let us go and think about it. And we came back and we agreed that by the time it was announced, the stage was set to crisis because they have already gone to the streets and started burning bonfires and all that. That was on Sunday; and that same Sunday, they planned more riot and they to remove police guiding me—about 75 of them. Up till now, as I am speaking to you and I think today is July 12, only 25 were returned. Now, with all these, for goodness sake, why can’t I support state police? A governor should be able to protect himself. If you look at what is happening elsewhere, it is the same story. Police from other states from the South and other parts of the country like Kano should know the geography of their state. If you are talking about abuse of power b y the governors, we have 36 states and 36 governors—now you can see democracy—some APC, some PDP states, some Labour Party and other ones APGA and so on. Now it is one man who is misleading and misusing the police—one man. So, I am supporting state police 100 per cent.
If President Jonathan emerges winner in 2015, will the North accept him?
Well, I don’t want to speak about Northern Nigeria; I will better speak about the country. You see, I think Nigerians have seen a lot of weaknesses and a lot of lapses; and, unless all these issues are addressed, we will continue to problems or even more of it. But somebody should understand the problem. It is unfortunate that even some security experts; I don’t know where they learn their security from); they will go on air and say that people are killing themselves, killing their land because they don’t want the President! Therefore they are destroying everything, even their future because of him—that cannot be correct. If you target my father, if you target my wife, if you target my son, if you are targeting me—that is a different thing; but if people at the corner of the country started trouble and they are killing themselves and all others around—Muslims, Christians—bombs everywhere—bombs in the church, bombs in the Mosque—bombs in the shopping mall—bombs in the market; and all these because some people don’t want him to be President—is that the way to stop somebody. Politics is all about the game of number. Why are you killing yourself? Simply because you don’t like him. Some lecturers, PHD holders will be shouting in the radio—that people are killing themselves because they don’t like him. If you want to stop him, then you can ask him; and now we are not in the position of asking him why they are doing it, what is their motive or whatever—but what Nigerians are saying is that all these must stop. Mr. President should stop it by all means. Then, if we need a change, we can only do that at the polls.
But Your Excellency, Nigerians want to know whether Boko Haram are ghost or a reality?
I don’t know what it is. I’m not in control of the SSS, I am not in control of the Army, I am not in control of the police. All these questions people are asking that who these people are; I don’t know. But what I know is that the Commander-In-Chief of the Armed Forces should be able to stop them; and this stoppage should be either by negotiation or by forces—any of them. And I tell you that most of these confusions are coming from Mr. President’s handlers—the people around him, just to cause more problems.
