BUHARI IS OUR MANDELA – KANTI BELLO

Senator Mahmud Kanti Bello represented Katsina North from 1999-2011 in the senate and is now a chieftain of the new mega party – the All Progressives Congress (APC). In this interview with RUTH CHOJI, the former lawmaker states that the ruling PDP government is a complete disaster. He also states that, the only way the APC can succeed is by fielding General Muhammadu Buhari as its presidential candidate come 2015.

What assurances can you give Nigerian that the APC has come to stay?
Let’s look at it from the context of why the merger? Some of us who are old enough to know during the civil war, the part of the country where I come from have never been in dilemma like now and all this emanate from the lack of capacity of PDP as the party in government.

It is incompetent and each time President Goodluck Jonathan tells us “they are on top of the situation,” it gets worse. We were never aware of something like kidnapping. If we come awake in broad daylight and the Emir of Kano is attacked, it looks very awkward.

Then you know that this country is sinking. So good people have to come along, in a county were you have graduates and PhD holders and they cannot get jobs excerpt Dangote gives them jobs to be truck’s driver; not what you have read or you have been trained for. I mean he is a good man, I have no complaint for that.

But do you think we are on the right path?
Every sensible Nigerian, even those that are not sensible know that we are not on the right path. Look at total lack of discipline in a country with over 160 million people. We import what we wear, we cannot cloth our people. It is a disaster and we cannot continue this way. Somebody told me that we have different ideology, but again, there is no question of ideology again.

We have one common ideology and that is, we want to have a party that will stop people from stealing. If N2.6trn is gone and nothing is being done because at the end of the day, nothing will happen. The EFCC will catch you, within two minutes, they will jail you in the hospital; sometimes they will take you to Kuje for some days. There will be newspaper advert and that will be the end of the matter.

How many people has been jailed and what have they returned?
Let the EFCC come out and tell us how much these people have returned and how many they have been able to prosecute. This government is a government of corruption because I cannot see a situation where somebody will take away pension funds and elected members will ask him to come and he refuses. Now the man has vanished and this shows that we are bunch of jokers.

Are you saying that the APC can end all this?
We have to because that is what Nigerians are looking forward to. No sensible Nigerian wants to see people being attacked on the street in broad day light, we cannot go on with this type of corruption.

All the four parties have their manifestos; will it be merged to form one?
Nigeria is in a kind of political state of emergency; this is the time where politicians need to come together and salvage the nation because we are finished. Nigerians are frustrated and we need to have somebody who can change the situation. That is why we need Buhari because everybody knows that he is honest...

Are you saying the APC will field Buhari as its presidential candidate?
If APC is sensible, they will, else we don’t want to win. Buhari is the candidate that had twelve million votes and everybody knows that Buhari is not a thief. He is our Mandela, you might not like him, but he is the only one that can change the tide for this country. Everybody that will say Buhari should not run is an agent of PDP. In politics you want to win and if they really want to win, they will field him.

Has the new party found a way of dictating moles that might be sent in to destabilize the party?
They are there right now, we know because there is no Nigerian that does not know that Buhari has the votes of the people. Why don’t you want him to be fielded? So anybody that will say that Buhari should not be fielded is a mole and we should get rid of such people because the ordinary man wants him.

Nigerians are tired of stealing and this is the apostle that can stop it. There are lots of moles in the merger; when we inaugurate the committee of CPC, the mandate we gave them was to go and merge, then out of the blues, ANPP came in.

I don’t how they did it. The issue, we need to have an honest merger, but since we are working for the county not for man, it is an emergency; you will find that some bad eggs will come in. But they will be sieved as time goes on. For me the manifesto has already been done long ago by the PDP and President Goodluck. Our manifesto is to eradicate corruption, provide security, jobs for the teeming population of youths, improve agriculture to the level that we can clothe and feed ourselves.

Our manifesto is to have a healthy nation that can provide good medical care and qualitative education, which are lacking in Nigeria today. Anybody who is trying to create ideological manifesto is not being realistic. If I were in that committee, I will tell them that this is our ideology, write it down.

Religion is a major factor in Nigerian politics, how does APC intend to overcome this?
I know that all these are creation of PDP; let me tell you, whenever there is a major decision or policy, Jonathan will not announce it until he goes to church. That is true but nobody complains. What is bothering Nigerians now is how to eat, yet we are close to God. But when you pray to God, you always ask him for something to eat, so the question of whether you are a Christian, Muslim or pagan does not really arise.

All people want is food to eat? Nigerians wants a new standard of living and only Buhari can provide that. These are all elite’s style of taking away people’s mind from the reality. But our industries are dead, our factories, textiles are gone, agriculture is collapsing, the local government system is gone.

We need to change it. Somebody has to do it. We brought APC to take care of this headache, it doesn’t matter whether you are a Christian or Muslim, and you need APC to cure it.

There were reports that ten PDP governors are planning to defect to the APC, who they are?
I don’t know. I didn’t say it. I heard it like you did. Well if they are coming, not because of power grip, if they are coming because they are repenting, I was in PDP; I repented and left because I believe that this country is sinking. If the governors are leaving because they want to salvage the country, fine.

But if it is because they have ambition and Jonathan is saying that he wants to contest, about a year ago, I stated that Jonathan is likely to contest in 2015. I made my reason because I was in that meeting at Wadata PDP. Myself, principal officers of the senate and House of Reps, governors and the party.

We went there to discuss issues, but it was me that raised my hand and asked “Mr. President, you know that I have not been your supporter, but when I go to my people, I will like to tell them something. Are you going to contest for the second term after you win this one?” The man did not answer, he kept quiet and nobody pursued that question. It was after the meeting that Shema, the governor o Katsina State issued a communiqué, that it is going to be one term.

The truth is they are all hypocrites. Now that they are finished their second term with all the confusion they have created, Shema is a disaster. When Umaru brought him and he convinced me, I promised Umaru in front of everybody that for me, I will do my best to help Shema. If he deviates from people-oriented things, I will be the first to attack him.

And I said it in front of all the stakeholders in Katsina and he deviated. The man has been doing things that are not correct in our state, even the projects he has been doing. They said that we are the second poorest state in Nigeria and it is true. When you go to Katsina, you will see it and know that people are poor because Shema has not done anything to provide needs of the people.

He has been withholding money of the local government which he spends on himself. How can you justify what he has done?
Foreign policy is federal government’s own, how does he justify taking our money and going to Niger to build a house for a woman and he claims to be a lawyer. This is an impeachable offense, but the State House of Assembly will not impeach him. He is also trying to create weak emirate to divide the people more. For me, I don’t care whether he creates twenty emirates.

But is the creation of emirate our priority now? When he wanted to build houses, he built them across the local governments; now the houses are there, nobody wants to enter them. Even Shagari low-cost is still unoccupied, yet this man out of greed and stupidity went ahead to repeat the same project. Look, he has been squandering our money in Katsina and some of us know.

How do we end the incessant attack on Nigerians by insurgents?
Every time President Jonathan comes out to say we are on top of the situation in security, something worse happens. The way out is to kick out PDP because these people are incompetent, they are putting this country in jeopardy.

When you said Shema uses local government; it brings us to the calls for the scrapping of the system, would you subscribe to that?
That is rubbish; let us adhere to the constitution for the thing to work smoothly. The first thing to do in local government to make sure that this thing is done smoothly is to remove state INEC because a chapter says, ‘from the day this constitution comes into effect, no part of Nigeria should be governed out this constitution; which means no part should be governed without elections.

For two years now in Katsina, there has been no election for local government and even when you are going to do the elections, state independent electoral body will not do the elections but announce results. How can you tell me that because you are in power, people cannot elect their own councilor? Recently there were elections in Adamawa and they cleared everything. We need a body that can conduct free and fair elections. Of course people are accusing Jega; I have no confidence in him.

Nevertheless I think the national are better than the state body. Remove state INEC from the constitution and allow the elections to be conducted by the national body. Then eventually you educate Nigerians to elect the right people who have the sense. Not the governor’s boyfriend and girlfriends or his servants which is what is happening at the state level now.

It is so unfortunate that a state assembly is there and the governor takes their funds and builds a house for a lady in Niger and nothing is being done.

When I was in the senate, I worked so hard to make sure that the states assembly have last line of charge; their monies goes to them directly. We lobbied everybody and we managed to have it. But the state assemblies said no; they don’t agree. It is like you gave your son his own house, food ingredient and the rest and he said no, he would rather continue to beg.

Going back to the National Assembly, would you say the senate is on track?
There are people I respect in both chambers and I believe they are working according to the circumstances they find themselves.

Source: Leadership