Senator Suleiman Hunkuyi was a member of the 8th Senate. He is currently the gubernatorial candidate of New Nigeria Peoples Party (NNPP) in Kaduna State. He shares his thoughts with our Northern Bureau Chief, MUHAMMAD SABIU, on the 2023 elections, predicting that there might be a re-run as well as other surprises.
How did you see the exit of Senator Ibrahim Shekarau. Don’t you think it will affect the fortune of your party?
Well here we are talking about the exit of Shekarau. But I can’t remember whether we have discussed the entry of Shekarau. Shekarau, to me, has many exits. I don’t think we have heard his last exit. I believe if my big brother, Shekarau, is being offered a ministerial appointment by African Democratic Congress (ADC) you will not hear the exit of Shekarau. But, again, we are operating a multi-party democracy. But I have some few words. As a politician, I count it as a big profit if I wake up in the morning and I gain one person. However, if at the end of the day I lose one person, as a politician I tried to see quickly how I will replace the person that left me with one, two and possibly three people. When Shekarau came into the fold, he came with key people in Kano State. Prominent people from the state joined the NNPP, when Shekarau left, unfortunately for him and fortunately for NNPP, he left these key and prominent people behind in NNPP. We lost Shekarau, but in that transaction, NNPP is counting profits.
It is said there are moves to lure Kwankwaso into supporting Senator Bola Tinubu. Is that true?
First of all, I am not Kwankwaso. Second, I am not speaking for him. But I have a position. One, quote me and look forward to this. It does not appear that any of the parties, including NNPP, may make it in the first ballot. There might be a run-off. Because the law requires a candidate to score a minimum vote in a number of states, apart from simple majority of votes scored, no one party, no one candidate may be able to make it. And that’s why the law of every election permits a re-run. So, for somebody to say NNPP will not make it, then, which of the parties will make it? I am talking from the facts on ground. You see APC and PDP as the biggest of them. Try and plot the graph and do it dispassionately, out of the 36 states, you need to win in minimum of 25 states. So the responsibility of Kwankwaso and NNPP is to put a credible platform to form the next government in Nigeria. He cannot arrogate to himself, either can the All Progressives Congress (APC) or the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) arrogate to themselves that they must win the required number of votes.
Nigeria is so big a polity, a pot, when it is boiling, you can never say what will happen, because its politics is erratic. Look around before, we were talking of only PDP and APC. But now you have APC, you have PDP, Labour Party (LP), NNPP and other smaller parties. Nobody can arrogate power to himself. If you take a hundred votes in Lagos, if I asked you to allocate the votes the way you think they will come, maybe two or three parties may not get 25 percent or the required number of votes. So go to the East and plot the graph, do the same in the North. So the average politician leaves his window open because he talks to every citizen, because every citizen is entitled to a vote. If there is likely to be a run-off, the strongest may require the support of the weakest or vice versa. It is a complex reversible arithmetic you can’t attempt to answer. Nobody will close his door and sit in his house and become an island, not under this polity, not under the 2023 elections. If Kwankwaso wants to win election, he will have to fraternise with others.
Why do you want to govern a volatile state like Kaduna?
In trying to respond to this question, there are three things: one, I have been an active, very active participant within the Kaduna State politics in, at least, the last 35 years. And to be active is to be part of the decision-making, politically, in the state. That gave me the humble opportunity to see thing as a result of my active participation, from the grassroots to the middle cadre and, graciously, at the top of the ladder of politics in Kaduna State.
Again, you also know, as it is no longer news, that I have been part and parcel of leading not one, not two or three movements of political parties for the realisation of our aspirations and what we believe should be the direction and focus of governance in the polity; the way we see things. I have had the opportunities of leading three or four people to [claim] the leadership position in the governance of our state.
After passing through that experience, you cannot be aloof. Second reason is that having been opportune to be at that political level within the system, we have been part of governments. We have had cause to observe the performances of governments. We have had opportunities in my own privileged positions to hear, see, understand the assessment of my people about governments, various individuals at the apex of leadership where performances are highly expected. I have gone through the thick and thin within the polity in the last 35 to 40 years. I have the experience and, yes, probably, this time I would get the mandate of the people and graciously my prayer will be granted by God to be the next governor.
I am always an optimist not a pessimist. That I have tried before and it didn’t happen has not in any way dampened my moral, my understanding or confidence in the polity. Maybe here and there on the system of election or the systems by the parties, there had been reservations and/or observation where the system ought to have been better than what we were experiencing, but my optimism has remained. It has kept rising to the point that having tried once, twice, it has not dampened my moral to try for the third time.
I have said this before, but I want to put it on records that Hunkuyi is standing in the next general election as governor of Kaduna State the second time in his life. The first time, I contested under the All Nigeria People’s Party (ANPP) in 2003. Now, 20 years after, I will be flying the flag of NNPP.
I believe I have the concept, the ideas and requisite ability based on my little experience in the formation of governments, to achieve success. Putting all these together, I believe I have an idea, a model of how governance in my state should be if given the chance.
Having observed governance in the state and the challenges the present administration has been facing, what is your assessment of the present government?
While I thank you for that question, my simple answer is that it is not encouraging. In my assessment, one of the most unfortunate and damning situations the state is facing in governance is security or insecurity.
If we talk of insecurity, we are talking of what affects the general public. If we talk of security, we look at it from the prism of government at various tiers and governance as a statutory obligation of government to the people. Both security and insecurity are synonymous. But is this the way we can live as a people? You and I know that people are begging for a better situation, hoping that the security platforms, which government has obligation to bear, can give them protection.
If I put the issue of expectation from the general public to you, I know you are in a better position to candidly, honestly judge and I am sure the answer would be that the people have not got the simple obligatory duty of providing security from government such that they can feel they are within a secured environment within Kaduna State. But definitely as a major stakeholder, if I am the governor, my government cannot and will not continue to manage security of the people the way it has been managed in the last seven and a half years.
There are so many things that ought not to be the way government is doing currently. You will agree with me that those saddled with the responsibility by the supreme law of the land to superintend over the security of lives and properties is the government and they have said, going by the words of the sitting governor that government has failed to provide adequate security.
It is not what he said; even before he said it, we have said it. We keep repeating it that the constitution does not ask a governor to jettison that responsibility of providing security for the people. It is one of the most well-articulated and most defined roles of government: securing lives and property of the people. We have been part of government for too long to know that security of your life, my life, and anybody’s should be above any other. So at what point in time does government decide to appoint an unprofessional hand to manage the security of affairs of its people? On another point, you may do that, if everything is jolly fine and well, but not when the security condition is alarmingly negative as we have in Kaduna State such that the head of government that has been assigned by that duty by law of the land is just engaging in a round robin approach.
Then looking at the education policy of this government, you may wish to know whether I am satisfied with the way education is being run in my state. My answer will be I am not satisfied. The model may look ideal, but the results, its dividends, are not the same. I would have thought that our children, our young ones should be the direct beneficiaries of what we dream. As a government, the thought should be to design policies of education that all and sundry can benefit from. Yes, attempt was made to bring in school aged children at various levels back to classrooms and schools but the policies are truly unfair. We have seen situations where you asked a father or a family of six with two children at primary level, two or three at three at secondary school, one or two at university level with the family earning less than N50,000 and you are asking them to pay N120,000; N130,000 for a child per annum as a precondition for admission, as a precondition to learn, as a precondition to be able to gather the minimum required education.
That policy is repugnant. We are not talking of whether or not the requisite percentage of revenue or spending of government goes to the segment of education or otherwise because that is a quantum of scale to measure.
On health, again an attempt was made by this government, good as a model, but we have all seen what played out at the end. When we are talking about Primary Health Care, Kaduna has 23 local governments and 255 wards. At the point of entry of this administration, they took a model of identifying,equipping, staffing 255 PHCs, no mad man will say it is not a good model. But alas what have they delivered to those 255 locations, where are those manning those health centres? Part of the idea of PHCs is, one, maternal health care, where situations of pregnant mothers and deliveries can be managed adequately and professionally.
But how many of the 255 locations have a midwife to manage the centre? What does the dispensary contain? Maybe you don’t know that most of them have nothing. The roofs are leaking; no beds in most of them. In most of them, there are no heads of dispensaries. Where will the people go? If they go there, who will they see? Some of the buildings are inhabited by rodents. Is that the idea of management of primary health care and delivery or the way the model has been put before you and me? Yes, I make bold to say that if the model is managed well, it will take primary health care to the doorsteps of the ordinary man. We read in the newspapers that general electric was to supply equipment worth billions of naira to those locations. You as a journalist, have a responsibility to visit some of these centres and ask questions.
What would you be doing differently if you become governor owing to the fact that most state governors at the regional level give excuses that they are not in control of security?
First and foremost, it is not true. It is an attempt to change the narrative, an attempt to be unfair to the heads of security agencies. My take as a responsible citizen, as somebody who knows how governments in Kaduna State in the past were run, how the police, the military operate, in the laws governing them, the most important issue is the security of lives and properties. But the government of Kaduna State only wanted to change the narrative. The truth is that when a sitting governor does not recognise the head of the police within his state and wants to change the methods, the narratives and the articles of engagement of the security agencies, then there would be problem. If the police commissioner is responsible for an appointee of government in the state, why then must an appointee of the governor be the one to superintendent, spearhead, dish out orders on how to handle the security in Kaduna State? Is the police commissioner, under the rules of engagement, to submit to an appointee of a governor? Certainly, this also goes for the heads of military formations in the state, as well as other sister security agencies.
Some of these heads of security agencies have 30years experience. You could see clearly how the various heads of security agencies in the state are manhandled and because they are not politicians like me, they can’t talk. They cannot go to the market with their narratives and their stories. They can’t operate without funds but who has the funds; who holds the funds, who appropriate them, who orders for their release? These are situations that is clearly known to people like me and you. We must change the narrative.
What we will do differently, I have said it many times, we come in on May 29,and first, we will stop the budget. We would have done our due diligence after elections before the May 29. We have to do a supplementary approach to the budget; we are going to do three things that will complement security in our state. One, where funds are appropriated to heads and subheads that are not as important as the head of security, we are going to lessen or suspend less segments that have been allocated resources. We are going to mop those resources and re-channel them into practical areas of need of security apparatus. We have said it (and some have misunderstood it) that we are bringing back all our District Heads (DHs), over 300 of them. The DHs are the eyes and ears of government; they’re the first point of collection of intelligence and transmission of intelligence both to the security authorities and to government at various levels. We will give them training to sharpen their senses and understanding of issues pertaining to security in their various locations across the state and the need to treat security matters with utmost urgency. We will also deploy community approach to secure our communities.
Some of your party members are accusing you of working for APC. But we learned too that your party has taken APC to court. Can you shed more light on this?
You said they are accusing me of working for APC, while another version I heard is that I am working with APC. Two different things. But whichever it is, NNPP has taken APC to court. Do you take someone to court if you are working for that person? Or is it that the reason NNPP dragged APC to court is because we are working for them? Maybe it is part of the agreement that we should drag them to court! But as I said, Hunkuyi has been misunderstood at various levels of his life. This is not new. Under democracy, people protest. That some don’t like Hunkuyi cannot be news. In one of the media houses yesterday, something played out. A ticket holder of NNPP, a senatorial candidate of the party, went on air that he is not supporting me as gubernatorial candidate and that he is supporting the Peoples Redemption Party (PRP) gubernatorial candidate. So you can begin to see where the so-called reaction is coming from. It is okay even if within the fold of our party some people feel it should not be Hunkuyi. That is why there is a primary election to choose who you want. That is the beauty of democracy; the minority have their voice, but the majority carry the day. In Kaduna State, NNPP has registered well over 650,000 members. I do not expect all the members to support me. If I did, then it means we are not under democracy. Whether Hunkuyi is working for APC or not, time shall tell.
What are your chances, considering the fact that the PDP candidate comes from your area?
My chances are bright. Recall APC uprooted the then sitting PDP governor of Kaduna State; why was that question not relevant? The answer is very straightforward. Under democracy, during elections, the electorate hold the four aces, not one, or two, not three. The electorate today have the instrument to measure the present condition we are passing through when it comes to the party on ground. The APC as party in government, conducted local government elections a year ago, what was the outing? What was the countenance of the people and what are the facts? In case you wish not to see them, let me remind you of some of them.
In 2019, general election, APC as a party garnered over 112,000 votes for their candidate in Zaria local government alone. During last year local government elections, what did the APC get? Local government elections are elections that bring more votes than any election. If that is right, we are expecting to have more votes. But why did APC get just slightly over 21,000 votes? Where were the people? Some said they didn’t come out; some said voters’ apathy that people refused to come out in state-managed elections. The simple reason is they are no longer interested in APC. With what they are getting, the government can’t mobilise them or give them reason why they should come out and vote. Why did people not vote for PDP as an alternative party? It is because people viewed PDP too as APC. These are scientific facts. So if someone said how can NNPP win elections against a sitting governor, don’t forget people refused to come out and vote in a local government election. If we were on ground during the polls and contested that election, NNPP could have taken over Zaria local government. So why people will come out in 2023 is because they are tired of the ruling party. For instance, in BirninGwari, the local government election was won by only 8,000 votes and was won by PDP. But the state government nullified the election on the premise that voting continued up till midnight.
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