All Progressives Congress (APC) chairmanship aspirant, Saliu Mustapha, in this interview, says imposition of candidate under the guise of consensus will erode the gains of the APC reconciliation Committee. He spoke with TAIWO AMODU a few day before the party announced the postponement of the APC convention earlier scheduled for February 26.
You are from the North Central, with five or six of you contesting for the chairmanship of the party. I know you have secured the support of your State Governor, Abdulrazaq Abdulrahman. But the speculation is that about two governors from the North-Central are not comfortable with your having the national chairman slot against the backdrop of their presidential ambition. What have been your findings?
This is politics and in most cases, everybody is in it for a certain belief or interest. I will not say because I am from North Central, I expect everybody’s interest to align with mine but I will wish that we are all on the same page and we can all work together and see reasons why we should work together. I have virtually spoken to everybody and I have consulted with them to buy into the project. I haven’t been given any negative or bad feelers and I have made sure it is not because I am running that I want other people to drop their aspirations. I have always tried to market myself based on the value and what I can bring on board that we should always look at the bigger picture of making sure at the end of the day, APC comes out victorious. That is when each and every one of us as critical stakeholders will be proud of the platform and can in one way or the other, achieve, influence or benefit something. If we don’t make it, then, what do you want to stand to benefit, promote or even achieve at the end of the day. I also don’t have any ill-feelings or have been given any negative treatment by anybody who has ambition from North Central, both from my fellow contestants and also anybody aspiring to be President or Vice President.
Every politics is local, of course you must have met the Governors from the North-Central states. What is the body language of Yahaya Bello, when you met him?
Of course, I met his Excellency, Governor Yahaya Bello and I spoke to him on supporting, endorsing and also seeing my project as his own. And you know, we have a lot of things in common, apart from coming from the North Central. We belong to the same age demography, even if not for the fact of our association as people from the North Central, we can always relate and look at this project from the angle of we are the younger generation that hope to take over leadership for the better. So, I spoke to him and he was very okay with it. Of course, he has his own aspiration and I wish him well too. When he escorted me, he said, may God give us the best. For me, nothing is more than that and I believe positively in my engagement with him.
The North-East wants to retain the position of national chairman after Governor Mai Mala Buni. The contenders and the stakeholders from the North East are citing precedence; that when Oyegun left the seat, the person that came after him, Comrade Adams Oshiomhole was also from the South-South. They are pushing the narrative that the APC stakeholders should allow the North East produce national Chairman. What is your take on this?
Well, it is unfortunate that at this time and age, in a civilized environment, where people are intellectually sound, somebody will be bringing this kind of argument. If it is so, why don’t we say somebody from South-South should continue since Oshiomhole did not finish his term and don’t forget this is an extra-ordinary Caretaker Committee, it is not a substantive National Working Committee?
We must always look at things based on the peculiarity and situation we found ourselves in. Today, it was because something went wrong that the Extra-ordinary Committee came in place and what is their work, to conduct or prepare the party for a peaceful and successful convention. So, if somebody from the North East tries to hold on to this as a reason why it will be zoned to the North East, I want to disassociate myself from this kind of intellectual bankruptcy.
You have always said it severally that you see yourself as a bridge builder, but you must admit that APC is one political family with several power blocs, or tendencies… You are from defunct Congress for Progressive Change, you know aspirants who are from defunct All Nigerian Peoples Party, Action Congress of Nigeria, the splinter group of All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA) and some former chieftains of the People› Democratic Party (PDP). Have you reached out to them and do you think they will support you?
I always build my own aspiration on the platform that APC is one now. Of course, by nature we all have where we are coming from, even as human beings, we all have our different origins. But we have come to a stage now that we are looking at things in a more holistic manner as a family that is why I have tried to approach everybody.
I have also consulted with people and that is one of the things we lack in our political parties or political life in Nigeria. We don’t do enough consultations. Some people see it as a sign of weakness. No, it is a way of carrying people along, giving them a sense of belonging and politics is about giving people a sense of belonging. So, it can be the more, the merrier because it is about numbers. The more the number, the more the merrier. I don’t believe I will be affected by the issue of tendencies because I have tried to make myself available for all irrespective of the fact that I came from the CPC, others came from the ANPP, there are those that came from ACN and don’t forget there are those who came from part of APGA and also the New PDP that came in too. That is why a lot of people call me the bridge builder because I have identified with everybody and I connect with everybody.
Your rivals are saying you and one other aspirant with affinity to the defunct Congress for Progressives Change (CPC) are confident of emerging as national chairman, because of your political lineage to President Buhari?
I think I will even help you with a better equation or arithmetic to it. Yes, if CPC gets it, the better for all of us in the party, because we have had previous chairmen that have come from the other legacy parties and this sense of belonging is critical in politics. When you give people a sense of belonging, you carry them along, it helps a lot. Today, the layman believes the President will be outgoing in 2023 and if he is outgoing, what stake should those from the CPC hold on to and that is why some of them are saying give them the National Chairman. You see, for a successful political party or movement, you must always bring political solution not legal solution. In legal solution, there is always bound to be a winner and a loser, but political solution will always give people a sense of belonging and carry everyone along and typically, that is what the local people have been able to fashion out in saying that let CPC man be in position of chairmanship since the person who is leaving as the President is CPC. It will be very wrong to start saying somebody from the CPC should contest the seat of presidency. If you try to accuse the CPC of holding on to Chairmanship, you should accuse others who want to hold on to the Presidency too? So, it is just a way of balancing and giving people a sense of belonging so that this unity can be more formidable with time.
If you have to do a critique of the activities of the Buni-led committee, would you say it has been very integrative?
Based on the circumstance they found themselves, it is not what anybody prepared for; I will give them a pass mark. In every political movement, there is bound to be disagreement or dissenting voices. The most important thing is the capacity and ability to be able to come out of it stronger and more unified and that is where I believe I will be able to play a role too because I have the ability and the skill of negotiating and reconciling differences. These are one of the qualities I learnt from leaders I have worked with in the past. If given the opportunity as chairman of the party, it is more of a team work where everybody will see themselves contributing. Don’t forget when I was Deputy National Chairman of CPC, we introduced something that has never happened in Nigeria’s political history, we made sure every week, the same way there is a council meeting for Wednesdays, we made sure every Tuesdays, we had our management meeting where we looked at issues from States to Local Governments and try and resolve these issues. We do not allow issues to pile up. So, these are ways to make sure you get the party off any unnecessary strangulation. When we were in the CPC, if we have issues in Zamfara today, we would make sure we invite stakeholders and those involved, resolve these issues immediately and because we were doing this, we had less problems in the CPC. In our days in the CPC, we introduced a levy and it was helping us to fund the party and the party did not rely on money bags. If there is a problem in one State and the money bag is the one that is wrong, how do you adjudicate or give fair justice to everybody? When we introduced that people should pay for their membership cards, every elected official on the platform of the CPC then had a particular levy they were paying, be it monthly, quarterly, half a year or yearly as you want it. So, these were some of the things that helped to sustain the party and these are things that will help to institutionalize the party and this is what we lack in our political party system in Nigeria. Our parties are not institutions on their own. It is when you have parties that can stand on their own and become institutions, that is when the parties can call their members to order. That is when you have party discipline, party supremacy and you can also make sure everybody subscribes to the party manifestos. Today, you will see Governors of the same party doing different things. It shouldn’t be so. These are some of the things if given the opportunity, I will push, sponsor to make sure the party is different from what has always been obtainable in the past. I want to be one of those that will sponsor deliberate policy that will create a system of mentoring the younger ones, either by making sure every Deputy in every executive position is a woman or youth, then you start mentoring us from there. I want to also bring about a progressive institute of Nigeria where we have an institute that becomes the hub of strategy, planning, research and all sorts so that we become more smart and proactive in our politics. So that we think ahead and we don’t wait for problems to hit us before we resolve them. People can now know the kind of party we are and see us for what we are, not that sometimes people are still confused thinking what is different between party A and B. No, it shouldn’t be so.
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