Politically, Katsina is most peaceful state —Radda

Alhaji Umar Dikko Radda is a chieftain of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in Katsina State. He was the former Chief of Staff to Governor Aminu Bello Masari before his recent appointment as Director-General of Small and Medium Enterprise Development Agency (SMEDAN). In this interview with Muhammad Sabiu, he speaks on recent meeting of some aggrieved APC members in the state. Excerpts:

Today, there was a meeting of some members of your party in Kaduna and they were not happy about the way party activities and governance are being run in Katsina. What is the problem?

Honestly speaking, I view the meeting as that of a disgruntled people. We have all worked together to make a success for the party in 2015. For any member to come out now and vent his anger publically from Katsina State, being the home of the president, is rather unfortunate. We should be careful not to embarrass the president.

Two, this kind of meeting should not hold in Kaduna but in Katsina, because that’s where we play our politics. So, if we want to play politics, let’s go back to our state. They might not like what is happening, but I must tell you that there is no single governor in the whole of the Northern Nigeria who tried as much as possible and even went out of his way to bring every one on board after the primaries like Governor Masari.

Some of the people that attended the meeting were those who contested the primaries with the governor, but I am surprised and still wondering why anyone of them start talking this way, because the governor has tried as much as possible to bring all of them on board, by giving them appointments.

All of them, I can tell you, are represented in the government. Is it Bugaje, Yar’Adua or Ilu? Some of them have their sons appointed as commissioners. Some have their political associates appointed into different offices and I believe there also are a lot of political patronage that was extended to most of them, that is it. Again, if we are in politics, we are in politics for the development of our state and not for our personal gains. So, in this regard, I can tell you that the governor is doing a very wonderful job for the development of the state. And I think he has been magnanimous by bringing all of them on board. But you know as human beings, we are never satisfied. Even God, who created us, some people are questioning Him. This is human nature and for that reason, we should exercise some decorum, we should as much as possible to iron out our problems if we have any and that should be done in Katsina. The governor is open. He is ready to embrace criticisms, ready to embrace all opinions and that was the reason he was able to unite all party members after the primaries. Ask any party member if the governor has relieved anybody because he has not supported him. He has not removed any party man because of disloyalty to him. So, to me, the main issue in Katsina is not that of leadership, because, as I said, most of the political juggernauts in the state are being represented in his government.

What that means in essence is that there is a kind of unparalleled leadership quality in Governor Masari that we should all emulate. He’s been careful because Katsina symbolises the president and any embarrassment coming from the state is not targeted at the governor but the president because President Muhammadu Buhari is a bona-fide member of APC in the ward, local government, Daura, as well as the state. He attends meeting of APC in the state where necessary. So, any person saying he is being excluded is not saying the truth.

To the best of my knowledge, the governor had conducted stakeholders’ meeting about three or four times and almost all the people I saw on the clips attended the meeting organised by the governor. Their opinions during such meetings were respected. So, I think we should exercise restraint as much as possible and be cautious in what we are doing. Katsina is the most peaceful state right now politically. So, if we want to play politics, let’s go back to Katsina and sit down at a roundtable to iron out our differences.

For such people to converge in this manner and express their grievances, what do you think could be their motive?

I think their motive could be many. Some would like to destabilise the state politically, some would like to distract the governor and the president, some will do what they are doing for political gains. So, in times like this, when politics is around the corner, even at the national level, you will see many groups springing up. So you expect these kind of agitations and criticisms. We as politicians we are always ready to contend it, we will contend it and we will be with it and work with it, by this I mean we are going to bring all the family members back to a roundtable.

Let’s us look at the specifics, some of their grievances have to do with the delegates’ list. As a stakeholder, what is your opinion?

As a member of APC and a former national welfare secretary and member of the National Working Committee, I can authoritatively say that the party’s constitution has provided for consensus and what we did in Katsina as regard the three delegates for the convention is purely consensus. I can assure you that every member of the party who is a stakeholder in his local government was invited and meetings were held in all the local governments where resolutions were reached before the names of delegates were shortlisted.

You should ask yourself why the complaint on delegates’ list was coming now, especially since the exercise was done long time ago and there was no complain. I could remember there were states where there were issues. Immediately after the elections, press conferences were organised by aggrieved persons. Let us be honest, was Katsina part of the states that had crisis? So, we have been in this game for a long time, we could understand certain things and these people that are coming up with these allegations are highly respected, people we hold in high esteem.

I really can’t image why some of them decided to associate themselves with some of these people. It is a serious embarrassment to the Katsina people.

Another issue they raised was that since the appointment of the party chairman as the Secretary to the State Government (SSG), no person has been appointed to replace him?

It’s not true. Let them be sincere to themselves. Again, why is the issue of leadership coming up now? This is a man that has been appointed as SSG for the past two years. Why is it now that they are telling the world that there is no leader of APC in Katsina today, when we are few months to elections? I could remember that I was at a stakeholders’ meeting convened by the governor. I could vividly recalled that the meeting took place in the governor’s office and in that meeting, every member that is supposed to be involved was invited. For instance, all local government chairmen, local government secretaries, every person that you could think of, was at the meeting. I could remember the late Kanti Bello was there, all the senators, all the members of the House of Representatives were there, as well as political office holders. The issue of party leadership was tabled and it was the consensus of the meeting that produced the current chairman of the party. To add it up, I was the national welfare secretary of APC and the issue of who will replace me was discussed and somebody was nominated at the meeting and thus both the names of the state party chairman and my replacement were presented to the North West zonal officials who endorsed the names and later submitted them to the national secretariat of the party. So, for somebody to sit in Kaduna and tell you we don’t have a leader is quite unfortunate. I think there is more than what the eyes could see.

From the foregoing, it appears your party is now divided?

There is no faction in Katsina APC and nobody could tell me that. If there is, who is the chairman of the other faction? I really or will rather want to know him. I know in some of the neighbouring states we have factions, definitely not in Katsina.

When will APC weather the current storm in order not to fall into the hands of the opposition come 2019?

Honestly speaking, our governor will sit with any aggrieved person or group to sort out issues. Some of them that were in the meeting, we respect them, they are our leaders with whom we worked together for the victory of the party, we can’t allow them to go like that. We will do everything possible to bring them back. This is democracy, it involves agreeing and disagreeing, it involves accepting and not accepting. Don’t be surprised to see us eating and drinking together in the nearest future. In fact, the governor, who is the leader of the party, it is his responsibility to listen to every member of the party who has complaint. He will definitely reach out with the view of ironing out any differences.