Perhaps, few politicians can boast of Alhaji Sule Lamido’s political pedigree, having been in the House of Representatives in the Second Republic, National Secretary of Social Democratic Party(SDP) during President Ibrahim Babangida’s aborted Third Republic and Minister of Foreign Aff airs in the President Olusegun Obasanjo cabinet from 1999 to 2007. Thereafter, Lamido became governor of Jigawa state, where he spent eight years in transforming the erstwhile rural state. Recently, he declared his intention to vie for the highest offi ce in Nigeria. In this interview with ABDULRAHMAN ABDULRAUF and IBRAHEEM MUSA, Lamido explains why he didn’t run for the presidency in 2015, in spite of his rumoured ambition
The Supreme Court verdict which affi rmed Senator Ahmed Makarfi as National Chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has been hailed by many. But how does your party intend to reconcile the two factions? From the way you couched the question, it shows that you are also concerned. Th e elation and celebration across the country, not only amongst members of PDP but other Nigerians, it shows that we need a very, very vibrant and strong party which can stand up and confront the government.
So, I think it’s a victory fi rst for democracy and second for the PDP, and like Senator Ahmed Makarfi said, the victory is also good for members of APC. Th e APC is in worse crisis than PDP; it is because they are in government that it is why it is not so obvious. Otherwise, if they have gone for a convention, the fallout in terms of litigation and what have you, will be worse than PDP. So, even APC is celebrating the victory because at least they now know that there is something called law and order in the country. Th e APC needs us. So, you could see that the unanimity of the concerns shows that the verdict was right. Even Senator Ali Modu Sherrif says that he supports the verdict and he is going to contribute his quota in whatever way, to restore the party to the people. You see, I am happy that he said so.(Cuts in) But can he be trusted? No, no, no.
You don’t begin to impute motives and meanings into utterances in an era of reconciliation. Th is is someone who came to the party 15 years after it had been formed. And he is now talking about giving the party back to the people. So, it means he knows who owns the party. I am happy that he is on the same page with us in returning the party back to the people. Th e totality of the views is that we are going to reconcile because history will not forgive us if we don’t. From 1999 to date, PDP has produced three Presidents, it has produced about fi ve Senate Presidents and about four Speakers in the House of Representatives.
It has also produced over 50 governors, it has produced over 56 Speakers in the State Houses of Assembly, over 100 ministers, over 1000 commissioners in the states, over 1000 council chairmen in the States and over 10,000 councilors. So, if you look at the history of PDP, it is the history of Nigeria. It’s a fact. We should now look back and see what we Continued on the next page Lamido Star Interview Perhaps, few politicians can boast of Alhaji Sule Lamido’s political pedigree, having been in the House of Representatives in the Second Republic, National Secretary of Social Democratic Party(SDP) during President Ibrahim Babangida’s aborted Third Republic and Minister of Foreign Aff airs in the President Olusegun Obasanjo cabinet from 1999 to 2007. Thereafter, Lamido became governor of Jigawa state, where he spent eight years in transforming the erstwhile rural state. Recently, he declared his intention to vie for the highest offi ce in Nigeria.
In this interview with ABDULRAHMAN ABDULRAUF and IBRAHEEM MUSA, Lamido explains why he didn’t run for the presidency in 2015, in spite of his rumoured ambition. From 1999 to date, PDP has produced three Presidents, it has produced about fi ve Senate Presidents and about four Speakers in the House of Representatives. It has also produced over 50 governors, it has produced over 56 Speakers in the State Houses of Assembly, over 100 ministers,………. were and what is our duty to Nigerians. So, we must reconcile not for our sake, but for the sake of Nigeria which gave us the chance to occupy those various positions. Also, Nigerians have expectations from PDP and if we were careless in the last 15 years, we have seen the consequences. Th e eff ect was not only on PDP but on the whole of Nigeria. So, we must reconcile. Don’t you think that PDP brought the crisis upon itself? What lessons has the party learnt? When you are dealing with human institutions, you don’t expect perfection. Like all other things, you should expect some mistakes.
PDP made its own mistakes and some of them were, what I will say, genuine mistakes but others were reckless. It is true that we made some mistakes but it is these mistakes that will guide us to avoid future mistakes. PDP is a party with a history and not just a contraption. It is a party which has various elements in it. It is a party that Nigerians have entrusted with power and at a time, they refused to vote us and that is the biggest lesson for us. So, it has taught us that no matter what, it is the people that come fi rst because they are the ones who confer authority and power. I recall former President Olusegun Obasanjo saying ‘’if Lamido says he will not do, he won’ t do and even if I tell him to do and he does not want to do, he will not do.’
’ Talking about presidential ambition, are you ready ‘’to do’’ now? When President Obasanjo said what he said, he was sincere and he said it because he was worried. But then again, the political environment was one which someone cannot be foisted no matter what because we had in place a PDP president. By the time he became the president, he is now a Nigerian president and you cannot pull him out anyhow. It is not possible. By the time Nigerians vote a president into offi ce, he not a PDP president; he is a Nigerian president.
So, he has become a Nigerian symbol, a sovereign symbol, so there are things that no matter how you feel about him, you cannot do. So, even though Baba (Obasanjo) felt the way he did, there was nothing much that could be done. As a party, we couldn’t have presented a presidential candidate at the primaries to challenge a sitting president; there is no guarantee that we will win the general election because that is beyond us. We can elect a fl ag bearer if that is what we want, but we don’t want to contest the general election with a split. Anyway, it is not even in the culture of politics that we have a full leader and you chose to drop him in the primaries. It is un-cultural politically. So, with regards to now, I have had meeting with the party leaders about two months ago and declared my intention because of the incessant calls that are coming from all quarters. I am not being haughty by saying this; I am saying this with all sense of modesty. And l decided to answer those calls and if the party fi nds me worthy, that will be fi ne by me. If my party says that I should serve Nigeria, why not? Some people see your declaration as putting the cart before the horse. They argue that the party has not held its convention in order to zone the presidency one way or the other but you have declared your intention to vie for the presidency. What is your reaction to these critics? When you say some people, it has no meaning. It is amorphous.
I remember, on the second inauguration of President Obasanjo at Eagles Square, on May 29, 2003. On that day, I saw supporters of Vice President Atiku Abubakar fl ying his fl ag, passing by the podium with his posters. Th at was immediately after the oath of offi ce had been administered on Obasanjo and Atiku. Th e government was barely fi ve minutes old, when these supporters came passing by the podium with posters proclaiming Atiku’s 2007 ambition. You have forgotten that? So, when you say that l declared too early or late, it doesn’t make any sense.
In any case, our party has a history; so when you said that some people say that I declared too early, we are not there to satisfy what some people think. Anybody in the party has a right to declare for any offi ce any day, anytime. Like Atiku declared on the parade ground on the 29th of May, 2003, when they were sworn in barely fi ve minutes ago. So, at that it was not too early? Is it now that it is too early?(General laughter). Before the 2015 election, Nigerians heard of a possible Lamido-Amaechi ticket. Why happened along the line? I thought you were here when I answered this question. I said by party culture and tradition, out of decency, you cannot pull out your president from offi ce and replace him with someone else. You can do so fair enough but at your own peril because the responsibility to produce the Nigerian president is on Nigerian people.
It’s your right as a political party to fi eld anyone that you want to but the right to make him presiden ‘APC in worst crisis than PDP’ Lamido I have had meeting with the party leaders about two months ago and declared my intention because of the incessant calls that are coming from all quarters. I am not being haughty by saying this; I am saying this with all sense of modesty. And l decided to answer those calls and if the party fi nds me worthy, that will be fi ne by me lies with Nigerians. And it will amount to passing a vote of no confi dence on the president when you pull him out. And in any case, we usually assemble as PDP members at a convention, with the governors and delegates. And normally, the president is the head of the party. Th en we as governors and delegates, will defeat the president who is the head of our party and then replace him with someone else, then after the humiliation and disgrace, Nigerians will henceforth reject him because his party has passed a vote of no confi dence on him. So, he will become demoralized and even security-wise, it is not the right thing to do. You are asking that same person to organize election and for him to possibly hand over to the person that defeated him at the primaries. No angel in this world will do that, not even you.
So, there are some things which are feasible and realistic and there are some things which are not. In 2014 when General Muhammadu Buhari , as an APC chieftain and others came to Dutse, the Jigawa State capital with the intention of recruiting you into the party, you openly told Buhari then that ‘Your Excellency , as a former Head of State, you have contributed so well to the development of this nation, you have a name, you have a history and you are a man of integrity, please do not allow yourself to be turned into an industry.’ Against the backdrop of what is happening now, would you say you have been vindicated? General Buhari is a former Head of State, and a sovereign symbol at that. Of course, he is expected to be partisan, but of course not to a level whereby his sovereign kind of symbolism would be questioned by the partisan politics he is going to play.
Even though he is in APC, but he is also a symbol for me, for you and indeed for all Nigerians. And for this reason, there are certain things we can’t tolerate from him. So, when they came to me, all of them wanted to recruit me into APC. Th ey said so much. Now, I told them that Nigerians are now seeing Tinubu, Buhari, Lamido, Atiku, Fashola, and all of us under one roof talking. And all of you our supporters are out there killing yourselves. So, it means when we are pursuing our narrow interest, we can bury our diff erences, ignore the problems we are causing for our people; brother killing brother, family divided, neighbours fi ghting over PDP, APC.
Beyond that, before they came, before they had formed APC, they said many things evil and dangerous about PDP— the party is the cause of Nigeria’s odium, everything you can think of. Th ey said PDP was pain, Nigeria is doomed under PDP, many printable and unprintable things were said about PDP. So, if they said all of these of PDP that this is what we are, and they set Nigerians up against PDP, why do they want me again? Because I was part of PDP formation; I was part of G-9, I was part of G-18, I was part of G-34, and then PDP, so why do they want me? Unless now they were ready to tell Nigerians that they lied against my party.
I told them that if you say so, I will join you. Why demonise my party, Nigeria’s history? A party which restored Nigeria in 1999 to the path of stability, because there were a number of issues we met on ground in 1999 as a government– the country was about to disintegrate, there was the June 12 crisis. If you drive from here to Lagos, there was fuel scarcity all over Nigeria. Th e fuel that Nigerians got to know was the one which was smelling, there was no power, there was insecurity. People tend to forget so easily. For God sake, we are not saying we are perfect, but with all sense of modesty, we contributed immensely to the making and stability of Nigeria’s democracy. We met quite a huge chunk of problems. Th is was a country where even your former Head of State was serving life jail. Th is was what we met, a totally divided country. So, when you look at all these in terms of our achievements, it is painful to now start telling lies to the younger generations who don’t know this history, all because you wanted power. Before 1999, nobody would come out and say he wanted to aspire to lead Nigeria politically, nobody I repeat. When we were working in G-9, where were they? When we were working in G-34 under Abacha, where were they? To me, it’s about time we are serious as a country because Nigeria is the leader of the black race, whether you like it or not. Every black man looks up to Nigeria for inspiration, restoration and as reference point. If we don’t provide the leadership to the black race, who will? Th e smaller countries? Th is is a country with close to 200 million people. No country in Africa boasts of this fi gure, not even four of them put together. So, historically, culturally and in terms of resources, endowments and Allah’s blessings , human and material, no country in the world is as blessed as Nigeria. Whatever we do, conversely injures others. Out of every fi ve blacks, one is a Nigerian. So, when they came, I said to them, I’m sorry, I can’t join APC. And I said to General Buhari, ‘’sir, you are a Fulani like me, you are my brother, you are also carrying my symbolism up there and also that of every Fulani man.’’ So, I said for him to be seen in a pickup with APC members on demonstration is below the dignity of his esteemed position because he is a former Head of State and not an ordinary person. Others can aff ord to do that, certainly not him. I told Buhari that ‘’Sir, I can’t join the party, but please feel free sir to interact with me when the need arises.’’ And I further said, in whatever we do, there should be some level of circumspection. I told him that what you are doing now may likely come to harm the country in future. And I apologised to them and thanked them for the visit. Even if I want to join APC, my soul will not follow me… Why sir? Because it(my soul) stands on history of politics whose philosophy is, ‘‘if you want to do politics, do the right thing.’’ It is more than being either itinerant , mercantile or nomadic in the pursuit of what I believe in. My action in the way I play politics, how it aff ects history and the way people see me and what I stand for, all these matter to me. I stand for something and if you stand for something you should be able to stand by that thing no matter the suff ering you are going through. How do we reconcile the rot the APC-led government claims to be fi xing and your party’s achievements as you put it? When a governor talks, is it within the political arena or Government House? Th ere should be distinction. Saying PDP is Boko Haram, it is this and that, that is politics and it should be done in political arena. But when you metamorphose into government, you must know you are no more in the political arena. It is now a government for the Nigerian people, you are there for everybody, including even those of us who are evil.
Th ose who are in PDP were labeled as looters , Boko Haram and all the bad things, but we also have rights under this government . It is the capacity to demarcate and understand the distinction between politics and governance that they are lacking. What are your thoughts on quit notice given by some northern youths to Igbos to leave the North by October 1? It is scary, it is sad. How do you ask Nigerians to vacate Nigeria? North, East, South or West, we are all under one Federal Republic of Nigeria. If you say Igbos should quit or leave Nigeria as Nigerians, where then do they go. To go to the ocean? It is sad. Simple. Our leaders, wherever they are, north, south or west, Muslim or Christian, this should give us concern that we are in trouble.
If not properly controlled , by the time the wildfi re , the inferno begins, the cockroaches ,the birds, the lions, the termites, the hyenas , the elephants, will all be consumed. It is part of the failure of the nature of Nigeria that our youths are saying things they should not be saying. Youths of Nigeria should be able to achieve a promising and strong future. So, it’s scary. Various prominent individuals and interest groups have been canvassing for restructuring. The question that is being asked is, what is the standard defi nition of restructuring because the term means diff erent things to diff erent people? Th ese are mere symptoms. We are in a country where citizens’ rights are diminished. How are the rights diminished? May be you live in Sao Tome?
Looking at how you metaphorically built Jigawa from the scratch, how did you achieve this given the paltry allocation from the federal government? What an irony! Good a thing you are educated. What are governments for ?
