Kano State Governor, Engr. Rabi’u Musa Kwankwaso, in this interview with journalists at Kano Government House raised the alarm over plans by President Goodluck Jonathan to use a new Constitution to give himself another six-year term after 2015. He also insisted that the All Progressives Congress, APC, will take over power at the centre in 2015. MADUABUCHI NMERIBEH was there.

What is your view on the latest rumble in the National Conference over the endorsement of a new constitution?

In my last chat with you, when I mentioned the issue of a new constitution and the Confab, many people thought it was a joke; but it is a very bitter reality. Today (last Wednesday), immediately after the [Federal Executive] Council meeting, I received so many calls from northern delegates attending the National Conference in Abuja that the issue of a new 2014 Constitution is now a reality in the Confab. Of course, all the people who love this country and really understand the situation we have found ourselves today realise the likely consequences of another brand new constitution which the Villa wants to use, beginning from 2015. Certainly, it is a very dangerous development.

Let me use this opportunity to thank all those who have rejected the issue of a new constitution. This is also an opportunity to thank the National Assembly, because they were the ones that were made aware of an earlier plan and effort by those at the Villa to have one single term of six years beginning from 2015, which they rejected. Now, in another way of achieving this aim, they are smuggling it into the Confab. I believe that the delegates, whether from the North or from the South, whether they are Christians or Muslims, Igbo, Yoruba, Hausa or any other tribe, should help in rejecting that constitution. This is because it will not help this country. It will not help the orphans and it will not help anybody in this country. That is why we told our delegates very clearly that they owed the rejection of the new constitution as a duty to this country. We have seen some of the things contained in the new constitution. The issue of six-year single term has already resurfaced after it was kicked out like polio and Ebola by the National Assembly. There are also issues of 50 per cent derivation, the scrapping of 774 Local Governments, the listing of additional 18 states, and limiting of Ministers to 18. The only good thing that I saw here is the limiting of Ministers to 18.

We only hope that those who are pretending to be representing us there in Abuja will have no place when they come back or remain there in Abuja. We will send them to the Almajiri schools that are being built by Jonathan. And I believe that all of us should join hands to save this country. It is difficult to know their thinking in Abuja; I think they are too many and too high in the air. They don’t know what is happening on ground. The story of the higher it goes, the cooler it becomes seems to apply to the situation in Abuja today. There are those that are very high high up there, in a very cool atmosphere, while the masses, majority of the people of this country, remain poverty-stricken.

Illiteracy is killing this part of the country and, of course, there is the issue of insecurity. Every day, people are being killed and maimed, while properties are being destroyed. As we sit here, displaced Nigerians in Borno are now taking refuge in the forests. Many of them are in Cameroon, some in Chad, while thousands are in Niger Republic. What we are talking about here now is the extent of Jonathan’s tenure or life presidency! It is very sad that this thing is happening now and I am one of those that have travelled across the world with the opportunity of having read a lot. I know Nigeria’s history and geography.

I am aware of the political situation across the world. If 10 per cent of what is happening today in Nigeria happens anywhere else, that leadership cannot stand; and it is very dangerous for all of us. We are very happy here with what we are doing for the people of the state, but we are quite angry because we can read the minds of our people who are not happy with what the Villa is doing. We have never seen anything like this from this part of the country. and they seem not to care; they seem not to understand. They are very busy in the air, working for themselves and helping themselves to steal forever.

I always remind people that when it happened in the North-East, little did many people know that one day, it would come to this part of the country. We have it here; it is also in the North-Central, and now it is crossing over to the South. I am sure that you are aware that some parts of this country now have flags other than green-white-green. This is terribly ugly and unprecedented. It is up to us to appeal to our delegates and Nigerians to resist the temptation of the so-called dollars people are distributing in Abuja. It is time to come come together and save this country. Any constitution rather than the 1999 Constitution should be rejected because anything less than that is an instrument designed by those who think it will help them; but it will not.

As a major player in the opposition, what steps are you likely to take to ensure that this new constitution does not see the light of day?

One of the steps is what we are doing here. We want to make our position very clear to them and the entire world, especially, our friends across the world. We believe what is happening now is very dangerous not only in Nigeria, but for our neighbours. And I believe the consequences will cut across the continent. That is why I thought I should use this opportunity to appeal to all Nigerians to shun the division tendency that we are seeing from Abuja. The division of North and South, the division of Christians and Muslims, the division on the issue of tribe, division everywhere. That is the keyword. The keyword now is divide-and-rule, and I don’t think that will help. And the information I have, which is not correct, is that many people are saying those who are not supporting the new constitution are the minority and that, whether they like it or not, tomorrow, they will push it to Nigerians. Then the next thing is to start a kangaroo referendum. They will cook the figures, like they did in Ekiti, and force themselves on us. I don’t think that is good enough. I appreciate the elasticity of Nigerians, but I think that elasticity has a limit. When you keep on pulling and pulling, there will come a time when it will no longer be possible to do so. That is why I think the good people of this country should speak because some of the consequences, as many people are now seeing, will affect everybody.

Your party, the APC, just won the Osun governorship election. What do you think your victory is signaling ahead of the 2015 general elections?

Well, my party has been elected. My opinion and the opinion of my party is that we won the Ekiti governorship election. And I think that is why the party is in court. The experience that we had in Ekiti worked for us in Osun because people came out en mass and defended their votes, and that is exactly what is going to happen in 2015.

People will vote, and stand to defend their votes. Let me thank the social media, those who have cooperated with us and those who have supported us as a party and made it very difficult for anybody to change the real figures. If they had done so in Ekiti, I am sure they wouldn’t have had the chance to rig us out. But to us, the Ekiti experience is a lesson; and also that of Osun. We have learnt from our mistakes. INEC is improving and I hope the security agencies will also improve. We always tell them that instead of militarising Ekiti and Osun with plenty of security agents, they should go to southern Borno and do their job there so that we can have free and fair elections and also on the other hand, have a peaceful country. We are happy that the people of Osun and Ekiti came out en mass to vote for APC. And I am sure, given an opportunity again, especially in Adamawa where they want to use the executive power from Abuja to force Nyako out of office because of his opinion, that when the election comes, people will come out en mass and support APC, so that we can have a peaceful North-East, free from what we are seeing now as emergency in the state. We hope this will also apply to other states in the North-East, so that people can continue their normal businesses, with people coming down from the rocks, hills and forests to go to their towns and villages.

In that part of the country nobody is talking about education. Nobody is talking about agriculture, nobody is talking about business; people are talking about survival—what to eat and how to see tomorrow. These are the things that, by the grace of God, APC will provide in 2015.

From what is happening, there are indications that 2015 may be violent. What are your prayers?

Our prayers are not only about 2015. We are also praying for this President to take the ship to the shores of 2015. I think we are more concerned about that because of the way things are going now, with people dying and being kicked out of their homes. I believe it is not the best; and I believe that Nigerians are being taken for granted. We hope that 2015 is going to be peaceful and we will do everything possible to ensure that it is peaceful from our own end because we believe that everybody wants a united Nigeria where an Igbo man will continue to stay in Kano. You know, here in Kano we have what we call New Enugu. If you go close to the airport, you will see a whole area that we call New Enugu. It is looking like any part of Abuja. We are very happy that we have them here; and we hope one day, we will have New Kano in Enugu, New Kano in Port Harcourt, New Sokoto in Adamawa, and so on and so forth. Here we are working to integrate our people, here we are together as Muslims and Christians, Hausa, Igbo, Yoruba—we are one and the same. We are all Nigerians. That is what we want in this country and that is the best way we can have peace. Otherwise, by the time every party, like they are doing, begins to divide, I don’t think that it will be good. During democracy, all this tendencies tend to go down, while unity of people based on political parties will come up. That is why I preach that we all should see ourselves as brothers irrespective of our religion or where we come from.

There are speculations that former chairman of EFCC, Nuhu Ribadu is about defecting to the PDP. Can you confirm this ,and if true what is your party doing to stop him?

Well, I have heard the rumour and we read it in newspapers and watched it on the television. And I don’t want to believe it is is true. What I want to say is that, if that becomes a reality, it will indeed be a big disappointment for Nigerians. People ordinarily think that my brother, Nuhu Ribadu, is a principled person; somebody with good ideology, somebody who is progressive and who is always working towards the unity of this country. Above all, I remember during his days as the chairman of EFCC, he did so much to deal with corruption. As we are moving deep into democracy, water is taking its level, people are moving in and out of parties, meaning that people with similar ideology are coming together, unlike in 1998/99 when we were forming parties to deal with the military and install democracy. People from all ideological tendencies came together.

Now that we have gone deep into democracy, we are looking over our shoulders to see who is close and who is on the other side. And that was why some of us left the PDP to join our brothers and sisters who have the same ideology with us, to bring about the desired change in this country. Now, for him who was, in my opinion, in the right place and together with the progressives, if he should just leave because he is looking for a position or looking for a ticket to contest election, I don’t think that is good for him. And I don’t think it is also good for the country. At the end of the day, if that happens, God forbid, he will be the biggest loser. He will lose because he joined a group of people that were mostly jailed by him. I don’t think they will ever want to see him there. But in politics, there is this accommodation of people that they will bring you close, raise you up and dump you. At the end of the day, they will laugh at you and say, Look at him now.

If Ribadu is joining PDP, whether he wins election or not, he will be the biggest loser. People can’t believe that all what we said about him was completely wrong. The biggest punishment for a politician is for him to be in a wrong place; because if he goes there, by the time they are talking about how to share $20 billion, I don’t think he will be happy if he is the kind of person I used to know, unless he was just deceiving all of us. I don’t think Nuhu Ribadu will make that mistake because if he does, it will be the biggest political mistake of his life.
Somebody like Fani-Kayode is gone from APC, now it is Nuhu Ribadu. What have you done to stop Ribadu and does it not worry you that people considered to be highly placed in the APC are defecting at this time?

Well, it doesn’t worry me at all. It is something that we should expect. I wasn’t in APC. I left PDP because I realised it was not a place that I should be. That was why I moved. And of course those who were in ACN, CPC, ANPP and APGA who are now in APC, they would have moved. Do not forget we are dealing with a government that has accumulated so much money, to the extent that they attach a price tag on everybody. I believe that not everybody will be on this side and stay long, including your humble self. And maybe they don’t know you, otherwise, when they start dangling some dollars, you begin to wonder whether to stay or go.

But that is not the issue. The issue, I believe, is the people. Some of us are lucky in the sense that we have so many people behind us. So, we are so heavy that it is not an issue for us to be flying from one pole to another. And once we decide to do it, we do all the arithmetic, we do all the calculations that are necessary so that we can go with almost 100 per cent, and that is what we have done here in Kano. There is a limitation. But for those who align with it, it is very simple because they believe that their wives and children are behind them. It is very easy for them to change position. You see, in politics you don’t sit down and start looking around and be chasing luck, asking where you can get it. You need to create it, stay where you are and work hard. You don’t have to win elections all the time. I contested election 12 times (including primary and secondary elections), and I lost one—that is the general election of 2003. It was a big lesson for me. I learnt so much. I was humbled and I am very proud of that particular election—one out of 12. I believe any politician who has never won an election or lost one can be termed a complete politician. You need to win, just as you need to lose an election. The experience will teach you how to manage success, and also how to manage failure. That is the position under which I believe that we will continue to work together as progressives so as to make this country better for all of us.

What is the APC doing to ward off political jibes from the ruling party via impeachment of its governors using the state Houses of Assembly?

It is unfortunate that so many mistakes are being made by the leadership of our party in Adamawa State. They got it very easy there. And that is why they wanted to replicate the same thing using security agencies, using money, using all sorts of things such as intimidation and blackmail. I am happy that it failed in Nassarawa State; and I want to congratulate the young men and women who have decided to chase away the state Assembly members. I am very happy that they chased them out and I hope they chased them far to where they belong—that is the Villa. That is good for them because I don’t believe that they have the state in mind, and I don’t believe that they have the interest of the country in mind. What they want is what they saw in Adamawa. Now, if you have to amend the Constitution of Nigeria, I think the people should check this area, of the state Assembly impeaching governors for themselves. A Speaker on his own is sacking a governor who was elected by over 20 local government areas, giving to himself the position despite being elected by only one local government area!

I think these are the things that should be changed in the constitution at the appropriate time. These are weaknesses that Abuja is exploiting. I hope this does not work anywhere because people are beginning to call the man (President Jonathan) Mr. Impeacher, and that is not a good name for somebody at that level. There are many other issues in addition to that. Look at what is happening in Edo and Rivers states. As long as you are an APC Governor, you stand the risk of being attacked by the EFCC, security and agents, just because you are not in PDP. But no matter how big a crook is in PDP, he is being sheltered, he is being protected. Everybody is behind him. He is getting the clap that he should continue, that he is doing well. And that is why many people, especially those with such tendencies, prefer being under the party for protection.