In this interview, Malam Salihu Lukman , former Director General of the Progressives Governors Forum (PGF), explains why how will not stop speaking on matters that affect the party and governance in Nigeria.
Are you not afraid of expulsion from the All Progressives Congress (APC) if you maintain your critical stance against President Bola Tinubu and other leaders of the party?
Recently, I have been telling my personal stories. I started facing disciplinary committee from my ‘A’ level. And at every stage, I faced disciplinary committee, I go there with open mind, I can win, I can be thrown out. But the good thing is that I wasn’t doing anything selfishly and God sees my heart. Sometimes protection comes from unexpected quarters. When I was in school, some of my teachers when they heard I am going to face disciplinary committee and that there are people determined to expel me, they will come just to see that I scale through.
This is my message to everybody: have the best of intentions, don’t set out to mean bad for anybody. I think that is my own protection. In the cases of Comrade Adams Oshiomhole, Mai Mala Buni, Abdullahi Adamu, I didn’t set out to say they must leave the leadership of the party, no. My task was to draw the attention to where the problem lies and this is the recommendation. When they don’t listen to me, we continue with the advocacy.
For me, the first problem in life is fear and you must conquer it. So, if I am expelled from the party today what do I lose. When I was in PGF, I told some governors that I am first a citizen of Nigeria before being a party member, before being at that time DG PGF. You can sack me as DG I will remain a party member. If you so wish, you can expel me as a party member, I would still be a citizen of Nigeria. In all of these things, you can expel me from anything if you like, but you can’t expel me from being citizen of Nigeria. And in Nigeria, nobody can trace up to last five, six generations in the lineage where I come from to say one of the generation is from outside Nigeria. So, I think we should get it right, once you conquer fear, you don’t have any problem.
Why did you resign your position as the national vice chairman North West of the APC when it would have been better to remain within the cycle to right the wrongs in the party?
It was very clear to me that there are forces within the party that are not happy with my role of getting rid of Abdullahi Adamu. All the advocacy I have done… I could see the personal danger. When I say personal danger not threat to my life, but threat to my political career. I am not someone who enjoys a good relationship with many party leaders.
With respect to my resignation from PGF, there were clear divisions. My role was creating divisions among governors and it was safer for me to resign so the governors could be united.
Now, talking about APC, I could see that it was not a question of division. I could see that there were people who were determined to get rid of me from the party leadership and I couldn’t just take the risk, because if I allow them and they succeed, I am damaged. Anything I say thereafter, people will say it is because I am angry that I have been thrown out.
So, how has life being since you left the party NWC. Do you have peace of mind now?
Honestly, at the beginning it was quite challenging because it is not something I prepared for. And I tell those who are close to me, it was only after I sent the resignation letter that I even went to check my bank balances. And of course, I am as poor as a Church rat; I don’t keep money, I don’t save, I don’t believe in saving. The only way I save is to invest. And luckily, I have a farm; my poultry will start producing eggs next January. But I would rather do what is right than stay there and be going round begging people. I tried to do that. I don’t have much, but I won’t sit down there and lie.
When the criticisms were going on, some people felt that you were being sponsored by then Governor El-Rufai because of your closeness. Was there anything like that?
If anything, I was among the first to challenge Mallam el-Rufai when he went to Kaduna to say he was going to run for governorship. I don’t want to go into the details why I challenged him. I didn’t challenge him because I am ambitious. I challenged him because I disagreed with him. I disagreed with the way he was organising his politics. To his credit, we have a good relationship; he is always able to manage all our disagreements. He didn’t translate it into personal hatred or whatever.
Many people know a lot of these things but they have chosen to be in denial. The reality is that I am close to el-Rufai. And when I left APC leadership, being the one that nominated me into the leadership, people will expect that I will consult him before taking the decision to resign, but I didn’t consult him. And since I resigned, till today, we have not spoken about it.
Of course I share with him some of the things I write, even the invitation to the book launch…I only sent it to him. So, I think it is unfair to el-Rufai for people to say he is the one sponsoring me.
You talked about the fear of rebellion. Is it within the party or among Nigerians?
It is among Nigerians. When you go to the market, you know what you face. Cost of living has dramatically shot up in the last six months and there is no indication it is going to come down any time soon. Today, the basic problem with many people is food to eat in our homes. If that is not addressed, one day you will be walking on the street and if they see you looking neat, you will become the enemy; you will be attacked. That’s the challenge.
So, when I am talking about rebellion, I am not talking of party members who want privileges of appointments in government or contesting elections. No. I am talking of citizens who are having difficulty surviving because they cannot feed.
You don’t see anything good in anybody, virtually all the leaders of the party, the chairmen, including even the incumbent president. You keep finding fault with them, why?
I think is quite unfair to say I don’t say anything good and I take you back. I keep making the point of how close I am to Comrade Adams Oshiomhole. When he was going to declare for the national chairmanship, I was one of those that wrote his declaration speech. If I didn’t see anything good in him, I wouldn’t have supported him in the first place.
And talking about seeing good in a person, for me, if I like somebody, it does not mean I should keep quiet when the person is doing wrong. When leaders are going wrong, it is society that is at the receiving end of the their inability to do the right thing. In that situation, I will come out and say it. That is why my background is activism.
After Adams’ leadership was removed, you were all witnesses to what happened during Mai Mala Buni’s leadership when they decided that they want to start manipulating whether to have convention or not to have convention.
In the case of Asiwaju, God knows, yes I was shocked when after the removal of Abdullahi Adamu, the name of Dr Ganduje came up. And I didn’t believe President Tinubu made the right decision. If you look at our Constitution, the first preference is that the state that produced the member of the National Working Committee have the benefit of nominating the replacement. So, based on that, I thought Nasarawa State should have been given that honour and we are lucky to have somebody like Tanko Al-Makura who is first of all a founding member of the party and by our own reading of the situation, that he was practically sanctioned because of his closeness to Asiwaju. One of the reasons why he was not considered to emerge as national chairman and Abdullahi Adamu was chosen is his closeness to Asiwaju.
So, I thought now that Asiwaju is President, he should have been chosen seamlessly. This is the point, as at today like in the statement I issued a week ago, it is so painful and irritating, the whole North-central in the politics of the country is marginalised under the leadership of Asiwaju. If we keep quiet, we are not helping Asiwaju. I want him to succeed in every respect. I want a situation where long after his tenure, he will be remembered as one of the best presidents Nigeria produced. We are not going to support him by just patting him on the back when he does the wrong things. I am hoping one of these days he will correct a number of some of these things.
To be best of my knowledge, I am not always against leaders and if I am against leaders, why am I still in the party? I am still in the party and go and ask a lot of our leaders from the time of Buhari up to now, none of them have seen my CV. I have not gone out looking for appointment or anything. All the appointments from PGF to even the party, I was invited I didn’t present myself. I am not going to see the president to lobby for appointment. Not that I don’t like it, but that is not my priority.
The position where this country is now needs a lot of selflessness. We are a generation that got almost the best out of this country. Our children are at the receiving end of poor leadership. So I won’t lie to you, sometimes I am fired by high level of anger about what we have today. So I won’t lie if anybody is deceiving himself that what we have is okay because we are relatively comfortable, the person is deceiving himself.
What do you think Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu can do to satisfy the curiosity, expectations?
Look, first my believe before now was that immediately Asiwaju comes in, there will be a remarkable distinction between the way government and party was run under Buhari and the way it will be run under him. My expectation was that organs of the party will be active and through meetings of organs of the party, Asiwaju will benefit from a lot of advice through the organs and leaders of the party will be able to assess him very structurally, which was what we lacked under Buhari. And there will be a lot of national debate about what needs to be done to correct all the problems the country is facing; whether with respect to the whole debate about restructuring or even about management of the economy and how to open up opportunities for citizens.
I expect that there should be a lot of excitement because that is what democracy is expected to produce on basis of which citizens will have that sense of pride, sense of belonging that we are part of this country called Nigeria. And when we say things, although we don’t meet the president, there are channels through which I can say my view whether the way I express it or the way somebody expresses it is being reflected in the decision they make. That’s the value of democracy.
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