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| Gov Lamido |
An interview with journalists in Dutse, the Jigawa State
capital, where the state Governor Sule Lamido, spoke on issues bordering on
2015 elections, his rumoured presidential ambition; the various crises
in the Peoples Democratic Party and the Nigeria Governors Forum as well
as on the All Progressives Congress, amongst others.
Your administration is obviously not doing badly. But how have you survived this far with your meager resources?
Are you saying Nigeria is poor? Do you think Nigeria is poor? If the
nation is poor is the country poor? The nation is the people. People
like you and I; do we appear poor? Ask yourself. Why are you like this
while others are like they are? The country is well endowed. The country
is very rich but the nation is poor. It is as simple as that. Is the
poverty in our faces? Aren't we Nigerians? You see, Nigerian poverty
should be a common feature but are we poor? Do we appear poor?
Are you suggesting that the Nigerian problem is that of leadership?
Whatever, you should know because it is you and I; all of us. Because
when you say leadership, it is the people willing to be led. Three
things which define a state are missing: Nigerians don't believe in law
and order, which means we do not believe in due process. The way you
drive, the way you beat the traffic, the way you attempt to maneuver
past others. They are also Nigerians like you going to the same
destination but then you are in a hurry and then you drive on the
pavement ignoring the feeling of other people. They are also like you.
They are also in a hurry.
In the ports, in the customs, in government houses, presidency, even in
the bank today where Okada man, taxi driver or vulcanizer somewhere in
Ibadan or somewhere in Sokoto who left his own family at home to eke out
a living because the government is not there for him. He would save his
own money. And he has got a wife. May be a father or mother, but the
money he makes, he goes to a bank to lodge it and he would never want
his father to know how much he lodged in the bank, nor his wife, mother
or child. Then by the time he stays about three years trying to buy
either a new vehicle or machine, send his son to the university or
whatever and he goes to the bank and they say the money is missing.
There is no money! Is that not so in Nigeria? It is not a government
house. Where is the money? It’s gone. Gone to where? We don't know. That
is Nigeria for you.
This means we do not know what is called law, order and procedure.
Number two, it is a country of people who are not patriotic. Nobody
wants to make sacrifice for this country. You are looking to take out of
it. You keep on taking out of it. So we are not patriotic.
Number three, we are terribly inpatient. You put in a government today
and tomorrow you want result and yet you are not law abiding. You will
be looking for an advantage to exploit. For a Nigerian to get what he
wants, he can deploy anything. These form the character of a nation. We
must make sure all of us submit ourselves to the law of the land.
This is a country where people in the National Assembly who will make
laws for you are on bail. It’s a party where somebody who has gone to
jail would come out of jail and say he is still a member of the party.
Isn't it? That is Nigeria for you. It is a country where people who have
taken money through subsidy can take the money out and nobody can
question them. This is where the issue is.
So, in spite of these limitations, how did you comeby your developmental strides?
I'm being very honest, I feel very sad that we have lost the basics.
The role of a person in office is to perform the functions of that
office. Because of distortions and aberrations we have literarily
submitted that we are hopeless. That is my pain. Why should you be
surprised? What is there that any other country can do that we cannot do
in Nigeria? It is people; I mean in any human endeavour. In the
sciences, Nigerians can compete with anybody in the world; with any
professor, anywhere. The Nigerian is a very hard-working person. We as
people are very industrious. How can we continue to evoke this kind of
emotion in seeing something being done right, must we do the wrong thing
as a people?
Now that there is some kind of clamour for leadership change, would you put yourself forward?
This country is applying democracy with idiosyncrasies and our own
peculiarities. That it is not the turn of the person yet. It is the
Nigerian chemistry you have to look into, which has been hijacked by
people who manipulate it with differences. Today, if you go to somebody
in the South-south, he would say 'my son is there, he must be!' It would
not matter whether that man is killing him. So, first and foremost, the
Nigerian chemistry, is it thoroughly healed? The elites, are they
honest enough? Are the people courageous enough to do the right thing?
If you fall into our own compartment like South-south, South-east, Ibo,
Yoruba, Hausa, Fulani; when before election somebody was saying our son
must serve a second term and second tern comes after election. It is
when you win election.
But Edwin Clark would say our son must have a second term. If he said
he must get the PDP ticket, you can say so but second term is a factor
of election. When you say he is our son, he must have it, what you are
saying is a factor of election. If you are saying his party must give
him the ticket it is okay. They can say so. But it doesn't mean he is
going to win the election. But when you say he must win the election,
then, what are you talking about?
Why then is democracy? And this old man...in 2011, the name Edwin Clark
was not part of PDP vocabulary. And then look at it today, it has
become the main vocabulary. And what is the qualification? Emotion and
sentiments! And Nigeria made him to grow till 86 and secure; is he
giving Nigerians the same hope for them to be 80? Those who are ten and
twenty now, by his pronouncements? Is he giving them hope to be what he
is to Nigeria, because Nigeria made him and dignified him? He was a
minister.
Would you have preferred that Nigerians ignore him?
No. You see, there are some people who have acquired a kind of status-
statesman. They should be circumspect in whatever they say. There are
some things they should not say.
You seem disappointed in him?
Absolutely! Because it is about politics and about PDP and he (Clark)
had no input in making the president. He met Jonathan as a finished
product, not as a raw material. That was why I said Edwin Clark was
never part of the PDP vocabulary in 2011. Was he? Absolutely not!
Beyond sentiments, anyway, it should be part of sentiment, because of
your proximity to the man in power, you now begin to carry his fights
and wars and all that- ethnicity kind of it, is it part of the problem?
There is something called sobering character- something which
encapsulates what you call the Nigerian mission; the Nigerian interest,
the Nigerian collective interest, which will unify us and then define us
so that we hold it very dear; we would cherish it. We can defend it
with our lives.
With the likes of Clark and Asari Dokubo, who have taken up the Jonathan fight, what are your fears for Nigeria?
It is just like Bola Ige of blessed memory and others in Afenifere and
NADECO. When we talk about June 12, they were not anywhere near it on
June 11. That is my worry- that people don't reckon with history- people
who take advantage of a national effort and kind of appropriate it.
Where were they on June 11? It is the same thing we are going through!
Asari Dokubo and Clark, where were they in 2010? Where were they when
PDP held their primaries? They were not there. So you must not diminish
Nigeria.
It is true that a Nigerian president must come from a tribe, a village
and a zone but by the time you get there, you are absolutely a Nigerian.
That is why in 1999, in trying to heal the wounds of June 11, we said
fair enough, let us locate the presidency in the South-west. Truly, it
is not the preserve of northerners only but then, in taking it to the
South-west; we are looking for Yoruba Nigerian President and we decided
on former President Olusegun Obasanjo. We were looking for Yoruba
Nigerian president and not just because of the agenda of the Yoruba. And
that was why we picked Obasanjo and the Yorubas didn't want him. So,
what I’m saying is that today, coming to your question, it is not about
my aspiration, but are we cured? Are the emotions gone; the sentiments,
are they all gone? Are they ready to melt into what you call a genuine
effort to be able to restore Nigeria as the leader of Africa, leader of
the black race?
So, my aspiration, to me, is not a big deal. As far as I'm concerned,
by my upbringing, there are some ideals I cherish and once they are
being followed by anybody there is no problem. The entire thing is not
about personal ambition, it is about working for the larger picture- how
to address the Nigerian problems; the poverty, under-development,
nepotism and all these kind of things. We are working around something,
to bring some changes fundamentally, so that the Nigerian person, for
once, will learn to know what is called dignity.
For once, he knows there is honour around him. When poverty has taken
away your pride, you don’t feel honourable anymore because you are
diminished; you are debased. To me, if the person in place is doing the
right thing, I have no problem. Let him remain there forever. Now it is
left to us to sort out what we want. Emotions, sentiments, appropriation
of power and of course, we will remain where we are. The richer will be
getting richer while the poor will be getting poorer.
The aftermath of the NGF election has painted a different picture of
the governors and it is that of disappointment. Aren’t you disappointed
too?
You see, despite what you have said, you are also dealing with human
institutions which cannot claim perfection. The NGF is an informal
forum; you don’t have to belong to it. It is just for our own
convenience and issues we discuss are just purely economic and security,
that is all. We don’t discuss politics at that place. Really, the NGF
is not a very big issue that you should be worried about. It is nothing
for God's sake. But in Nigeria, everything is for entertainment.
But isn’t it about 2015 like some of your colleagues have said?
Sometimes, while the mind can leap out and begin to invite
imaginations, I as a person, Sule Lamido, I'm a Muslim and there is
something called destiny in my religion, which is God's template where
before the beginning of the beginning to the end of the end with
millions of billions of years, everything has been put in that template
and by the time the time comes then it becomes what it is. Now, who has
that guarantee that he is going to live till 2015? Why are we wasting
our energy and steam over it?
.
The APC publicity secretary recently said some governors would soon defect to the party by mid-July, is that true?
I’m highly amused. Do you know what they call self-wish? These are
local propaganda which is terribly elementary. When you look at the
party called PDP, I’ve been saying it since 1999- 14 years in 2013- it
is PDP only that has remained. AD had gone from AD into AC, into ACN,
into something else and now going to APC. APP had gone into ANPP and
then, later on they are going to something. They are going to APC. Now,
CPC is a one-man party. It is not so lost out on us of some parties that
see Buhari as their industry. So they hang unto him and because he is
very naïve, he thinks they are serious.
Do you think Buhari is naïve?
Absolutely! He is politically naïve. Yes, he is politically naïve. Absolutely!
Can you be more explicit sir?
I would say he should be walking with his eyes wide open because those
around him in 1999 were somewhere else. Were they with him? Our people
will say if you see a horse fully dressed walking alone in the forest,
it must have thrown the owner off. Don't ride it because it threw
somebody away. I have been wondering; they abused the PDP that we are
murderers, party of riggers, a party of whatever - it is evil. Fine! Why
do they want murderer governors in their midst? Why do they want us to
be there? Number two, this so called APC is again what you call
political fraud because you may change the nomenclature - change it ten
times over, did the people come from heaven? They are the same old
people. You see, to me, I laugh at it more because the entire
contraption is a creation of pain and anger. It is not about Nigeria.
They are people who failed to make it in their political parties who
think by coming together they can make it.
If you input one PDP governor in APC, they will collapse, it will
collapse. You don't simply say because of some misunderstanding and
destroy yourself. The PDP has attained a level in Nigeria. Renegade
governors, yes, whatever they call us. Today who is there in PDP who is
older than me in the party that I should leave the party for him? Who is
that person? So, there is no way you will say because there is heat
wave in your house, you leave your house. Where would you go? To someone
else's house? I laugh when they say that because who will change and go
to them; to do what?
