2023: Making Nigeria work requires a President with requisite knowledge, experience of operating federal governance – Tambuwal

Governor of Sokoto State, Rt. Hon. Aminu Waziri Tambuwal, was recently on Channels Television’s Politics Today anchored by Seun Okinbaloye monitored in Lagos by The DEFENDER, when, on Tuesday March 22, 2022, he spoke in ways that beacon a hope of a better reconstructed Nigeria. His consistency and strength, carried on for as long as the short but loaded interview lasted, would pass for a mark as the Mutawallen Sokoto said he believes he is the only candidate the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) can trust with its presidential ticket to dethrone the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), no matter who it presents for the 2023 presidential election. Excerpts:

This is the second time you wanted to be President of Nigeria and you wanted the ticket of your party.  The question is, what has changed? Why this time around?

Tambuwal: Well, the first time in 2018, the issues have remained the same till this moment; of insecurity, economy, of the general decay in infrastructure and several and various challenges afflicting our nation.

So they are the same?

Virtually the same and the fault lines have been sharply and widened as far as security of this country is at stake.

And you think that you can fix those problems?

I believe I can.

Because you are talking about strength, talking about mobility; beyond mobility and strength and then youthful in look and all of that, don’t you think the nation deserves more than all that?

This nation deserves more than all that and I have been talking about competence, I have talking about someone with the requisite experience of operating the Federal governance system in Nigeria and someone, who has the knowledge and experience of the complexity of the Nigerian state. And I believe that I possess those qualities.

The big question now is where you come from.  Some of your friends have challenged the sensibility of wanting the presidential candidate of the party to come from the North. And, for example, the governors of the South South met yesterday (Monday) and said the South South is the backbone of the PDP and they want the ticket to go to the South.  The South West leaders had also met in Ibadan and they said the ticket should go to the South. The governors of the South last year in Lagos State all decided unanimously that the slot of the President should go to the South. What’s your view on that?

My view is that the President of Nigeria should be such a person that will be Nigerian President and not a regional President.  The President of Nigeria should come from wherever, provided he has the capacity and the competence to fix the Nigeria of the moment.  Nigeria of 1998 is different from the Nigeria of 2022, 2023 and, as I said before, APC in 2015 deliberately out of strategy sought out President Muhammadu Buhari from Katsina State.

Meanwhile the last of Nigeria from Northern part of Nigeria was Malam Umar Musa Yar’Adua from the same Katsina State, who died in 2010.  Barely five years after, APC out of strategic thinking went to Katsina State and sought out President Muhammadu Buhari because they believe that they can win election with him.

It is now that APC are talking about zoning. When they were looking for presidential power, they didn’t talk about zoning.  They went for someone that they believe can check the boxes of that moment, who can deliver elections.

So, I am appealing to my party we should be talking about how to win election by the PDP not zoning or where the person is coming from.

Chief Bode George said on this programme that you seem to have put the cart before the horse that look, you need to look at the issue of equity and fairness before thinking about election.  Why is winning the election more paramount for you?

If you talk about fairness in PDP, PDP was in government for 16 years, close to 12 years, the Presidency was in the South; President Obasanjo and President Jonathan.  President Umar Yar’Adua had only about two, three years.

In PDP, if you are talking about equity and fairness, if you must zone, then Presidency should come to the North. If you talk about return of democracy in the Fourth Republic, by the time President Muhammadu Buhari would have finished his second term, we would have had democracy for 24 years.  Out of those, 14 years were Presidency from the South, 10 years from the North.  So, where do you place equity and fairness?

Why do you want to make it back-to-back, why not North and go to the South and then to the South? Doesn’t that look lopsided?

Not necessarily.  I am making a point that we want to win election.  We must think of how to win an election and demography is key in winning an election. And, as I said, APC out of strategic thinking went to Katsina where the last President from the North came from because they were planning to win election.

So, what is fundamental for PDP as at today is to win.  After winning, then we can continue to delegate power sharing.

Do you think you can win an election when the ships are down?

Convincingly!

You can defeat the APC no matter who they bring forward?

Roundly! I have that conviction.

How do you speak to your brother, Atiku Abubakar?

He is my uncle, not my brother. I have a lot of respect for him.

What have you agreed with Bukola Saraki and Governor Muhammed?

It’s work in progress, we are talking to ourselves and we shall approach Atiku Abubakar, himself, and other aspirants in PDP to see how best we can all come together, stabilize our party, reduce the tension in our party and the polity and, in do our best we can.  We can, if possible, work on consensus.  It has worked for us and that was how we brought, for the first time, Dr. Iyorchia Ayu to be Chairman of PDP.  So, it is not new to the PDP, especially at this time.

What would you be telling Atiku Abubark?

How do you mean?

Are you able to tell him to his face that he should step down for you?

Not yet.

But are you able to tell him as your uncle?

I said not yet.

No, I’m asking if you will be able to confront him face-to-face that he should….?

(Cuts in) We would put the arguments across.

Do you think you are a better candidate than himself?

I’m not saying that I’m better but all I know is that I possess all the qualities, particularly when you are talking about Nigeria of today that can deliver the votes for PDP.

People would ask you a question, they say that charity begins at home and that if you want to be Nigerian President, what have you done for the people of Sokoto State; what legacy would you say you have left; this is your sixth year at the helm of affairs in Sokoto State?

Well, if you know Sokoto of 2015 and you go to Sokoto today, you will see the difference in terms of infrastructure…, in terms of policies that were put in place that have made Sokoto to be number one by the assessment of World Bank processed and we are ranked by the Federal Ministry of Finance in state tax, transparency and accountability, Sokoto is now second best in terms of Ease of Doing Business.

And we have done a lot of the education sector; we have reduced significantly number of out-of-school children.  We have reduced the negative health indices of the state; maternal mortality in the state.  We have built hospitals.  We currently have a number of projects in healthcare, in education, in water and general rural transformation of the state.

The facts are there. It’s very clear that Sokoto State under my watch has improved tremendously.

So, you can boldly say that anybody who wants to check you, should check you out in Sokoto State?

Very well!

And you take that template to the national level?

Very well!

There are those who accuse you of not running a balanced committees when you were at the House of Representatives…?

(Cuts in) Before I answer that, I read online a medium, someone said that I said South South cannot produce the President of Nigeria.

Did you say that?

I didn’t say that.

What did you say?

Rather, in 2011 I supported a Presidential candidate of South South extractions, Goodluck Ebele Jonathan to win the presidency of Nigeria.  I have many friends in the South South of Nigeria, who are competent  and who qualified to lead Nigeria. I didn’t say that.  What I said has nothing to do with that.  I didn’t say that.

So, back to the question of balancing committees in the House of Reps, we ran a very transparent all-inclusive House of Representatives of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.  The facts are there in the Seventh House of Reps.

When you talk about balancing committees, for the first time Committee on upstream was in the South West, Committees on Health and Appropriation were in the South South, Committees on Works, Aviation, Foreign Affairs were in South East, Committee on Water Resources was in the North Central, Committees on Agriculture and Police were in the North East, Committees on Education and Defence were in the North West.

Even, a new Committee we created on Diaspora was in the South West and we gave it to Abike Dabiri and it was from there that she got active and she became a very good ambassador of the House of Representatives and of that committee.

Those people take a lesson from there that you were somewhat working against your party, you were the Speaker of the PDP…?

(Cuts in) I was Speaker of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.

But you were sponsored by the party?

Of course, I believe so.

And those who are accusing you are saying that you worked against your party

Tell me any of the bills that President Jonathan sent that failed in the House of Reps; one bill.

Politically you were allying with other party?

Politically I was available to engage and have a consensus and chart a way forward for Nigeria because the House of Reps is not a PDP House.  It’s House of Representatives of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.

You are very firm and very strong on your stand of opponent of zoning saying you don’t want the party to box itself.  What is the danger if your party goes against your stand?

Well, it’s a trial. I am maintaining my position.  I do not say there is any danger but I am saying, as a politician and from indices, my part stands to have a better opportunity as at today, because time is running out of my party to make a position on zoning, especially forms are being picked and issues are being joined on the presidency of this country.

Are you telling your party tonight that Aminu Waziri Tambuwal is the man?

Very well, and not only my party but Nigerians.

I have two great questions for you and I just have about 60 seconds to close this programme, the first being that the APC said there are plans by the PDP to destabilize this country and the DSS had also come out that in some parts of the country in the North, there are plans by leaders of the opposition and some influential leaders to destabilize this country.  How do you react to it?

I am not aware of that. I don’t know the source of their information.  It’s up to them to justify what they have said or to establish their case against those individuals.

On a final note is of the issue of security.  Your state is embattled by this issue of security.  What solution comes to mind for you that can permanently fix the issue of banditry and insecurity in Nigeria?

First, addressing those issues that gave rise to it, issues of education, educating the public, getting the youths educated, employed and, of course, deployment of more personnel and technology.

If you should be the President today, Governor Tambuwal, how long will it take you to fix the insecurity problems?

I can’t say how long.

But how would you fix the problems?

I have an idea of what to do.  We must take it to the community level. We must go and address the issue of State Police and get security closer to the people.

So you will go to the National Assembly with a bill on the State Police.  Is that what you mean?

If it means me, Aminu Waziri Tambuwal, as President of Nigeria taking the bill personally to President of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Reps, I will do so because, I believe it’s one of the interventions that we need as a matter of urgency to nip the issues of security challenges in the bud.