The Chairman, House of Representatives Committee on the Army, who represents the Jada/Ganye/Mayo Belwa/Toungo Federal Constituency in Adamawa State, Abdulrazak Namdas, speaks about insecurity in the country, the All Progressives Congress and his governorship ambition in this interview with LEKE BAIYEWU
You want to be the governor of Adamawa State. How far have you gone with the process?
I have done my part. I have declared my intention to contest and I have spoken to the stakeholders and discussed with the delegates. I have been campaigning. I am the only aspirant who has gone round to visit delegates twice or thrice in the state. So, as far as the campaign is concerned, and as far as preparations are concerned, I have done my part. We are waiting for the D-Day (governorship primary). I think I have done my own part actually.
Governors wield enormous influence in winning the second term or determining who succeeds them. How does that affect your chances in Adamawa State, where Governor Umaru Fintiri is not of the APC but of the Peoples Democratic Party?
Fortunately for me in my state, I am in the opposition party. The governor is in the PDP, so he cannot anoint me. He is rather going to wait and face me (at the election) by the grace of God if I get the ticket (of the APC). So, the only thing in our party is for us to put our heads together; for the officials of the party at the national and state levels to give us a level playing field so that we can contest (at the primary) and whoever emerges as the winner at the end of the day, we will support him; and if I am the one, which is my expectation, they will support me, so that we can defeat the PDP and the APC will reclaim the mandate of the state.
It is widely believed that you are close to former Vice-President Atiku Abubakar. What role is he playing in your governorship bid?
At this stage, nothing is putting us together politically. I served under him for a time; I was his DG (Director-General of the Atiku Support Group). That is as far as it has gone. As for my ambition, I believe that he cannot do anti-party politics to support me and I cannot do anything anti-party to seek his support. Assuming that we are in the same political party, that would have been a different ball game altogether. Now, I am concentrating on picking the ticket of my party and seeing how I can face the incumbent governor in the PDP. That is the expectation at the moment.
You have been the Chairman of the House Committee on the Army, while Adamawa is one of the states in the North-East being terrorised by Boko Haram. What experience are you bringing to secure the state if you become the governor?
I chair the Committee on Army in the House; while working with the Nigerian Army, I have got a lot of experience, and I can assure you that if I become the governor of the state, the security of the state will be prioritised. Don’t forget that President Muhammadu Buhari has also done a lot to combat Boko Haram. Seven local government areas were under the control of Boko Haram by 2014. But when the President came, all these areas were liberated for our state. Subsequently, the security challenge has actually been reduced to the barest minimum. We still have pockets of kidnapping. We still have, once in a while, activities of terrorists. But because security strategy matters should not be in the public domain, you should wait; when I get there (office of the governor), I will show you and provide leadership in that direction. Nigerians will marvel when they see how I will handle the state in terms of security.
How are you going to sell the APC in Adamawa, with the country witnessing various security crises under its administration at the national level?
Adamawa is traditionally an APC state. When the merger (of parties) took place and the APC was formed, we quickly dislodged the PDP in the state. It is still an APC state. The only thing that happened in 2019 was that we could not pull together in one direction; we started having problems during the primaries. So, when some of them didn’t get (tickets at) the primaries, it was difficult to maintain that unity. People became aggrieved and they started to get involved in anti-party activities and then decided to defect to the PDP. That was why you saw that there was a second round of election (rerun) in Adamawa State, because the governor did not win convincingly in the first instance. Now that we have known our mistakes, we are going to do our best to ensure that we learn from those mistakes. We will make sure that when anybody emerges at the end of the day as the flag bearer, once it is done under a free and fair election, we will support ourselves and can go ahead to beat the PDP.
What do you think the current regime of the President, Major General Muhammadu Buhari (retd.), is not getting right in its handling of the growing insecurity based on your knowledge of the goings-on in the security sector?
Security issues cannot just be viewed from one perspective. There are so many dimensions to security matters. We first had terrorists, later we had bandits, and later we added cattle rustlers; these are issues that keep on coming up. The government has been doing its best to deal with the situation. The APC has done its own part, and the security situation is not only in Nigeria. If you look all over the world, most countries have one challenge or the other. Even the developed nations are facing their own problems. I think it is not a Nigerian thing. We are part of the globe. But we can learn from ourselves and see how we can sort out the issues.
Each country has its peculiar challenge and how it is handling it locally. How is this government handling the peculiar security crises in Nigeria, like terrorism in the North-East, banditry in the North-West, secessionist agitation in the South-East, and kidnappings across the country?
Every security situation is peculiar to the country and you can see that the security agencies have been coming together recently. In the past, there was disagreement among the security agencies and operatives on who takes the lead and other issues. But now, you can see the joint operations. People are working together. In the National Assembly, we have looked at things and how we can address the overlapping mandates of the security agencies. I think we are doing our best lately. In this present dispensation, you can’t expect us to use one solution to solve all problems. We will continue to address the issues as they come. My only take is that Nigerians talk too much about using guns to address security challenges. I think that is, in my view, not the best. We have to understand some of these issues…if we resolve our economic issues, address unemployment matters and other little crises, I think it will help to solve the problem.
What are the specific options available to the government to address the security crises apart from using force to solve the unrest across the geopolitical zones?
If we look at what the Federal Government has done, this government has provided social incentives in terms of helping to reduce poverty. It has introduced several poverty alleviation programmes. These are some of the ways that the government is using to reduce the level of the economic crisis in the country, such as unemployment and how the youth can be engaged. You are a witness to that and that has been working. But because the population is also high and the challenges are not a one-sector matter, we will continue to address them as we move forward.
But it appears like Nigerians are seeing the policies and programmes, but the difference is not seen or felt. What is your take on this?
It depends on who is saying that. When you are opposed to the government of the day, whatever the government does, you will never see what is good in it. But I can tell you that there are a lot of people that appreciate what the government has done so far in terms of addressing security challenges. I cannot sit here and say everything is going on fine. We still have some challenges but we will continue to improve on the levels of the challenges. We are not doing badly.
The National Assembly once asked that bandits be declared terrorists. The government designated them so, but their attacks have remained unabated. What went wrong?
We in the National Assembly made the call for bandits to be declared terrorists so that the Armed Forces, particularly the Nigerian Air Force, will be able to deploy the (A-29 Super) Tucanos that we have procured so that we can deal with the bandits. If you have also been following events, a lot of media outlets have reported where successes have been recorded. A lot of Boko Haram insurgents and bandits have actually been dealt with, with some of the Tucanos and the highly sophisticated fighter jets, and the land army. I think the government has achieved that. Like I told you, no matter what you do, people will expect you to do more.
But it was after the bandits were declared as terrorists that they attacked an Abuja-Kaduna train and abducted passengers, who have remained in captivity for over one month, which people believe was preventable. What success are you talking about?
It is not the issue of being preventable. The security forces have prevented a lot of attacks. They have been able to dismantle a lot of plans. When security forces are able to proactively dismantle some of these plans, I think the media hardly celebrates that. In football, people don’t count the number of saves made by a goalkeeper, they dwell so much on the ones that enter the net and count as goals. Let us be sincere, these security men have done so much. They have been able to prevent a lot of attacks. There are proactive moves that have been made. But it cannot be foolproof; you don’t expect to see them 100 per cent because they are humans too. I think, largely, they have tried but they need to do more. That is just the truth.
The issue of power rotation and zoning has been on the front burner ahead of the 2023 general elections, especially in the APC and the PDP. Where do you think power should go next?
This is a personal opinion; I cannot speak for the party (APC) because some of our leaders are the ones to make those decisions. But as far as I am concerned, I won’t mind if the presidency goes to the South. We (the North) have had the presidency for eight years and it is only fair that the South takes the ticket. The reason is that sometimes, some of these things we do as gentlemen’s agreement, if we do not respect them, these are some of the things that make people accumulate anger, and at one point when the anger bursts, it becomes something else. So, for us to keep to a gentleman’s agreement, I think there is nothing wrong with that. This will not stop anybody in the North who wants to contest because this is a right of the individual. Even when the presidency is zoned to the South, it does not stop anybody from any part of the country from contesting the election. We have had instances in the past. In those days in the PDP when there was no APC, it was zoned to the South, but (Abubakar) Rimi contested and lost. Nobody stopped him from the contest.
The APC charged N100m for its expression of interest and nomination forms for the presidential ticket. Different support groups claimed to have bought the forms for their choice aspirants. Some individuals and groups have also called for a probe into the finances of the sponsors. Is your party practising money politics?
Sincerely speaking, as for the presidency, I will not say it (amount) is too high. I think it is the (state) House of Assembly, which is closer to the people, and the National Assembly (membership forms) that I would have suggested that the costs should have been reduced. You will go to a village or a local government area in a constituency and you will ask everybody to cough out N2m. That will be a little bit on the high side. But some people, who are contesting the governorship or presidency have followers; they must have reached a particular level in the society. If it requires assistance, a lot of people will be able to help them to contribute and help purchase forms. But for the man in a village, who wants to run for (the state House of) Assembly, where will he get the money? Some of them (villagers) are farmers here in the North. This is just my opinion.
What will then happen to someone who has the intellectual capacity to run the country but does not have money or rich sponsors, say a civil servant or small business owner?
We are practising a presidential system of government where aspirants are expected to go from one state to the other, meaning that you will criss-cross the 36 states. Even if you are to go on a bicycle in the 36 states, I can tell you that before you conclude your tour, you will spend more than N100m. This is the true situation. Assuming we are practising a kind of parliamentary system, where the President will emerge from the parliament, this will be a different ball game altogether. But in this case, you will have to move from one state to the other. If you have followed events, almost all the aspirants are campaigning from one part of the country to another. They are using aeroplanes to move, and in most cases, chartered flights. So, imagine if you were to move to the 36 states, how much you would have spent, and how many people would have followed you. So, these are realities.
As for the man who is a civil servant contesting for the presidency, I don’t know how it will be done. For anybody who wants to be President of Nigeria, as it is today, I am suspecting that he (or she) must have contacts and friends who can help him raise certain amounts. But when you are talking about N2m, because you are looking at N100m; the N2m that the man at the lower level will source for, the stress he will go through is more than the N100m you are talking about. That is the reality.
Some Nigerians have criticised the high number of presidential aspirants in the APC, while some serving ministers have backed out of the race, describing it as embarrassing. Is your party serious about the Nigerian presidency?
Why is it not serious? How many political parties do we have in the country in the first place? Ordinarily, it should be expected that they will be fielding candidates who will contest elections for the President down to the councillor. Assuming all the political parties field a candidate, what is wrong with that?
But the APC alone has over 25 presidential aspirants…
It is not about the number. In fact, the mere fact that a lot of people are contesting is even good. What is just wrong is when people are forced not to contest; when people want to contest but are not allowed to do so. When people want to buy the forms but they say they are not available, you will come back and ask us questions about why the process is not free and fair, and why they are blocking people from purchasing forms. Democracy is the right to vote and be voted for. The number of contestants shows that people are becoming too conscientious about democracy. So, allow them to contest so that you and I will have the opportunity to select the best (from among them).
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