Senator Abdullahi Adamu was a former governor of Nasarawa State and currently represents Nasarawa West Senatorial District at the National Assembly. In this interview, he speaks on the national convention and next leadership of his party, the APC; electronic transmission of results and the capacity of the opposition PDP to unseat his party in 2023, among others.
21st CENTURY CHRONICLE: The governors elected under the platform of the APC have asked the Buni-led committee to hold the national convention of your party; what kind of leadership do you think your party needs at this point to midwife the APC’s victory in 2023?
Abdullahi Adamu: Well, the issue of governors calling for convention is not news; the constitution of the APC has provided for annual conventions virtually every year. What’s there is that we have a normal convention and we have what we call a nomination convention. They are calling for convention so that things pertaining to resolutions on issues of structure in the party can be resolved. Yes, we have materials at various levels that can fill the leadership structure where there are vacancies in the party. And we will resolve them the best that we can democratically. Yes, we want to have a person or persons who are people of honour; people who can be trusted. We need people who have the urge to take over responsibilities and have capacity to perform to the best expectations of the party and its teeming members. That’s our prayers. That’s what we are going to look out for. I can assure you that the APC is not lacking people of that character to pilot the affairs of our great party.
There are speculations that you may likely stand for the national chairmanship position of your party, how would you react?
How do you want me to react to speculations? I don’t react to speculations. I’m a party member, no doubt about that. And to be honest with you, I’m not losing sleep over the facts that there’s a vacancy for the leadership of the party. I’m not losing sleep over it. I believe that the party will come up with a decision deserving of the party when the time comes. I don’t want to speculate. I don’t want to be shouting about that I want to become the next chairman. I don’t have time for that. I believe very strongly that those who want to go to the market for the leadership of the party are free to do so but I am not made of that stuff. In my upbringing, anybody who praises himself that “I am the leader” or “I want to be the leader”; be rest assured that he is not the leader. Those were my early lessons in life and I built my foundation on that. Those that are throwing their names in all the places for the leadership of the party, I wish them luck, but my prayers is that the party should get the best possible. That’s all. Be rest assured that whoever that God gives the leadership of the party, that is okay by me. I will remain a loyal member of the party.
But are you likely to take the job if the opportunity is offered to you?
That is taking speculations to the extreme and I will not react to that (laughs).
Our former military president, General Ibrahim Babangida in a recent interview said the next Nigerian president should be in his sixties; how would you react to that suggestion?
Well, my very respected senior brother, His Excellency, former president, General Ibrahim Babangida, spoke his mind. He is entitled to his opinion and given his personal experience, as former General in the Nigerian Army and a former president in this country, he is bound to have gone through some rudiments and he may be speaking from his personal experience. If his own experience has made him understand that a Nigerian president must be in the 60s range, he is entitled to his opinion. We are in a democracy and Nigerians will decide who should rule them through one man, one vote, adult suffrage; no more no less, but he is entitled to his opinion. And any Nigerian can support that opinion and any Nigerian can oppose the opinion. To me, he is entitled to it.
But do you think age has anything to do when it comes to governance?
Yes of course, if you are aged, ill and you are not well enough. Sometimes, you could be young but you are not well, it will beset you. There’s no fixed rule with this. There’s no fixation with this. But the presumption is that the younger you are, the stronger you are, and that’s the presumption. But whether that is true of all situations, I leave that with you.
You earlier spoke about Nigerians electing their leaders through one man one vote; but the National Assembly dominated by the APC passed the Electoral Act Amendment Bill and voted against electronic transmission of results, with the opposition parties now crying foul that the APC wants to rig election in 2023; why did you do that?
The opposition is already rigging public opinion to start with. They are rigging public opinions because, it would appear that they have or command greater followership from the Nigerian media and the media will explain that they are usually more sympathetic with the underdog and because the opposition is the underdog, the media will appear to be standing by them. But the fact of the matter is that I stood behind the amendment that was taken by the Senate and my conviction no matter what anybody says, is that you go out and judge for yourself what is on the ground. Now, if you conduct an election and you want to transmit the results of that election through electronic means, how do you do it? The national network is not here; two, if you talk of bringing batteries and what have you, there is no known electricity supply source here. You rely on generators and what have you. And INEC is ill-prepared to install generators all over Nigeria where there are no power or network supplies. How would they do it? We are deceiving ourselves. We don’t want to own up to facts. That is why we keep failing. We are the architect of our own failure. The reality is that anybody who says the network in Nigeria is effective nationwide, is a liar and let he or she come and prove me wrong. That’s the position of the Senate. There are parts of this country where there is no electricity and telecommunications service of any kind. The people who are insisting that there should be electronic transmission of results with or without the required infrastructure are the ones planning rigging because they know it’s not realistic and they want us to rely on falsehood. They are bringing expectations that cannot be met to form the basis for the conduct of our elections and we say no and will continue to say no until we are proven wrong.
How is your party bracing to face the opposition PDP in the 2023 election?
The opposition is concerned because (if there’s really any serious opposition with the APC in the forefront) they are losing ground. They (PDP) have lost three sitting governors to the APC and there are more to come. The party is now divided and some members of the executive of the party have decamped to the APC. So, there’s no party left as PDP to threaten the APC. It is really very bad because we want a vibrant opposition that will checkmate the ruling party. But there’s no opposition in Nigeria today. They are failing. They are not giving a good account of the mandate that they got. The basis of the failure of this country since the advent of democracy is the failure of the PDP which ruled for 16 years. It was the failure of the PDP after 16 years in power that brought about the APC. And they want to blame us for their failures. No matter how far people go with criticizing the APC, there is a limit to which they can go and no sooner than later, people will see through the machinations and falsehood that are being propagated against the ruling APC. We are on track and will continue to be on track by the grace of God.
The minority judgment of the Supreme Court on the Ondo Governorship election threw up issues within the All Progressives Congress over the legality or otherwise of the Mai Mala Buni-led committee; what is your take on the whole issue?
We are a very dynamic party; yes, there are issues about the Supreme Court’s judgment but the judgment that people seem to be talking so much about is not the main judgment but the minority judgment. In any situation, when you have a minority judgment, it means, there is a judgment that overweighs what you call a minority. In every judicial process, where the majority is, that is where the legal position is. There is nothing wrong in the ruling party giving one of its own an adhoc assignment as was given to the governor of Yobe State to hold specific assignment for and on behalf of the party. Once he’s done with it, he goes back to his duty. There is no salary or allowance attached to it, it’s an adhoc duty.
What is your position on the issue of zoning in your party ahead of the 2023 presidential election?
On the issue of zoning, I maintain what I have said earlier some months back. There’s no provision in the Nigerian constitution that talks of zoning in the legal sense of it. There’s no zoning. If a political party deems it fit to zone office to a particular part at a given time, that’s left to it. It’s purely within the interest or opinion of the party. But there’s nothing like zoning of political office even in the constitution of the APC. In any case, like I said earlier, any political party can come up with any formula which they believe can help win elections. Once elections are approaching, you hear these hues and cries!
