A former Secretary-General of the Northern Senators Forum in the 4th and 5th Senate on the platform of the All People’s Party (APP) and the All Nigeria People’s Party (ANPP) respectively, Saidu Dansadau, speaks on power play ahead of the 2023 presidential election and other national issues in this interview with Andy Asemota
What is your stand on the resolutions of the Southern Governors Forum on the 2023 presidency and other issues?
You see, we are in a democracy, I am not aware of anywhere in the world, where democracy is practiced by way of intimidation. Unless we are practicing something else; not democracy. Democracy is about selling your ideas which you can implement, it’s for the electorate to choose among the best. That is what I know about democracy but if you are to do something else then it is a different thing.
One section of the country cannot intimidate the other to get the presidency but my personal belief is that there is nothing that cannot be achieved through democracy. There is nothing that cannot be achieved if we trust one another. There is nothing that cannot be achieved if we are honest with ourselves.
There is nothing that cannot be achieved if the interest of this country is number one in the minds of politicians and the minds of Nigerians. In fact, for me, I blame the Nigerian elites and electorate for what is happening in this country under a democratic dispensation that people cannot summon courage, especially Nigerian elites to do what is right.
Is it not part of these southern governors that left the parties under which they were elected and defected to different political parties? Is that how to play politics? See in other parts of the world, somebody can remain in the opposition party for 20 years and at the end of the day, the opposition party may emerge victoriously and become the ruling party.
The way Nigerian politicians at the highest level change from one party to another is disturbing and it shows they are not serious, it shows they are not honest, it shows that the interest of the country is not in their heart, it is their interest rather than that of the country that is in their hearts. It is their interest that is paramount, not the interest of the country or the interest of Nigerians.
So, in all these Hullabaloos about 2023 elections and other challenges we are having in the country, nobody is to be blamed but the politicians because they are not being honest, most of the politicians are after personal interests, they do not care whether the country will go haywire and of course because they have a lot of money to spend in other countries.
So, let’s stop all these political gimmicks, let’s have the interest of Nigeria at heart, let us provide selfless service, it is the only right thing to be done. You cannot have a peaceful, united, and prosperous country where over 90 per cent are desperately looking for illicit money.
Negligible few are committed no matter how difficult to earn legitimate money. Nobody should deceive anybody, if we truly want this country, we have to do the right thing. And the right time is now, everybody knows what is right and he knows what is wrong and if the majority of us try to choose what is wrong, all of us are going to bear the consequences. There is just no doubt about it.
Do you think the government is getting it right in the fight against insecurity?
Look, what is responsible for insecurity is the same factor responsible for all these political agitations – we are not honest. We take public funds and we do whatever we like with them. For an ordinary man looking for legitimate means of living, it has become virtually impossible for him to go to the farm and if you observe, it is just the degree and nature of security challenges that differ from one part of the country to another.
If we want to be honest to ourselves, there are challenges all over but these challenges vary and the degree also varies from one place to another. Yes, someplace are far, far better but we cannot solve all these problems by mere rhetoric, we have to act appropriately, rightly, honestly, and peacefully having in mind that all of us are going to die.
Christians and Muslims believe that there is going to be a day of reckoning and every one of us is going to account for his deed at a point and time where there will be no opportunity to make amend. That is the most important thing.
The most disturbing thing to me is that we profess we are Christians and Muslims and 99 per cent of actions are against the teachings of our respective religion. What kind of people are we and which kind of Christianity or Islam are we practicing? Let’s tell our self the truth.
Talking about the truth, do you subscribe to Sheikh Ahmed Gumi’s amnesty for bandits recommendation or military option which is not yielding quick results?
As for as I am concerned, the present service chiefs, for me, are doing a very good job. If the government continues to support them, as well as their men and officials at the battlefields, it is a matter of a very short time, these challenges will be overcome. Not only the military, but the judiciary should also do the right thing and the Nigerian police must do the right thing.
What disturbs me most, day and night, is that as Nigerians, the majority of us are behaving like beasts are better than us. Beasts are better than us because they take a lesson from their experience. Don’t you see that when butchers are taking a cow to the slaughter slab, they have to use two ropes one in the front and another at the back to drag it to the slaughter slab because it is insisting that it will not go?
Why? Because yesterday one of them was talking to the slaughter slab and it didn’t come back but look at us Nigerians, judging from 1999 to date, the kinds of inquiries that were made by one government after the other, the top government officials from all parts of the country that are exposed and disgraced through arrest by EFCC or arraigned before the court of law yet if another set of people get into power they will be worse than the previous ones.
What kind of human beings are we? And we travel to other parts of the continent and other parts of the world and we see what is happening? Why do we go to the UK, US, Germany, and other parts of the world for medical care when if you go to these countries, you see Nigerian doctors there? Many of us are attended to by Nigerian doctors not that there is a dearth of medical doctors in this country but simply because of our attitude.
Why don’t we change and make this country a better place not only for Nigerians but for other parts of the world to be attracted to what we are doing? All these political gimmicks will not help us. We are deceiving ourselves, we are cheating ourselves, and we are not being honest with ourselves. I think we have reached a level of degeneration that requires that all of us have no option but to make amends. These political gimmicks are not going to help us.
Benue State Governor Sam Ortom has been having a running battle with the presidency. He claims that the insecurity in the country is because President Buhari failed to call Fulani Militias to order. What do you make of that?
Look, this is part of all that I am saying, look at what the Governor Cross River State is doing. He is doing certain things in the interest of the country, not only Cross River that governors in the north could not do. If we have one governor each in our so-called six geo-political zones that will emulate what Governor Ben Ayade of Cross River is doing, Nigeria will be a better place for everybody.
Is Ortom, as a governor, doing better than Buhari as President? I don’t think so. You have to see the kind of things Governor Ben Ayade is doing which should be emulated by our governors that are when Nigeria can be a better place. If Gov Ben Ayade will come out to be president with somebody in the north, a Muslim, I will vote for Gov Ayade against a Muslim governor from the north because I have seen in him a serious personality. Nigerians should be agitating in the likes of Ayade not for my part of the country to produce the President.
Tell, what benefit have people gotten over others when one of their own is the present of the country? Business moguls in this country have been suffering a lot of losses following the government’s bad policies, following unserious members of the National Assembly, following unserious elites, having an unserious and unpatriotic electorate.
So, what do you make of the proposed amendment to the Electoral Act which stipulates about N15 billion to contest the presidency and about N5 billion for the governorship?
It will still take you to what I said earlier on that is not the interest of the country that is at the heart of most Nigerians. That will just that: we will be deceiving ourselves if we think otherwise.
What is your perspective on the controversy over e-transmission of election results, what is your perspective on INEC’s stance that the Senate wants to rob the commission of the power vested on it by the 1999 Constitution to decide the conduct and mode of elections without clearing with the National Communications Commission (NCC) or any outfit?
You see, we all know what the constitution says and we are going to follow the constitution. The worst part of our politics in Nigeria is that, as I told you earlier on, we are Christians and Muslims but we don’t follow the teachings of the Holy Bible and the Holy Qur’an. We claim we are Nigerians, we have the constitution, but we don’t follow the Nigerian Constitution and we claim that we are members of different political parties, we don’t follow the constitutions of our respective political parties.
In this type of situation, almost 90 per cent of what we do in Nigeria is dictated by our whims. How can the country succeed with this kind of attitude? And we continue saying Nigeria is the giant of Africa, Nigeria our great country, are we not ashamed in making this claim when we see Rwandans? We have the same type of systematic challenges, we have the same type of religious challenges if that of Rwanda is not even worse than our own.
The Rwandans, within the short period since the genocide that happened there, had been able to fix their country, can’t we emulate the Rwandans? It’s not about the leader. Well, yes, about the leader because he has constitutional responsibilities, he has obligation to God, he has obligation to the citizens. Yes, that is why he is different but as citizens of Nigeria, are we doing what we ought to do to develop our country? The answer is no.
Over 90% of Nigerians, as I told you earlier, are after illicit money, not only illicit money, we are trying to find a way to cheat is another. If you do business with 100 people in this country if you are lucky you will get three that will not cheat you if they get the opportunity. What kind of people are we, we should be ashamed of ourselves.
Have joined the ruling party or where exactly are you now in the political arena?
Do you know that there is a political party which I am its chairman? I don’t care whether I win the presidential or governorship election or not, we have principles in this party. Anybody willing to join the party will have to follow the constitution of the party because we have the start somewhere.
I and other well-meaning Nigerians have formed this party to make a difference. If you are one of those who want to change Nigeria for the better, come to our party where there is no zoning formula but we are looking for the best Nigerians.
You are yet to tell me the name of your political party. What is the name?
National Rescue Movement that is what Nigerians require. We have to rescue Nigeria from our atrocities. It is not the task of one person and it is not under this regime that everything went bad, I am not speaking for APC, and the wahala we are in today is a product of so many years of bad governance, so many years of terrible attitudes of Nigerians, of selfishness.
We are only interested in our interest; if our interest is satisfied, let everybody dies-survivalist. We have to seek the interest of all of us that is the teaching of the Bible and the Qur’an. And here we are, we have been fighting based on religion, the religion that we will not follow, what stupidity is this? What foolishness is this? What shall we tell God on the day judgement, or are we rejecting the teaching that God exists, as Christian and Muslims?
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Are we denying that there will be a day of reckoning, the day judgement, and we are saying we are Muslims and Christians? I am tired of talking, every serious Nigeria should regard the challenges we are facing today as a time of action, not time for a blame game. It is time for everybody to check himself.
What are your advice to states and the federal government or FIRS on the issue of VAT controversy?
All these things are political gimmicks. My advice to everybody is to fear God and remember that we are all going to die. Always keep in our minds all that we say and all that we do because we are going to give an account of our deeds and our rhetoric on the day that there will be no opportunity for amends.
