We’re open to collaborators who share same ideologies – Alkali, NNPP national chair

National Chairman of the New Nigeria’s Peoples Party (NNPP), Prof Rufai Alkali, talks about his party’s manifesto, what will be required for a possible merger in the future, among other sundry issues in this interview on Channels TV ‘Politics Today’, monitored by Deborah Onyofufeke

Your party recently had talks with the All Progressives Grand Alliance, what was it about?

I know that whenever NNPP is mentioned and other parties are mentioned, there is always a lot of interest, but I believe now, I will not disclose anything in detail on what we are discussing with APGA, or its presidential candidate for now. Our strategic plan is to do a lot of homework behind the scenes and when we have reached the point of talking, we can come out to talk to the general public, but for now, I don’t want to go into it.

So indeed you confirm that discussions are going on with APGA?

No. We have said that NNPP doors are open because what we are talking about is the future of our country, it is not an individual matter, it is about the future of our country and we have also been saying it consistently that anybody or groups that share our ideas, share our visions, share our aims, and objectives about the future of our country, we will be willing to talk to them but based on mutual respect so that whatever happens, it is for the benefit and glory of our country Nigeria

I know your party has said time and again that it will not be going into any alliance with either the APC or the PDP. Why the choice of APGA, is it because it is a strong party, especially in the South-East?

Well I think the issue of other political parties you mentioned PDP and APC, these parties, they feel they are too big, they feel they don’t need anybody today, they believe they’ve already won the elections, they are just waiting for the day they will be sworn in as President of this country so, and I think most of us who have been part of these political parties before, knowing their antecedents and how they do things, we know we are going to end up in the same troubles we are having today, for now, over the past few months, what has been happening is that some of them who were unable to scale the kind of massive support they were expecting from Nigerians, kept on throwing the kite asking one presidential candidate after another to step down for them and I will say that this is a democracy where the election should hold and if we want the election to hold, and you now have the opportunity to go and campaign and present your case to Nigerians, why do you now want someone to step down for you when you will go and face the people and then tell them that’s you have been doing in the past. So, that’s why sometimes we are not amused with what they are saying. Dragging our party to that we are going to do this for them. We are very serious people and we are very committed to the transition in this country and we don’t want anybody to undermine it in whatever form.

But don’t you see the move as a sign of weakness, maybe, because your candidate has been vehement, very confident saying that with NNPP, we are going to clear the election?

No. You are forgetting every day counts in politics. So also every vote counts in politics. So, if you are going to spend time going to various states in the country, various local governments, various communities, reaching out to people, canvassing for support, conveying our messages of goodwill, and educating them on our manifesto, does it stop us from talking to other people in other political parties that think we are going to collaborate at a particular stage in the process. If it cannot be now, it could be later. What is important is that so far we are comfortable with where we are, I want to assure you that our leader and presidential candidate Senator Rabiu Kwankwanso has been going around. The face of our campaign, if you see, it is different from what others have been doing in the past. Like the case in Niger state today, after spending a lot of time, a lot of resources, and a lot of energy, you will come and speak for one minute and then you will say it’s over. Why did you go there? It means you are not sure of what you are doing. The fatigue has started setting in. So, we have several layers, and one of the first layers that our leader, the presidential candidate of NNPP, Senator Rabiu Kwankwanso has been doing is a straightforward one that we spend all the time, the initial ones to reach out to our communities, to our people, to reconnect with them. Some of them were not visited for a long time, and some of them have been facing difficult challenges either related to environmental factors or whatever. Some of them have lost so many things so the first thing is to reconnect with the people after doing that, then you now begin the bag. I think by that time, Nigerians will know the difference between oil and water.

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Let’s talk about your party’s manifesto, quite a several points there, and you have touched on some of them really, and revamping the economy is key for your candidate. I think it just ranks top for all the candidates, economy, and security but particularly around the economy he said that you have an economic plan cantered around people, family, improving the income level, and strengthening the purchasing power of every Nigerian citizen. Can you further elaborate?

Recently, the popular debate on intellectual has been that development and democracy are two sides of the same coin but in recent times, the focus of Nigerians is that the issue of the economy is also two sides of the same coin, therefore, you cannot tackle the issue of security in Nigeria without tackling the issue of the economy totally and you cannot tackle the issue of the economy without tackling the issue of security frontally. Therefore the pride of the manifesto is that these things are going to be done simultaneously and that is why for example he placed a lot of emphasis on saying that, the security sector now, is under a man giving the total population of Nigeria, giving the size of the country, giving the complexities of the security challenges both the police and the military they are fully and undermanned including the other security services. Therefore the attention should be on those areas and in tackling these areas also, it is hoped that employment will also be created why because, if you don’t secure the country, even the oil that we depend on because we are not exporting as much as we should export base on the export per quarter. So, I mean there is a lot of leakages, a lot of theft, wastage, and corruption all over the place. So, unless this thing is tackled frontally, it is not going to be possible. So, you make sure you mop up a number of these youths away from the streets and get them engaged in this kind of service and they will be very useful and effective but at the same time in addressing the economy, the fundamentals are also the education because what everybody knows about Senator Rabiu Kwankwanso is that you can never take it away from him and there is no presidential candidate today that can match him in that record is what he did when he was governor of Kano state where he provided education at every level, provided scholarships for students, women, young men and young boys, both Kano indigenes and non-indigenes in several universities so he knows the system very well that’s why today, he said the first thing he will do from day one is to scrap all these things that are now being imposed on parents and children in terms of WAEC, NECO, and even JAMB so that people will be able to have access to education. Access is the most critical issue. So we believe that if you educate the citizenry, it will make it a lot of things easier for people to scan and process the system. Now, the question you asked about the telekawas is, do you believe that every Kwakwansia is a poor man or every poor man is a Kwankwansia? No. There is no correlation between the two. Kwakwansia is a part of a movement but is in the face of injustice, in the face of progress, and these young men and passionate young women, about what Kwankwanso has been doing in the North and the National level saying that we must defend our country, we must defend our sovereignty, we must defend our society so that everybody will have a role to play. So we hope that if they move away from being poor, and can afford a reasonable condition of living, that does not mean they are no longer relevant in politics. It’s empowerment. Every citizen must be empowered, therefore, giving them back the power so all the issues are related, security, economy, education, and everything all I am saying here today is having gone through all the levels, as a governor, as senator as a minister he has touched every level of governance and he is ready to hit the ground and start running. He doesn’t have to wait for six months or seven months or eight months to constitute a government.

Other political parties have promised to increase the salary of civil servants, and the NNPP also gave that promise, how realistic is this considering the economic situation of the country?

You know public policy is not an individual matter, it is a collective matter and what the presidential candidate can do is commit themselves to the principles but the conditions of the civil servants today are not the best for any civil servant in this country you will find that the way our citizens earn cannot take them home but even apart from that after they have managed to survive after 35years or 60 years of service when they retire, they don’t get their benefits so while you are serving you are in trouble after you finish, you are In trouble and everybody requires this protection, a safety net for the citizen so that he can live apart from civil servants, remember there are also farmers, traders, there are also artisans. Some of them are not regular salary earners, through the inclusion and that is why one of the strategies our presidential candidate is adopting is what you call the community participation and reorientation program where from the whole level to the local government level to the state level to the zonal level to the National level there will be series of committees which will comprise the traditional rulers in the place, the clergy, the leaders, the woman leader everything so that everybody will be involved in managing their resources that are now going to be deployed from the National to the lower level.

So, are you saying that there is no goal or target for what the minimum wage would be like if your candidate wins the election?

You are talking about a policy, a policy has to go through processes. For example, a governor cannot sit today and say I want to enforce the minimum wage. It has to go through the house of assembly.