A former governor of Kano State, Musa Kwankwaso last week joined forces with his associates, former political opponents and those he described as “progressives” in a bid to seize power from the All Progressives Congress in 2023. He pledged to restructure the country, describing it as “possible.” Later, in a television interview monitored in Lagos by MAYOWA SAMUEL, Kwankwaso, also a former Minister of Defence and a member of the Peoples Democratic Party said it was the collective desire of the movement to rescue Nigeria from the socio-economic quagmire the country is currently going through. Excerpts:
BY MAYOWA SAMUEL
What’s your motivation for coming up with this idea of the national movement? You are a member of the PDP, what are your grievances with the PDP? Why are you looking the other way? Is it because of the zoning arrangement that you felt should be left open?
I was in the PDP since 1998, and, in 1999 was commissioned to be the governor of Kano State. In 2003, I lost the election to Olusegun Obasanjo, the then president, who then made me the Minister of Defense. And in 2007, I was in the Niger Delta Development Commission representing the North West zone. In 2011, I had the opportunity to go back to Kano as governor. I was there in PDP until 2014 when we realised that there were many things that were wrong with the leadership under the PDP. And we thought it was necessary at that time to effect change. Five of us from the PDP joined forces with the then APC and we worked so hard to ensure that we took power from the PDP which we did successfully.
Unfortunately, the change that we believed was promised to Nigerians turned out to be the opposite. In the interest of the country, we thought, in 2019, that this change should be effected. Of course, we have done our best. If you see our efforts, especially on the roads from the North but for various reasons, the current president had to continue for a second term. Now, here we are in the PDP and of course APC on the other side, we tried as much as possible to convince our party and even the APC itself to do the right thing in terms of both the management of the party and the government itself. It’s like all that we are working for could not be achieved and for that reason, many of our colleagues and friends thought that there should be a need to bring something new. What we want in this country is to have good democracy, good elections, good parties and of course, good governance. That’s why in the one year or so, we thought that a choice should be given to Nigerians because we have seen the performance of PDP in its first 16 years and we are now seeing the performance of the APC and we thought things have to change. We are just discussing the issues of the economy, security among other things that have to do with the lives of our people. That’s why my humble self and many other friends and many other people from across the country who have shown their faces and millions of people across the country who were running from Boko Haram could not make themselves available. The national movement is giving hope to all Nigerians that this really is a democracy. We don’t have to go through the normal tools to power. That’s what we are going to do.
You spoke about a plan to tackle corruption and tackle socio-economic challenges. Where will the money for this plan come from? How will you create socioeconomic opportunities for the people of Nigeria?
If you look at what we have done in Kano, the records are there. In 1999, Kano had a huge level of debt and before 2003, not only were we able to pay all the debts, we were also able to do more projects and programmes. Before four years, we were able to pay the entire debt and do projects and programmes ranging from security, agriculture to infrastructure and others. From my experience and from what we have done over time in Kano for example, we have seen a situation where we can comfortably say that there is enough money in this country to the extent that if we do the right thing, we are not likely to borrow anything from anybody. Also from 1999 to 2003, President Olusegun Obasanjo was able to pay all the debt of this country. What we should ensure is that the issue of corruption is tackled in this country and I can tell you in this country, we have good people at the federal, state and local governments and all we need is to have strong leadership, leadership that can lead by example. The issue of corruption is a big issue and it has to be tackled if we have to succeed in this country.
“What we should ensure is that the issue of corruption is tackled in this country and I can tell you in this country, we have good people at the federal, state and local governments and all we need is to have strong leadership, leadership that can lead by example”
This movement to rescue Nigeria, is it about your presidential ambition or about the Nigerian people?
If you look at it from when I was governor to when I was Minister of Defense, at that time, I believed that I had all the requirements to be president. In 2007, many of my colleagues were also aspiring to be president. Mine at that time in Kano, was to complete my unfinished job, my second term in Kano, so I had to go back. In 2011, I completed the second term, at that particular time. It was then that I looked back and I said okay, what else? The next thing was to aspire to become president, and you could see that after the primaries in Lagos, I came out to support President Buhari to become president of the country, believing that change will come to the country. Also in 2019, we supported Atiku Abubakar before it was decided that APC will continue again. We are not there for ourselves but for the country. Politicians today in this country don’t even know the frustrations of voters. That is why there is voter apathy everywhere. You will find people in various states come out, maybe 20 percent, 30 percent because people are not interested in the parties, people are not interested even in the individuals because you see, what is happening in this country today is that you have people, in the local governments, federal ministers, governors, at the helm of affairs trying to bring their friends. I tell the political parties to try as much as possible to listen to the people instead of bringing someone because you like him or he’s from your region or city. We have passed that level. Nigerians today are looking for somebody who can come and face all these messes we have found ourselves in. This is exactly what Nigerians are thinking about and that is why we thought we should give an alternative while we have the capacity to do that in this country.
Senator, can you comment on the politics of zoning?
You see, all those ideas are coming from my colleagues, all those politicians. Many of my colleagues are very lazy; they’ve found it very difficult to work. What they normally do is to start spreading these sentiments that it has to come from this religion; it has to come from that region, forgetting the history. All those who were supported in the North and in the South were not just supported because of that. Many of my supporters are not just from the North or Muslims or Ibos or Yoruba’s or Hausas. What people are after are people who are known to be upright, people who are full of integrity and so on.
You see certain people, all because they have money; they have civil servants, people in the ministries, in this bank or in the military. But what we need is one with experience; we need people who have shown capacity that they can do it. I told you I supported Southerners to become president and northerners in my thirty years experience as a politician and then our leader, our father Chief MKO Abiola during the SDP when I was in the House of Representatives from Kano. I supported Chief Olusegun Obasanjo from the South who was a Christian, and then Jonathan in 2011 against Buhari even when some places were bombed, my house was attacked because of Jonathan against Buhari. I come from a very metropolitan city where we believe that all Nigerians whether you are Christian or Muslim, in fact, you see this Kwankwaso, because of my love and relationship with the Ibo community in my own town, I come from a place where we have so many Ibos, they believe that I am from their family. By the grace of God, even the Okonkwos are part of the constituency I’m aspiring to lead. So, it’s not a matter of religion or state. You have to show that you are capable, you have people-oriented programmes. We are Nigerians and whatever they do will affect us. I want to tell you that there are a lot of millions of people who want to recognise us because they believe that they will get opportunities from this country.
Are people already talking to you as regards possibly supporting your mission? And would you combine forces with them?
One of the issues we had in the PDP was at the Congress. Unfortunately, people who were in control of the structures in the states, thought that I should be a state leader. At the end of the day, we were not happy. If people are sincere, Nigerians are supposed to nominate their people. What is happening in the North and South East, something has to be done. We cannot continue with the insecurity, bad politics, bad governance and everything. We have to come out, we have to stand up and be counted to address it and try to do something for the betterment of our people in this
country.
