Alhaji Shehu Gabam, the national chairman of the Social Democratic Party (SDP), is confident that Nigerians would reject the dominant political parties: the All Progressives Congress (APC) and Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) during next year’s general elections. In this interview, he explained why he believes his party would take over the reins of power.
With the ‘intimidating’ posture of the PDP and APC, what gives you the conviction that in 2023 the SDP would take over power in Nigeria?
There is no party that cannot be defeated. And if you look at the statistics in the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), 70 per cent of owners of permanent voter cards (PVCs) are anti-establishment; youths and women. So, the status quo cannot remain.
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Given the nature of the security situation of the country, the sort of anarchy and barbarism going on, no responsible person would like these things to continue. Nobody would like to see raping, maiming, kidnapping and killing every day.
The economy is at its knees. The purchasing power of Nigerians has dropped close to zero level and that increased the level of crime and criminality across the length and breadth of Nigeria. This government has generated sufficient basis for any serious aspirant at all levels, such that it is easy to take them out. Their propaganda has fizzled out and the reality shown. I don’t expect any miracle from them.
They are banking on buying votes, but that era is gone. You can do all sorts of things, but at the end of the day you will be disappointed because a lot of sensitisation is ongoing.
The country is being crippled, and our currency is partly in the dustbin. All over the world, if you are devaluing your currency simply because you are looking for domestic and foreign investors you can’t expect investors in a situation of anarchy.
The political environment is very chaotic; nobody will come and invest his money in a situation where he would lose, not to talk of people bringing their foreign capital into a country that is not fully secured. So I am not bothered about the fixation of the APC and PDP. I have gone through them sufficiently and know where their strengths and weaknesses are. That is why they don’t have anything to campaign about. They have no record of achievements they can defend in terms of security, economy and political environment that would attract investors. If you minus these in the government, and anywhere in the world, you know that there is no possibility for you to move forward.
Security is very fundamental, the political environment for investors to come in is extremely very key. How you manage the economy of the country also defines who you are. In all these three fundamentals in driving the stability of a country, they have failed.
What would you be doing differently should your party form the national government come 2023?
What I would be doing differently is first to uphold the article of the oath of the constitution, which is the protection of the lives and property of all citizens. The fundamental responsibility of the president, who is the commander-in-chief of the armed forces, is securing the country. Once you cannot secure the country, then you know that you cannot provide leadership and anarchy would continue. Even in your home, I am sure there are disciplinary measures you are applying to secure your children etc. The first thing is to ensure that there is code of conduct and consequences for those who feel they are above the law, which are presently absent. People must respect the law, and there must be enforcement. If you cannot do that, then you have no business seeking to be president in 2023.
We will also create new channels of operation based on accountability. When you give an assignment, somebody must account for it. In the absence of accounting, this government has collapsed the country. The president’s convoy was attacked. The correctional centre was also attacked for hours without action. Even if it meant bringing a military airbus from Lagos to Abuja to take care of the Kuje nonsense, we would have done that as a government. Intelligence was supplied many times on the possibility of that strike. What happened to our air surveillance?
When the campaigns are fully opened, Nigerians would hear from us. We have what it takes to talk; and we are going to talk about facts. We will dish out the statistics and ask them to defend them.
But you were a member of the PDP, don’t you think you were also part of the system you are criticising?
That is why I admitted that I am also a politician and politicians are part of those who created this nonsense. We are responsible for some of these insecurity issues through our utterances and lack of statesmanship. We incite citizens and they get killed and nothing happens. Villages are wiped out under politics or some considerations but nobody is arrested. A fundamental crime would happen in the state where we have a police commissioner, director of the State Security Service, Civil Defence Corps and all sorts of military and paramilitary establishments and nobody would be held accountable. People have beats assigned to them, but crimes would happen on those beats and nobody would be apprehended. And we think we are a serious country? Is that a kind of leadership we expect to come on board in 2023?
Why do you appear a bit confident in the INEC?
If you know the history of the INEC you too would praise them. This new innovation by the current chairman of the commission is second to none. Nobody ever tried it. The revolution in the INEC is unprecedented. We now have no direct dealing with officials because every communication for them is now done from my desk here; I don’t need to go to their office. Eighty per cent of corruption in the commission has been taken out by this current chairman, Professor Mahmud Yakubu. Before now, if you were sending your documents to the commission you would be rest assured that they would get missing. There would be connivance to take away people’s documents by those who are threatened by other people who are contesting. You can’t do that now. Whatever I send here goes directly to the INEC chairman’s desk and he sends it to the appropriate organs of the commission. And the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS) deals with accreditation, either through your fingerprint or visual capturing. So, snatching of ballot boxes, thumb-printing and other unnecessary things are absolutely futile.
In the last three years, has your party attracted serious politicians to your fold?
Yes, we did. When the INEC publishes the final list of candidates of all parties you will know who and who are running under the SDP. We are still on submissions and replacements. I think this is the last batch of it and the INEC will publish the list. Again, currently, in the Senate and the House of Reps, we have members of the SDP who are serving. We also have serving members in state assemblies who decamped to our party. So we have already shifted the ground, and more are to come. If you are following our activities in the states you know that we are a threat. If the PDP can be suing our party, then you know the SDP is the force to reckon with. The PDP is afraid of our gubernatorial candidates in some states.
Do you have the resources for these litigations?
I don’t know if you are talking about the resources or doing the needful. We don’t have the resources because are not in power yet but we have credibility as people are injecting their intellect to do the needful. We have Senior Advocates of Nigeria who are running under this party as well. And in terms of stability, the SDP is the most stable party. We have only one court case. Go and check the statistics of court cases of other parties, not only during the primaries but generally, up till now. Recently, the INEC said they had over one million pending court cases. But we have navigated all through those things. There is no state I am aware that we have any litigation ongoing. We didn’t allow ourselves to get trapped because I know that 2023 will be about litigations because both the parties and the INEC are testing the new document: the new electoral act. Nobody is conversant with it, so there will be a lot of errors and people would be taking advantage of it.
What is your take on the move by the National Assembly to impeach the president?
We stand by it because it is a rational and patriotic thing to do considering the kind of killings, maiming and barbarism going on in the country. It is not acceptable in any civilised society. More so, the president has a security background, so there is no excuse whatsoever for Nigerians to be killed like ants. It is not justifiable and no descent society would condone this. Nigerians tolerate a lot of nonsense.
Would removing him change anything?
Absolutely, it will. A change of bad thing has its own goodwill because whoever is coming in knows that incapacitation led to the president’s removal. There will be a dramatic change, even if it is for a period of six months. There will be some level of stability.
