Senator Aliyu Magatakarda Wamakko is a former governor of Sokoto State and now senator representing Sokoto North Senatorial District on the platform of the All Progressives Congress (APC). In this interview, he spoke on the task ahead of the party and the scheming for the 2023 general elections. Excerpts:
What is your assessment of APC’s journey so far?
Like I said earlier, we tend to be selfish. Before you ask me about APC, let me ask you. When was Nigeria amalgamated? 1914. Are we still one country? Have we achieved the purpose of the amalgamation? So what has APC done eight years ago? I don’t know why we should be blindfolded when we want to be selfish. So, having formed the APC, we have not forgotten where we came from.
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So as far as I am concerned, the APC as a party has come to stay and, as I said earlier, I am not denying that we have some crises and challenges as a party and as human beings, but I am optimistic that we are going to put them behind us and we are going to make history Insha Allah. That is what I believe.
What do you make of the APC and the 2023 general elections?
I know people have their own different thinking; their own thoughts. However, whatever that may be, the truth is, as a party, we have had our challenges in the past seven years. And like any other party, any other human organisation, I do believe 2023 is going to be an APC year despite all challenges we may have been facing because it is natural for human interactions to have challenges.
How did we cross them? How did we solve the challenges in our camps? Some we solved simply, some partially and in some segments we failed as human beings. That is normal about human beings. We made some mistakes here and there; we have crossed many challenges in the course of the last seven years of our administration.
But I will also tell you that we have numerous achievements that we were able to make. By the grace of Allah, we are going to make it.
Will APC adopt the consensus option for the selection of its candidates for the 2023 general elections?
Well, of course, in any human interaction there is the need for consensus as opposed to confrontation. When we came for the convention, we tried to avoid unnecessary bickering in our party. Don’t forget there were positions that were contested. Not every position went for consensus. So that is not to say we are going to adopt consensus on every step. No.
The APC is neck-deep in crises, including in your home state of Sokoto. What do you make of this?
I think the situations in Kano and Sokoto were entirely different. There was no crisis in Sokoto. The crisis is only in Abuja. In Sokoto, there is only one APC as a party and one able leadership. But, there are some people who wanted to make noise.
You know there are some people that were called the Abuja politicians because of the calibre of the dresses they wear; because of the people they know. They wanted to make noise and pretend that they are relevant in their states.
We had our ward congresses in the 244 wards in Sokoto State. We had appeal committees. We had our congresses in the 23 local governments in the state. Everything was successful. Suddenly, we heard that somebody had conducted a parallel congress in Abuja. How can you conduct a parallel congress in Abuja? It was funny. It was just funny.
Furthermore, they also went to an Abuja High Court on a matter in Sokoto. They went to an Abuja High Court because of the connivance. Somebody went to a Judge in Abuja. You know some of the lower court judges who are known for compromising. Even after knowing that he had no jurisdiction, he entertained it which is wrong.
I hope the National Judicial Council (NJC) would be hard on such judges. But there is a fundamental difference between the actual crisis and the stories being told in newspapers and in Abuja.
Let anybody come to Sokoto and find out what is APC and who is APC. A politician that can’t deliver his polling unit and has no relevance to his people, such people call themselves politicians in Abuja, by the way, they are part of Nigeria’s problems.
In Sokoto, we don’t have a sitting governor. So, who is fighting who? Almost all the elected lawmakers are on one side. Maybe one or two persons from Abuja decided to use them to get relevance. That doesn’t bother us, because we know it was a lie and it will remain a lie, no matter who is behind it, it will remain a lie.
What do you make of the emergence of Senator Abdullahi Adamu as APC National Chairman?
Abdullahi Adamu is my senior. He was governor before me. He was also in the Senate before me and is also my senior by age. He was in politics before me. He was a secretary in NPN in the late 70s under Shagari. So Abdullahi Adamu is a very experienced politician. And I am sure that under his leadership, the APC is going to be more stable and it is going to achieve better results Insha Allah.
