Barrister Ismail Ahmed is the representative of youths in the 13-member national caretaker committee of the All Progressives Congress (APC) being chaired by the Governor of Yobe State, Mai Mala Buni. In this interview, Ahmed, who is the Senior Special Assistant on National Social Investment Programme to President Muhammadu Buhari, speaks on the forthcoming national convention of the party, zoning and other burning issues.
The national convention of the APC has been fixed for February. Why the delay tactics initially?
In politics everything has to be done in accordance with the prevalent existing circumstances. When we came in as a caretaker committee in June last year, we had an initial mandate of six months. But the task that was given to us was not what we could have reasonably completed within that time, especially when you consider the fact that 2020 was a pandemic year.
It was not delay tactics because we started ward congresses; that is the procedure. We did ward congresses, we have done local government congresses and we have done state congresses. Some of the state congresses have issues and we have not been able to complete them. So we cannot go to the national convention reasonably without resolving some of the issues that arose from the state congresses. I think that is part of what the governors discussed with the president and he graciously approved February as the sacrosanct date for all issues to be resolved.
We are not afraid of convention. I’m sure there would be some sort of agreement that would be reached by the stakeholders and the leaders of the party on who are going to be the managers of the party, and where there is going to be open contestation, we are going to streamline it.
When you talk about issues to be addressed, agreements to be reached, are you talking about zoning?
This zoning issue has never been a big thing like that. You shouldn’t necessarily forget that APC is not very big on zoning. It is very big on balancing; not necessarily zoning. Because in our 2014 primaries, if you remember, December, 2014, when we had primaries at which President Muhammadu Buhari emerged, there were five people that contested for the presidency. Only two of them were from the same zone, all the others people were from different political zones. Atiku Abubakar was from the North East; late Sam Nda-Isaiah was from the North Central and Rochas Okorocha was from the South East. It was only Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso and President Muhammadu Buhari that were from the North West, and it was a hotly contested election.
And even the 2014 convention that happened in August that brought about Chief John Odigie-Oyegun as chairman of the party; it was not as if there was an open committee that said, “We have zoned this, we have zoned that.” It wasn’t like that. There was an internal agreement where we could balance things based on certain things, but right now I cannot pre-empt what the NEC of the party will do. The NEC may decide to set up a zoning arrangement committee, they may decide to just leave it as an informal arrangement, but one thing I know absolutely is that there would be some sort of agreement among the stakeholders of the party on who and where certain things should go to.
Oyegun emerged through consensus, likewise Adams Oshiomhole, are you saying the next chairman of the party will also emerge through consensus?
I am hoping so. I am not saying it’s definite; we are not going to preclude anybody who wants to contest, but I’m hoping that there would be a consensus from the stakeholders on who becomes the national chairman.
But this consensus you are talking about has raised a lot of concerns. Some even question the legality of people sitting in a room and saying, “We are adding two months or three months for the committee.” How appropriate is this?
Those who are questioning the legality of that probably don’t understand what transpired at the last NEC meeting. The NEC donated its power to the caretaker committee based on that. But the caretaker committee is not the one that sits down and decide that they have extended their term. All these things are done in consultation with critical members of NEC; who are the governors, the presidency and some other stakeholders of the party.
But it’s not just an extension that is arbitrary, and to be honest with you, I share some of the concerns with members of the party, that we don’t want to stay any longer than necessary. In fact, what we had wanted at the beginning was to make sure that we had a convention in a different year that our primaries would hold so that whatever issues we may have at our congresses and convention will not spill over into our primaries. That has always been our goal.
Some people are saying you are dilly-dallying about the convention because you are not sure of what would be the fallout due to lack of consensus at this moment in the party, how true is that?
If a party is this popular, this huge and it is in government, then there is a tendency that people will fight to the finish. It is human nature, especially the kind of politics where some people believe it’s a zero sum game – “my loss is somebody else’s gain, his gain is my absolute loss.” It shouldn’t be that way.
People can say whatever they want about this national chairman, but he has been an incredible stabiliser of the party. He has stabilised with his open door policy of accommodating a lot of people and all of us as caretaker members. I think there is a lot of unfair criticism on the way some of these things are handled. But by and large, I think as party members, people have the right to raise their concerns about things in some cases.
It is surprising that you are saying there is stability when there are about 13 states that have not conducted their congresses?
There is no party of this nature moving into an elections year that will hold congresses from the ward level without hitches. We have 1,812 wards, 774 local government areas, 36 states, plus FCT, and you expect there would be no crises?
The stability I am talking about is that prior to the constitution of the committee a lot of people didn’t even think we would be able to conduct the congresses. The fact that we have done them and now are trying to resolve issues that arose from them; that is progress.
You have the PDP on the other hand without a government in their hand but they are still not able to do their zonal congresses in the North West for example, and they have only one state in the North West; we have six.
Many PDP chieftains, including the national chairman-elect, are saying that there won’t be APC after the convention; that the party is going to explode?
That is their hope. It is not our fear. PDP said they were going to rule for 60 years. PDP is a joker, I don’t take them seriously. There would be a party; we would win the election in 2023 God’s willing.
There is also this talk out there that your party has nothing to show to campaign for the presidency in 2023, especially because of the increasing level of insecurity and poverty. How possible is for the party to retain power in 2023?
There is a plethora of things we are going to campaign with; absolutely a lot. The issue of insecurity is something that bothers a lot of us. What we have been able to quench in one part of the country somehow rears its ugly head in another part of the country in a different form or shape; both very deadly.
Also, our ability to shore up agricultural produce; if you go to the market, you can’t even find foreign rice. Everywhere you go, you find out that rice mills are being opened all over the North and people are milling rice.
What I am saying is that, we are certainly not where we are meant to be; there are things that have come about that we did not anticipate. Insecurity is something that bothers us so much, but I know that the president is very serious about it and he is committed to make sure that we try as much as possible to mitigate the propensity for people to kill and maim others and then the security agencies are being given all the necessary equipment, tools and funding to address it.
When you look at the economy, some people are saying some of these policies are not really impacting on the common man. For instance, a bag of local rice now is N25,000 contrary to what it was when you came on board; it was N8000-N9000, are we making progress?
How much was a bag of rice in 1999 for example? In fact, how much was a bag of rice in 2010 and 2015? I am giving you an example of how it can increase every year depending on the inflation and how the economy is doing generally. How much was a bag of rice in 2010 and how much was a bag of rice in 2015 when we came on board? There was a significant 200 per cent increase; from 2010 to 2015, I am not talking of 2021. From 2010 to 2015 a barrel of oil of $100 and above.
There has been a lot of back and forth regarding the adoption of direct primary, what is your take on that?
As a normal citizen, an APC member, I absolutely love direct primary. I think it is inclusive, it opens the space, it allows members of the party to participate in the process of nominating their candidates, and I think it is the best way to produce candidates that are actually nominated by members of the party and they can defend that vote in the general elections.
Now do I have a reservation? I will say yes as a party leader. Because I have seen from first-time experience that because a lot of political parties do not have the requisite competence to manage their members in terms of elections, they become chaotic.
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