How I reclaimed my Kano Central mandate – Sen. Rufai Hanga

That’s a very difficult question to answer because it’s very abnormal. INEC doesn’t normally appeal cases of this kind. What happened was that the Electoral Act states that if somebody dies, withdraws from a contest, or resigns from a party, the law automatically allows the party to substitute him. Ibrahim Shekarau resigned from our party and withdrew from the contest. He wrote to us that he had resigned. He wrote to INEC that he had withdrawn from the contest. He wrote to the Senate that he was no longer a member of the NNPP. And that went viral; it was carried all over the media.

When my party decided to substitute me with him, we had our primary election, which I was lucky to win, and they took my name to INEC. INEC refused to substitute me for Shekarau. Shekarau phoned me and said, as a brother, he wanted to advise me not to waste my time and money on any campaign because he had spoken with the national chairman, and the national chairman was not ready to substitute him with any person; that certainly he would be the candidate.

Yes. He told me that. He later said it in the news on radio stations in Kano. I said thank you very much, and I went and told the party and the party said this INEC was serious and they didn’t want to do it. So, we took the matter to the Federal High Court, and it gave judgment in our favour. INEC, yet was adamant. They appealed to the appeal court, which was not willing to accept me.

So, they appealed, but we won the appeal again on the same ground because the court said the Electoral Act is superior to the INEC guidelines. Because the INEC argument was their guidelines, but the court said your guidelines are not superior to the Electoral Act. So, naturally, the act would have to succeed. Then they appealed to the Supreme Court but again lost on the same grounds. So, this is the situation.

There’s no point in doing that.

No, he hasn’t. But he’s my brother.

No ill-feeling.

Yes, I’ve been vindicated. Because you know initially there was this agreement—whether implied, expressed, written or whatever it is, it’s an agreement. But they denied it and were trying to make it difficult for Tinubu. And he has said that several times before.

Exactly. We have all seen this now. Tinubu had to fight tooth and nail to get through. And he had to fight tooth and nail because he is a fighter; otherwise, they would not want him there. And in fact, most of them have lost hope. El-Rufai was talking about some people in the villa trying to do that, and they were doing it here and there. Well, it’s God, when God decides to do something, nobody can stop it.

Because I am experienced. You know, it’s a matter of experience. I’ve been in this game for a long time, and I can read body language. And you know these people very well, I know Buhari, I know his people; we’ve been together for a long time. I know them. I know their utterances. I know their body language and so on and so forth. So, I made that prediction based on my experience, and it has come to pass.

No, Atiku scuttled his chances. That’s what I want to believe. Atiku scuttled his chances himself, not Kwankwaso. Let me tell you this, we’re after a very competent, credible and trusted person. Somebody who has done it. Somebody who people believe he can do that again.

Kwankwaso.

That’s my conviction. Yes, he’s better than Atiku.

Let me tell you why. If you want a leader that has delivered, a leader who can do it, a leader that is sincere. You want a clean leader that has no baggage: you get all these in Kwankwaso. Now, Kwankwaso is very educated. He has a PhD in engineering. Kwankwaso has worked. He worked with the state government and left service as a very senior officer.

Excuse me, let me land. He served in the state service and became a member of the House of Reps and was the Deputy Speaker in the House of Reps. He became governor two times in Kano and his governance was very exemplary. He was the Minister of Defence, he didn’t fail in his stewardship as a minister. He was an ambassador in Darfur. With this pedigree, there are all these CVs. He worked successfully.

Excuse me, he won only Kano as a matter of courtesy arrangement. One, they allowed him to win Kano.

The powers that be. We’re given free something to do our thing and we won the election clean. And like in other places where people are contesting in them.

That is what I believe. And that is why they kept on the propaganda that Kwankwaso has only Kano and Atiku and some people went on saying that Kwankwaso is not compromising. They’re making a regional undertone that Kwankwaso is spoiling things for Atiku; we want this man from the North, this Hausa man, Fulani man and all that kind of thing.

They allowed us to do elections, and we won. But in places like Jigawa, we have tremendous followership, but the elections weren’t done properly.

Yes, it was compromised. They manoeuvred. Let me tell you many reasons why it was compromised. One, our logo and the party name were not there. The logo was very shady. You don’t know what is there. And in some places, most of the ballot papers had no NNPP logo.

I don’t know; it’s not easy. We sat down and decided not to bother ourselves. We want peace.

We’re not satisfied, but what do we do? We don’t want to scuttle the whole thing. We don’t want problems for the country; we want the country to move forward.

No. I think that is not true. We’d have been nowhere. Let me tell you why. What the Labour Party did was a strictly religious campaign. They campaigned in churches. And this was like Atiku; he was strictly sectional.

No, we’re Nigerians, like Tinubu. Tinubu is not regional.

What kind of alliance, after the election?

Well, I can’t speak for my party because I am not the leader. I am just a common member of the party. We’re very democratic, even our supreme leader, Kwankwaso.

Yes, of course, he’s our supreme leader because the party is based on his ideology – Kwankwasiyya.

He is our supreme leader, but even the supreme leader doesn’t just come out and say, “Do this and that.” He calls his people, we sit down and discuss. And whatever is agreed upon is what he takes.

Never.

Exactly. That is why we succeeded, and that is why he is going to succeed, and we are going to succeed in the future.

How will it change?

Not in Kano, of course. But in some other places, it can.

Because it has never happened in Kano. Kano is always going the other way. We are going this way, and we are not turning back. That is Kano. We’ve already decided because our politics is the politics of ideology. We have Kwankwasiyya ideology in Kano, and we are going based on that.

There was a Buhari hurricane then, which is normal.

Yes, he is no longer on the ballot, and it’s regrettable that this happened. People are regretting it. It’s a hurricane, and it’ll never happen again. People are wiser now and we know better and I doubt if somebody would come and deceive people as Buhari did.

Yes, I left him.

Because he was posing himself as a messiah, as a pious somebody. Unfortunately, it’s not correct. You know, the best name he wants you to call him is Mai Gaskiya i.e. the trustworthy person. But it’s not true. He surrounded himself with people that have fat files with the EFCC, and he knows it. He surrounded himself with people that we know he had been accusing, saying they were this and that, and he surrounded himself with them now.

Well, it’s disappointing because I believed in him then, but I have seen the right thing now. I know him better.

Yes, because he is a total failure.

Well, he will, because he doesn’t know what is happening.

Yes, he has no capacity; it’s a fact that Buhari has no capacity. If somebody would take the country to where it is now and continue to believe that he is the best president ever in Nigeria; that he is the president that performed better than all others, and that is what he has been saying himself, that he performed better than all former leaders.

He is a dismal failure compared to all the rest.

I pray he does well because I am a Nigerian and I wouldn’t want Nigeria to suffer. I certainly pray for him to succeed, and I know he’d succeed. The only problem {with him} he looks sick.