Daily Trust: As a governor, did you have a convoy?
Alhaji Abdulakadir Balarabe Musa: I was followed by a police convoy and I don’t think the cars were more than five.
DT: What type of car did you use?
Musa: It was a Peugeot 504. It cost between five thousand and five thousand four hundred naira.
DT: Were all the cars the same?
Musa: Virtually all the cars were Peugeot brands, including the governor’s.
DT: How many cars were in your convoy?
Musa: I think they were five cars, one for the governor, one for the Aide De Camp (ADC), one spare car, and police cars. But one or two Peoples Redemption Party (PRP) political party cars were allowed to join in the convoy and they were all Peugeot 504 cars. The ADC sits in the front of the car and the orderly in another. I think the cars were brought directly from Peugeot Company to save cost and not through a contractor.
DT: Were the cars bullet-proof as is the case nowadays?
Musa: I doubt it.
DT: Were you using sirens?
Musa: My convoy used sirens, but it was with a limit.
Even the army, police, prisons, everybody uses the siren today. I think something has to be done because it is being abused. Today, even private offices can hire the police. In Southern Nigeria, if you see the security of former governors, it is unbelievable. This may be due to the level of insecurity there. But the case is better in Northern Nigeria.
DT: What do you think should be done?
Musa: First, reduce the level of impunity and poverty in this country. Also, the level of abuse of power. With these, it will be helped.
DT: You still use a manual vehicle in this era of automatic cars. Does someone drive you?
Musa: No. I drive myself.
DT: How old are you?
Musa: I am eighty years old now.
DT: The Federal Road Safety Commission has said if one is seventy, he is not to have his license renewed…
Musa: Tell them to employ a driver for me. If I’m traveling outside Kaduna to distant places, like Zaria or beyond, I don’t drive myself. I allow somebody to drive me. I used to drive myself anywhere in Nigeria when I was seventy years old.
DT: Why do you like driving yourself?
Musa: Well I don’t like to argue with a driver. They can be careless and secondly, once he is your driver, you take responsibility of his family. I just cannot afford it. I drive myself to my farm in Kwanar Farakwai, which is about forty kilometers.
DT: Do you drive at night?
Musa: My vision is still good.
DT: How do you handle a flat tyre or any other vehicle fault?
Musa: Recently, my petrol finished and I didn’t know. The car had not been serviced for long so it consuming petrol. It stopped at NDA in the evening and I thought it was something mechanical, so I called a mechanic and he said it is due to lack of petrol, so I put a gallon of petrol and drove home.
Also, I change my car tyres. People easily recognize me and say, ‘Baba you have to let us change the car tyre for you’. Even today, when the car developed a fault, it was the police that pushed it to the side of the road for me.
