In this interview on Daily Politics, a programme anchored on Trust TV by Suleiman Suleiman, two members of the newly birthed The National Movement (TNM) – Professor Rufai Ahmed Alkali and Dr Farouk Bibi Farouk – speak on the concept and mission of the movement. Alkali is a former presidential adviser on political affairs and erstwhile PDP national publicity secretary while Farouk is a PDP former national youth leader and one time commissioner for lands in Kano State. Excerpts:
TNM is the latest idea of a third force political movement in the country; what is it about?
Alkali: Today, Nigeria is at a crossroads. Nigerians love democracy; we believe in the ideals of democracy. Nigerians are struggling for development. Nigeria wants to join the rest of the world, not to be compared with the lower ones but with those countries that have advanced. Nigerians are angry with themselves, angry with the system; they just feel that we are not supposed to be where we are today, that we are supposed to be miles and miles ahead.
And that is why when democracy came into this country in 1999, we thought that we have got the right thing, and on the way to achieving those objectives, but things are not working.
As of now, there is a lot of despondency, anger, bitterness, resentment and sometimes people fight one another without knowing the reason. Strange things are now happening in this country; crisis all over. In the past, we used to see them on television or we hear about them either in Afghanistan or Somalia and other places. But, they have creeped into this country.
As of last year, when this concept of coming together started, people were confused. We were hearing that small groups were emerging from nowhere saying they wanted to have a country of their own and they were taking up arms, fighting the police, the military, the DSS, civilians, destroying properties… you know, things were just scattered.
We felt, was it good for us to sit down in our various homes to complain bitterly that things are not working? So, it was against this background, just before the summer of 2021, (Rabiu Musa) Kwankwaso in his own wisdom started mobilising some of his friends and associates to sit down and talk. We felt there is need for us to ask ourselves the basic truth, to interrogate the situation and gradually, you won’t believe it, within a short period of time, more people joined and it wasn’t too long before finally that group of friends and associates transformed into a national movement and we felt that we must do something and urgently too.
Nigerians will say that members of the movement had at one time belonged to either the PDP or APC. So how is the TNM likely to make a difference?
Farouk: The idea that has brought this group together was the concern for the country, the dangers ahead and the realisation that something has to be done.
From the time of the PDP, we started to see some rots and even at that time, a lot of PDP members had started seeing failure of governance. Some of them left to form what is called APC in the hope that there was going to be a change in what was happening. But unfortunately, the APC seems to be competing to exceed the failures of the PDP with what we are seeing today. It took us to a much deeper state of misery, and the anxiety began to grow again. Are we going to allow this to continue in our country? We all have a stake and I think that is what motivated persons of like minds to start thinking of an alternative position, at least, and move this country on the basis of ideologies that could develop this country. The PDP was concerned more with removing the military and enshrining a democratic process. To that extent, it has succeeded with that ideology but then democracy is a means to an end. Without development, why bother about democracy?
The APC on its own came with an ambition and a mission to just remove the PDP from power and when they got into power, for one year, they didn’t have a direction because they didn’t know what to do about developing Nigeria. And so, we have spent seven years going to eight years without really seeing development in the 20 years of democratic investment in Nigeria. That calls for concern and that concern should start coming from people who have seen where the problems started and be able to begin to address and redress the situation. It is not accidental; I think it is natural.
We have had evolutions and counter evolutions of political movements and political actors in the country since 1998 not to talk of the ones before then. Since 2019, this is the third time that we are hearing of the third alternative. What is the guarantee that this is going to be different from the previous ones?
Alkali: First, let’s discard this notion that those who are part of The National Movement today have been part of PDP or APC or other political parties… after all, Nigerians are Nigerians. We are not going to bring Ugandans, Indians or people from Fiji or London to come and do this for us; we have to do it ourselves.
Secondly, that we were in the various political parties does not mean that we are clones; everybody has its own ideology. So, the notion that if you have been part of PDP or APC, so you cannot be different, is not correct. And that is why for the purpose of forming The National Movement, everybody was invited.
Last year, we were not talking about elections in this country. We were talking about how to bring back peace and unity in the country; all the bridges that have been broken among our people. We want to make sure that we bring our people together. People are taking up arms, all kinds of militia are emerging everywhere, people are creating flags, national anthems, even designing currencies; they want to move out of the country. Is it the kind of things you want people like us to sit down and watch?
So, those people that their minds are on elections will only look at it from that perspective. But ours is, first, there must be a country, there must be peace, and there must be stability. So, it is not a question of getting power or using power to your advantage, no! The first and most important point is that we must bring ourselves together and that is the issue.
When we approach elections, TNM will also be working. We will work together and see what we can do. The people forming this movement are not people you can take for granted. We are very serious about the future of our country and we are very sure that we are going to salvage this country.
Nigerians are used to promises sometimes by people with the highest level of integrity. For example, in 2015, there were few Nigerians who could say something and people believed or trusted more than President Muhammadu Buhari and many others within his party, the APC. What exactly is the national movement doing differently in concrete terms?
Farouk: Well, it is already different. Our experiences are that of set of people who have seen failure and are concerned about that failure and want to redress that situation. That was not what started PDP. We had relative peace when the PDP was formed; there was good neighbourliness, there was sufficient nationalism and nationality, and consciousness within us when APC came in.
But unfortunately, we have seen things deteriorate to the point where we are afraid that this country is going into the abyss and something has to be done. Even recently, some media people alongside politicians, businessmen, diplomats and so on got together and went to the president, explaining to him the problems of the country and the need to act.
Are you talking about the 2020 committee?
Farouk: Yes, and he gleefully sat down there not realising that they were telling him, ‘Sir you are the problem because you didn’t solve the problems.’
What can we expect from the TNM, is it going to be a pressure group or are you going to apply to INEC to register as a political party?
Alkali: Like I said, we are not sleeping; we are planning, organising and reaching out. We are looking for the best for the country. Whatever we are going to do, I am sure when the time comes, you will hear it. But definitely, what we are telling you is that we are looking at all the various options.
Are there people who share your views that are within the ruling party or even within the major opposition party right now? If you don’t have something like that, how are you going to transform all of these ideas into concrete issues in governance?
Farouk: I hope you are not saying that you have to belong to APC or government before you take things seriously. But the truth of the matter is even at the highest level of governance, people are concerned. Every patriotic Nigerian is concerned.
What are the precise or specific policy agenda that The National Movement has that would be different from what the PDP and APC have offered so far?
Alkali: Most of us are worried about what is happening in this country not necessarily under APC or under PDP, but over the years. One will say there is a feeling that there is conscious or deliberate effort to destroy the country. That is number one.
Why do I say that? If you see all the various sectors of the economy that hold this country together, they are being destroyed one by one. Take agriculture; with the crisis in Borno, North Central, North West and now North East, who among our famers can go to farm and produce goods and services? Today, Nigeria does not import very much significantly livestock products but with the massive destructions going on in the livestock industry, it will not be long before Nigeria starts importing virtually everything.
The market that our people depend on; local, national and international markets, with the kind of things you hear that you cannot travel from Abuja to Kaduna which is virtually the largest artery in the northern Nigeria and this has been going on for almost 10 years now; there must be something wrong with that.
Then, you see somebody going to the South East to say the people should stay at home. A typical south easterner is a businessman and then you tell him to stay at home for political gains. For how long will he stay at home? Who will pay the cost of this?
Now look at international travels, apart from all the restrictions, the airlines have doubled their air fare from nowhere and government is there watching them doubling at this time for no reason. Just as we are trying to exit from the coronavirus and the economy has not picked up, they’ve increased almost twice. This is part of the destruction of the economy as it were.
Even the oil sector, whenever government provides money for the refineries, they will divert it. When we want to revive the domestic capacity for refining petroleum, those importers will never support it. I believe The National Movement will come up with solutions to this kind of issues.
The security issue we are talking about, I rarely talk about security issues in this country because it is not my purview but I know that there are people who know this country very well. I know there are people who can put down their lives to defend this country. You cannot say our security agencies don’t know what they are doing, they know what they are doing but somebody somewhere is also working against the system and it is now affecting the country.
In this group, we are politicians but we are not interested in whether you are in this party or that party; come with your ideas. It is your ideas that will matter in this group and then, of course, your commitment to liberate this country. If you come with just your pity agenda and you want to get a position and then use your position to your advantage, I think you are not going to go far in this group.
There is a question that has been lingering but I was saving it for just about last. Who is funding the movement?
Alkali: One of the critical problems of the Nigerian political process is that people assume that people have to buy the political process and therefore become the major beneficiaries. When we started this movement, let me tell you, it is a group that came on its own; the issue of money has not even come up as an issue to us for now. It will come at the appropriate time.
You had a launch that must have cost money; even little organization involves money; so where did that come from?
Alkali: It comes from our heart. It comes from our commitment because there are people who cannot even sit down and talk. We are talking about sitting down and talking and getting results. So, for us, money is not an issue for now, because we first have to understand the problems; we have to understand the issues. In fact, at the initial stage, we did not even allow everybody to come anyhow into that meeting not because we were afraid of people to come and get information, no! But we wanted to look at the quality of people who will come. When we are strong enough, anybody can join. But at this initial stage, we are mindful of the quality of people, their antecedence and their commitment to the future of this country. Once you talk about funding of any organization, you are beginning to bring the issue of who controls the party or organization; who owns it.
The National Movement is owned by members; therefore, nobody will come tomorrow and say he is the godfather or godmother. It is our own commitment to make a difference in this country. If we do not migrate from that particular perspective, that agenda, that paradigm, then we will not make a difference.
There is the belief that one of the possible presidential candidates of either the PDP or APC is preparing the ground to come over in case he loses out on the ticket of any of the two parties.
Farouk: As small as I am in politics, do I look like somebody’s spare tyre? Does Prof (Alkali) or the other members look like somebody’s spare tyre? We think beyond them, we think beyond what is happening in the PDP and APC. They don’t have ideas; their performance is beneath our expectation. We are agitated because they are trying to destroy the whole system because of their inabilities. I have had invitations from more than four political groups. In my little career, I was a director in three campaign organizations apart from what I did in the party, presidential candidates. More than three have sent emissaries to me and I said no.
This movement will have baptism of ideas and from those ideas, we will find the direction. I have always said I can serve in any manner for anybody as far as it is for the benefit of this country.
Join Daily Trust WhatsApp Community For Quick Access To News and Happenings Around You.
