A former President of the Senate and presidential aspirant on the platform of PDP, Dr Abubakar Bukola Saraki, spoke with Mannir Dan-Ali of Trust TV. Below is excerpt from the interview.
Ahead of you is another big fight; another big opportunity, of possibly becoming president of Nigeria. When are you going to do the formal declaration?
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I plan to declare at the end of the month, March 31 precisely. I intend to declare but a formal announcement will come out too. We’ll have an event to formally declare my intention to run for president of this great country.
Why are you considering that? I mean, you did it before. And here you are throwing your hat in the ring again, for the second time?
I believe that Nigeria can be much better than where it is today. And I should be much better and I strongly believe in that dream of better Nigeria. I strongly believe I have something to offer to provide that better to Nigeria. When you look at where we are as a country, we are not going in the right direction. It requires fresh leadership. We provide leadership that can offer solutions and can address challenges Nigerians are having today.
But some will say you are part of the crowd that brought the current mess in Nigeria.
Yeah! People have asked me just like you’ve asked me that question; in 2014 and 2015. And a lot of people believe passionately that the APC then led by the president will come with a desire after so many years and so many attempts with a passion to make the country better. With three issues I remember, the issue of insecurity, Boko Haram in the North East, the issue of corruption and unemployment.
And it’s only gotten worse.
Exactly. I said in 2015 I was campaigning because I believed APC would make it better. And at the moment when I saw that was not going to happen, we parted ways. And that’s what separates me from a lot of those who are still in APC today. Because they all know that this is not what we promised Nigerians.
When the opportunity came, that is in 2019, you in the opposition, especially in the PDP couldn’t get your act together to push aside what you considered to be an incompetent government.
I’m not too sure that we didn’t get together. The discussions will still continue about the elections. I still believe that you know PDP did very well and won that election. Many areas are very questionable. I always tell people that if you look at the 2019 election, and you say that between Borno and Yobe that we all know were under insurgents, there were more votes cast in Borno than in Lagos where there was no insurgency.
But you didn’t challenge that enough in court.
No! We challenged that in court but we didn’t win and we have to respect that. At the end of the day, we went all the way to the Supreme Court.
But probably many will say that actually your party laid the foundation for Nigeria. You’ve been in power much longer than the APC or any other party.
Let me take it one by one. In the North West, we’ve never had a situation that we have today where in certain parts of the country people just cannot go out freely.
But the people of Dansadau in Zamfara will counter that and say look, we’ve been living with this problem for 15 years.
You can argue that Nigeria might have been a weak state. But today it has moved from a weak state to a failure. That is not debatable. And I think it is unfair on Nigerians who are going through so much pain for us to be arguing on those fine details. The reality is when you put yourself to vote, people vote for you to make promises. You say when I become president, or when my government party forms government, we will make your life better. And what we should ask ourselves is: Is life better secured? Are there more people who are unemployed, has the level of corruption gone down?
But why I’m raising this is that Nigerians who have known PDP rule are now likely to ask themselves what has changed in the PDP that I should again entrust myself to the very few people who created the problem in the first place?
I totally disagree with you when you say we created the problem. There were issues at the time. There was an issue of insecurity in the North East, it was not about insecurity in Nigeria. That was what people said. This government maybe has not been able to address it. We’re not happy. Fair enough. It’s the right of voters then they now tested this government.
Assuming now you are the candidate, what will you do differently?
I’ll tell you what I’ll do differently. Let’s take the first issue of fuel. There is no way under my watch that the country will continue to import 70 million litres a day. Because I know that it is not true.
The electric power which is another current challenge, which your own party said in six months it would be resolved. Twenty something years later, it hasn’t been resolved and out of those years your party was there for 16 years.
Fine and the party that came in campaigned and said they will make it better. Eight years now it is still what we did.
What about security? What will you do differently because tons of money, hundreds of millions, if not billions, of any currency have been thrown at the problem, and it just seems to be growing?
Well, definitely what I’ll do is to ensure accountability. There is no doubt that there is no accountability and that says no more. Two, people must be held responsible. Then we must improve the morale of men in uniform to ensure what needs to be done. We must bring in technology. It is embarrassing in today’s world in a country like Nigeria; we’re still battling things like kidnapping. There’s something wrong somewhere and that is why.
Many people seem to be saying, maybe behind your back, that you have a case at the EFCC; why should you be offering yourself to be president again?
I think we work with the law where people must be assumed innocent before you come to conclusions. If anybody has been fined, convicted, the laws are very clear. But we have seen in the past, and many of us have been victims of this kind of persecution. I am a good example. My only offence in 2015 was because I became Senate president.
Before that, your case was never in the EFCC?
Immediately when I finished my last months as a governor, the former chairman of the EFCC went to the floor of the Senate and said there were six states that he could say had clean bills – my state was one of them.
Let’s move on. You come from a big political family. Your dad was a Senate leader in the Second Republic. And then you became a governor and then a senator. Your sister was also a senator. However, this movement swept you off in 2019 election. What happened? What lessons have you learnt from that going forward?
Well, a number of lessons. I think there are many factors. Factor number one is that we must acknowledge that this was not just an election that was decided by local issues. We have to accept that. Even on the day of elections, there were fighter jets. We had never seen it before.
I thought you’re referring to the Buhari tornado that may have also helped to sweep you off.
No, no. There were issues outside the state, but also within the state. Right. There was a lot of propaganda. People felt that it was normal 30-40 years of leadership in any democracy. Sometimes they look; we want something different.
So what are you going to be doing differently going forward?
It was something different. They’ve got something different but they themselves are not telling us that we made a big mistake. They’ve seen the kind of administration. When we were in government, we didn’t have this kind of chaos. The party is in chaos. People are joining us daily. And one of the things we have done this time is to ensure there is more inclusion of the younger people and more women involvement.
You’re going to contest this election and it seems you don’t believe in the zoning party position or the presidential ticket to the South, having come from the North Central. What exactly is your view on this issue of zoning?
Zoning is important. But what I’m also saying is that at this particular time, you all know that this zoning came about in 1999 following the election of MKO Abiola. Now, today, zoning isn’t as important. There are other issues too that are important.
So, you are sweeping that aside so as to contest the election?
I’m not sweeping it aside. I’m saying that it must be looked into with other issues. And what some of us are saying is at the moment, we must search for the best. We must begin because there are many issues faced by Nigeria today. We don’t have the luxury of those sentiments.
If it turns out that the best is not you, will you support that person?
In 2019 when the party said the best was not me, I didn’t walk away. I stood up there and became the DG of the best. I have shown I’m a team player. I survived for years as Senate president because I’m a team player. It is not about me. I went in 2015 when we did APC. I did not contest with this president. I was part of those who fought. We must fight, and I’ve always shown it’s not about me. It’s about making Nigeria better. I believe Nigeria can be better. I believe based on my experience in the executive and the legislative arms of government, understanding the private sector, we need someone that understands what the issues are. We need someone who has the energy to be able to provide those solutions. We need someone to have the courage to take those decisions that a lot of governments have failed to take and that is why I believe that this is something I can do for Nigeria.
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