Adamu Garba, a chieftain of the All Progressives Congress (APC), has the ambition to, one day, become the Nigerian President. In this interview with BODE OLAGOKE, he speaks on why he called for the postponement of the party’s national convention slated for February 26 and why APC should embrace consensus arrangement
What happened to your ambition of 2019? Are you still warming up for 2023?
The ambition is still very alive. Nothing has changed except the fact that we have learnt a good lesson with what we did in the 2019 election. We are willing to even do so after taking some corrections. And also we learnt so much about the country, and farther than what we had before, we are improving on our vision for the country. We are now currently at the stage of consultations. We still remain solid. Nothing has really changed.
You are going to join the likes of Tinubu, Umahi, and others. Are you consulting too?
I am consulting everyone. I believe when it comes to election time, of course, the president is the leader. But he won’t be happy seeing that you are waiting for him. He will be more appreciative if we move around talking to ordinary Nigerians. For me, we have to keep consulting so that we can reach everybody. Definitely I am consulting and in this 2022, I will come out to contest.
How will you face the cabals?
The cabals in the party are very pragmatic politicians and they understand the challenges facing the country today. And they can hear the yearnings of the people calling for fresh blood and minds. They all understand that we have been doing our best for this long period of time. So, I believe and we have been talking to them. I recall the call I made privately to discuss in the process of this consultation. They are very happy and willing to run with the vision we are presenting. They will also look forward to the future we are preparing for their children and grandchildren. So, securing their blessings is corresponding to securing the blessings of the younger population of the country we have already. I am sure the cabal will be happy to find a new president in their lives that they nurtured, guided and supported while they are still live to witness the future transformation of Nigeria from the older to a newer generation.
It is said that there are cabals in APC who decide what and how in the party?
I don’t like you to sugarcoat anything . In every country, not just Nigeria, there are groups of people charged with the responsibility to determine the leadership direction of the country. So, naturally, however we want to say it, there are people responsible for filtering who should be leaders of the party. For instance, if you come to the APC, how many delegates do we have? Over 8000 delegates come to vote. We have how many people in APC? 41 million. We can call that 8000 delegates the cabal of the party. So, it is happening everywhere. So, it is fine.
What do you have to say on zoning?
The arrangement came from the military. It was the military guys that determined the rotation of the presidency and they decided whether South or North. You can see how polarized the country is. So, we live in an elite consensus. I am not coming out to contest as an elite. I am contesting as someone who doesn’t care about the north or west, east or south. Christian or Muslim. All I care about is that you are a human being and a Nigerian. Our generation will pay more attention to being a Nigerian than those sections. Our consultation is even more strategic because it will show clearly that the new generation of Nigerians are not ready to accept that North/South divide. They are going for unity and they demonstrate it by voting for a younger generation that they believe comes from Nigeria.
What is that thing that President Muhammadu Buhari has not been able to do that you want to do?
I think what we intend to do is to consolidate on the successes of President Muhammadu Buhari. He has done his best given the number of challenges he met and, especially, on the issue of insecurity, even though we may want to condemn, we have so many issues in the north west. And we hope to have peace in the zone too as we move forward. I believe the president became a prisoner of the Nigerian system because it is designed in such a way that no matter how great or excellent you become, if you get to the centre, especially, the presidency without an extensive plan to fundamentally transform the country, from its basis, roots arrangement, it might not be easy. So that gap, I believe, is one thing the president is unable to achieve, maybe due to age, some constraints from the people around him. But this is the area we intend to be able to achieve when we get there.
Should age be a factor on who administers the country?
I don’t agree with it. I don’t believe age should be a factor on who becomes the leader of the country. I believe the plan of action should determine who desires to be a leader. Somebody like me, I always say I am not a youth candidate. They should stop calling me a young man. I have two wives and 8 children. And I am 40 years old. So, what is youth age? I want to be the president of Nigeria whether youth or young, that is my target. It has nothing to do with age. It has nothing to do with age. It has everything to do with the capacity to deliver.
What is your assessment of all the aspirants that have declared in connection with the internal wrangling in the APC?
Yes, I think it is fantastic. APC is a darling that everyone wants to ride. I call it the most beautiful woman everybody wants to marry. And that is why you have so many governors, former Governor of Lagos state, Bola Ahmed Tinubu, David Umahi, Urji Uzor Kalu, Rochas Okorocha and Co. All of them are coming to contest and it shows how remarkable the party is. It shows that so many people are showing interest far better than the opposition PDP. But again, what do they have on the table? It is not about wanting to be president or I feel like I am entitled. It is just that I want to be the president because I have something fundamental I will do to change the structure of this country. To build the necessary lifestyle or life expectancy. Nigerians will want to better their system, economy, security, health care, education etc. There must be a program plan of actions that are pragmatic and implementable which are in tune century. That can work in Nigeria and suit our international partners interest in addition to what you are planning to bring on the table. This is what you can do first to show you are fit to be the president of Nigeria. It is not about I was a former governor or I am the current governor or I have this entitlement that I build people. These things are not enough for a manifesto. What an ordinary guy wants on the street is better money in my pocket. Therefore, I need job to be able to earn this money. I don’t want to go to the market and buy things too expensive because it is inflating or removing all the money I am supposed to save for my better tomorrow. What are you going to do to better the lots of people? That’s should be our major concern.
There is this notion that once President Muhammadu Buhari is out of power, the party will collapse. Do you share the view?
I don’t agree with that notion. But I believe president Buhari is a very strong force in APC. After the merger, he brought about 12 million votes. That is a very large votes. And he still commands reasonable respect among these people. And he is a strong force in the party. But I believe APC has now transformed into an institution perhaps due to the president’s level of democratization in his own way of interaction with the party. The president never imposes candidates or decisions. He never imposes certain processes to take place in the party. He allows the party to do what they should in a very consultative way so that things can happen. With this current status of APC, it has transformed into an institution. Becoming an institution means institutionaliation of APC by President Muhammadu Buhari.
You recently called for the postponement of the APC National convention. What informed that move?
What I wanted to achieve is a peace and united party as we confront 2023 general elections. We have a very serious internal wrangling in the party. You know, as you said before, we talk about camps. ANPP, ACN, CPC, you have APGA. And the nPDP. And lots of democratic parties that have joined to form APC. If you go back to the states, there are issues between the state Governors existing and the state Legislators. And again, you have the issues between sitting governors and former. There are a lot of confusions. So, when you have this kind of confused arrangements, if you pay attention to only reconciling the governors, you are only addressing one part of the issues. There are so many parts of the problems. And this is the kind of situation we have found ourselves in. In 2013, 2014, PDP crashed and APC became net gainer of it. So, we should avoid this kind of situation. And we now have a caretaker Extraordinary Convention Planning Committee under Mai Mala Buni that was instituted by the President himself and of course recently, the court of law validated that it is legal. And this guys are doing everything possible to stabilize the party. And so far, we have gained so many members into the party than we have ever gotten. And we have achieved so much stability than we can dream of. So since They have demonstrated this capacity, then give them extra time to make sure that we conciliate some of this toxic deep interest. There are interest whether we like it or not they might end up leaving the party. There are some people that we cannot lose in the party. Why because they are genuine lovers of the party. They have their sweat and blood in the party. So, you have to find a way to give them a level playing ground. And this interest needs to be attended to for proper conciliation. And since we are now approaching the convention ground, these warring parties with all their arsenals, then if we are able to achieve the unity fine, we can go to the convention. But if we are not able, let us have an extra opportunity for the main time for this CECPC to succeed in bringing and mainstreaming the majority stakeholders of the party before we go public. Convention is a public show. And I don’t believe it is good for us to go for convention without appearance. I don’t believe as a party, we should go into convention with contestations. Of course, it is democratic to contest outside, but inside the family affairs, we have to be able to sit together and agree that this is our leader. We all trust him. So, going into the convention ground with contestation is not solid for us. We have to wait and conciliate, filter one candidate across the board, ensure a unity list and once we go there we anoint them. It is a family affairs. We show our celebration and we go and take our dinner then we go for it.
Are you calling for consensus?
I am calling 100% for consensus
What are your fears for the February 26th convention?
Seriously, if we do not put our house in order, and pay serious attention to this contesting interest, we might end up having an implosion. There are other people waiting for this implosion. I am sure you are monitoring what is happening in the party. There is this emergence of mega party and it is deliberate this time around. It is a combination of strong interest. They are interested in breaking both the APC and PDP to emerge and win elections. This is ongoing. The strongest broker to that success is the success of APC. That means the merger party will do everything possible to see APC break so that they can gain from it. So, we should not allow them. Even if it warrants giving extra time, even it if means giving more months for the CECPC to regularise the fake membership within the party, we will be able to do that. If we fail in this convention, it will be difficult to win power. You cannot go to war field without an effective general who has the support of the majority of his lieutenants. If the lieutenants break themselves from within, and the house divided against itself cannot stand. That is exactly what we are trying to avoid.
How much support did you get from the APC government when developing your app?
This kind of application is not government owned. They are supposed to be freely available. I will expect that the APC being my government, it is good for it to be on the application. I should expect that naturally. But, it is just an expectation not an instruction. There is no way I am entitled to it. But it went viral and about 63,000 Nigerians are sitting on the application to use it. That is the situation we are in now. The support is zero point zero. Are you expecting government support for it like the way it is with Twitter and Instagram, it is okay. But since they are on Twitter and Instagram, maybe Adamu Garba’s government can do that.
Are you disappointed with it?
I can’t say because it is a democratic application. People will have to decide to be there. They don’t have to say I am entitled, I have to be convinced. One of my wives initially didn’t want to but I was chatting with my other wife on it until the other one became convinced that she wants to join too. And she joined. So you will always accept an individual’s disposition to join it and play the role.