Senator Shehu
Sani is a first time lawmaker, representing Kaduna Central on the platform of
the All Progressives Congress (APC). He’s also the Chairman, Senate
Committee
on local and foreign debts. He said 2019 election will be an acid test for
every politician willing to test their popularity among the people.
He called on
President Muhammadu Buhari not to endorse any APC candidate through the
traditional raising of hands of such candidates, but allow everybody to be
tried and judged by his or her performance in office. Senator Sani in this
interview with Sun news correspondence, NOAH EBIJE in Kaduna, also talked about his fight with the Kaduna
State governor, Malam Nasir El-rufai, saying he is not just fighting the
governor, but he is doing so for the good of the people and the state. He
hinted that he is considering running against the governor in 2019.
Distinguished
Senator, you are always on the move, attending to people in and outside your
constituency. What do you intend to achieve with this?
When one is
elected into office, there are moral and political obligations to deliver on
the promises and pledges of one’s campaign.
And central to this is the need for
elected persons to keep in touch with their constituencies.
Once people
are elected into office, they cut off from the electorate until another
election season is around, and this void, usually becomes the gap that exists
between the government and the governed. The most important thing we should
always put in mind is the very fact that a man elected into office is not there
to serve himself, but to serve his people, and as an activist, I am one who
professes a political ideology that tends to the left.
Our politics is
rooted in the hearts of our people. I represent the downtrodden, and I stand
for them, and I am here to defend their interest. I come from a movement,
movement that was founded on the ideology of liberation of the Talakawas (The
downtrodden), the movement that was founded on the ideology of justice,
of freedom and of progress. I am of a revolutionary stuff, one in which the
advancement of the common good of the weak, the dispossessed, the downtrodden
is central to my own kind of politics.
As an activist
during the military era, we were in the forefront of the struggle for
democracy, and in the process, we confronted military regimes, and we suffered
a lot of consequences. Many of us were imprisoned, many were killed, and many
were forced into exile.
I was among those who served jail term in the struggle
for democracy in this country. I was arrested many times, and I had been jailed
many times. I had been through Kaduna prison, Kirikiri prison in Lagos, Port
Harcourt prison in Rivers State and Aba prison in Abia State during the
military era of General Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida, and late General Sani
Abacha. I was released in 1998 on the eve of Nigeria’s transition to democracy.
My participation in politics is to practically realise those very ideals and
principles which we fought for as activists.
But history
has been doctored, because we were for protest, prison and parliament, triple
P, so in many countries of the world, you find that many people paid prizes
before they run to offices. And one of the reasons why we have lost the
currency of change and currency of democracy, and it has to do with the very
fact that many of those who found themselves in political position, in power
after 1999 have not actually been part of the struggle for democracy in this
country. And they don’t know the prize of it and they have not made any
sacrifice for it.
And today, 17 years of our democracy, our country ought to
have been better politically, economically and socially. But the amount of
money that has been pumped into the system and realised within this period of
time, is not in anyway commensurate with the level of development we have seen.
We have moved, before 2015, from disappointment to disgust, we have moved from
a bewildered to a beleaguered nation, without a change in 2015, Nigeria would
have been a worst place it had never been in the history of this country. So my
politics is part of the Talakawas, and it is on that ideology that
I run my office.
You
were in prison with who and who?
I was in
prison with the likes of General Olusegun Obasanjo, who later became President
in 1999, Col Lawan Gwadabe (rtd), Chris Anyanwu and other journalists. And just
as I have said, I was detained in various prisons; Kirikiri, Lagos, Kaduna, Port-Harcourt,
Enugu and Aba.
Would
you say that your prison experience gave you political upper hand among other
politicians?
The experience
of prison is good for a political career because it will prepare you for the
tough challenges ahead, it will prepare you for the crisis, for the problems,
for the battles that you may likely fight along the way. You can see how
politicians… the roads, prisons, they passed through, the Nelson Mandelas,
Walter Sisulus, Mbekis, and other politicians who have all struggled for
freedom and apartheid colonialism, you can see how they were able to lay a
solid foundation for their country.
I am well
prepared to fight every battle, because I have gone through battles, and the
battle that is being fought now cannot be compared to that under military
regimes. Under the military, I organised protest, and it had to be
underground, and we had to go off radar, and we also have to prepare to be
shot, but in the present day, you can see most protests that are organised in
Abuja, you see the protestants holding handsets and laptops, and sometimes even
sipping juices while they are protesting, and even cold water being brought to
them in packs and water coolers, and you see them even conversing with the
police, and even begging them. Nowadays, people can post anything, criticise
anybody, write any article and publish.
But that was
not the case under military rule. Many journalists were sent to prison, many
workers, members of trade union were sent to prison, many leaders of democratic
organisations were pushed to prison, many were killed by hired assassins, some
were shot during protest, many were forced into exile, and many were
incapacitated. This was the prize which we paid, and which prepared a person
like me to withstand the battles we are fighting as politicians.
2019
election is around the corner, how would you predict Kaduna State election for
the governorship, Senatorial seats, House of Representatives as well as the
State House of Assembly?
Well, of all
the states in the North, Kaduna is the most strategic for politics. In the
first place, Kaduna State is the only State in the North with a PDP Senator.
And from public opinion, if you go to Sokoto, Kebbi or Zamfara, it is easier
for you to sail through the ruling party. But in Kaduna State, a good number of
factors will certainly affect the fortunes of the party in power and affect the
possibility of a smooth election that will come ahead.
First of all,
there is in fighting and factions within the ruling party in the State.
The chairman of APC that is recognised by the national secretariat of the party
is different from the one which the State Governor monopolises, and there are
factions that exist now, which without the close of ranks and finding solution
to this problem, we are heading towards a serious crisis. And the fortunate
thing has to do with the fact that the opposition party is factionalised at the
top, but it does not appear to be factionalised at the state level. Even if APC
has popular support, there are a number of things that affect it; first all, it
has to do with the fact that you can see it and feel it when you listen to the
common people, they are all discontented with the situation in the country.
They are angry over the lack of unity in our party, and they are all angry with
the quarrelling and the ceaseless confrontation that exist in the party. So,
put all these things together, you will see that things need to be put into
proper perspective before we go for election, if not, certainly there will be a
lot of surprises by 2019 in Kaduna State politics.
Recently,
there was the meeting of APC-AKIDA, the split group, as well as government
faction of APC, so to say. What was the outcome of the meeting of the split
group, which we believe you attended?
Well, the
meeting I attended was our own APC, the one organised by the state along Tafawa
Balewa Way, and I learnt that Government House APC organised their own in
another hotel. I could see that in our own meeting, we were categorically clear
that we own the party in the state because the chairman that is recognised by
the national secretariat is the one whom we owe our allegiance to while the Government
House APC is operating with a chairman that is recognised by the State
governor. So, this is the situation of the party in the State. They have made
their own resolution, and pretending that there was no crisis, and we have made
our own resolution, affirming that, certainly, there are issues on the ground,
and it is on that ground that the national secretariat set up a reconciliation
committee headed by the governor of Katsina State, Aminu Bello Masari. He was
mandated to reconcile all the factions, and we have made our submissions to
him, but he couldn’t get serious cooperation from Government House of Kaduna
State. So, as far as we are concerned, we are the party and they are the rebel
group of the party.
Why do
you call it Government House APC?
Yea, it is because you cannot differentiate between
the party in the state and the executive arm of the state government. In our
own group, there are no people holding executive positions. When you call a
party meeting, and fill it up with commissioners, advisers, special assistants,
then it means that it is a government house party, while our own here is made
up of politicians who are founding members of the APC in Kaduna State. The
other side are the ones on the record of suspending me for criticising the governor
of the state. They suspended me about 13 times for criticising the governor.
So, I don’t know, now that he has criticised the President, I recommend that
the suspension that was given to me should also be given to him because he was
the brain behind such suspension. He felt that people should not criticise
others, but he has found himself doing that. He too should be much
criticised and suspended the same way I was suspended from the party.
We know
that the last time you came face-to-face with Governor El-rufai was when he
paid you a condolence visit over the death of your mother. One thought that you
should have used that occasion to bury the hatchet because we also gathered
that your mother, before she died, pleaded with you to mend fences him. Why
won’t you obey your mother?
I don’t think
she ever said such a thing to me. She was not a politician, she only prayed for
me, and she knew me very well as a man of principle. She stood by me all
through my struggles. So, just keep her out of Kaduna politics. Actually,
Governor El-rufai came to condole with me when my mother died, and I was very
grateful for that, but just three days after he condoled with me, he was on TVC
television attacking me. It was an interview on TVC in which he attacked me,
unprovoked attack. Two days after he came, either him or his people
sponsored certain persons to go on radio and attack me, and attacking me on
radio was not free. This is what they have been doing, and in that aspect, I
could not simply hold my arms because you came to condole with me, you shook my
hand with one hand and with the other hand, you tried to stab me, that is not
going to work. So, when he came to condole with me, that was supposed to have
ebbed the crisis, but unfortunately, he started the crisis when he left my
house, and I could not hold it, I have to give it back to him. So that is it.
But I can tell
you that there were some interventions by leaders from Tudun Wada. They pleaded
that we should end the crisis, we agreed. But I told them very clearly that if
he attacks me, I will certainly respond, but I will not be the first to attack,
and that has been my continuous position. I said this, since he engineered my
suspension by doing a lot of things, I had no option when he wrote a memo which
he leaked by himself, but he is claiming that he was not the one that leaked
it. If you wrote a memo to Buhari, one person out of the two could have leaked
it, either it was Buhari that leaked it, or it was El-rufai that leaked the
memo. So I stand with the school of thought that he was the one that leaked it.
So, for the fact that he launched such attacks, then I have to respond. That
was what I told the leaders.
In that
case, when will your political fight with El-rufai come to an end?
I think the
fight is not about me and him, but the future of the party in the state. If you
ask me about him, what I may say about him may not be fair, and if you ask him
about me, what he may say about me, may not be fair, but I think the common
people in Kaduna here, if you want to get a popular opinion about me and him, I
believe you should go to the market, go to the parks, meet traders, go to the
streets and hear public opinion, and I agree, whatever position we come up
with, is the true opinion of the people as far as this issue is
concerned. The war going on here is not simply between me and him, but about
the party. The chunk of the people who contributed to the success of the party
in the state are marginalised. They are completely ostracized, and he is
bringing in people who virtually did not contribute to the success of the party
in the state. This is what he is doing, and he wants everybody to tow the line,
it is not possible. Kaduna is not Abuja where he served as a Minister. This is
a state with a people whose life and livelihood depend here, people who have no
home, but here, people who have nowhere to go, but this place. So if you are
bringing in policies and programmes, which these people are against, then we
have to know that the end result would probably not be you alone, but you
should carry other persons along who share the same party with you.
Governor
El-rufai was quoted to have said that you are not happy with him because he did
not give appointments to candidates you nominated for commissionership. What is
your reaction to this?
I think you need to go through the memo which he has
written, where he complained that governors were not consulted when political
appointments were given. Did he consult me in the state or is it ok for
President Buhari to give El-rufai appointment at the federal level and it is
not ok for El-rufai to give Shehu Sani appointment in his own government? I
think he is just a hypocrite, he stands against all that he is saying, and all
that he has written in the memo, he is also guilty of it. If he said Buhari has
a cabal, he has a cabal in Kaduna, if he said Buhari is incompetent, he is more
incompetent than Buhari, if he said Buhari doesn’t listen to advice, he also
doesn’t listen to advice, if he said Buhari is not giving appointment to the
people who contributed to the success of the party, he too is not giving
appointment to the people who contributed to the party in the state. So, what
are we talking about? He should practise what he preaches.
On many
occasions during your programme, street parliament, where you meet with the
people of your constituency to ascertain their needs, many of them actually
said you should run for the governorship. What is your thinking now that 2019
election is fast approaching?
Well, as for
2019, it is still far away. What is on the ground now is for us to deliver on
the promises and pledges we have made as elected officials. So I have heard
such a call, and I will answer that call at the right time. I may decide to
seek to return to the Senate, I may decide to vie for the governorship of Kaduna
State, and I may decide not to vie for any of the positions again, it all
depends on the feeling from my people of what they think I should be able to
overcome. The 2019 election is not going to be like 2015 election; under
2015 election, many people won election by virtue of their allegiance to
Buhari, but by 2019, everyone will answer his own father’s name. We are
advocating for people to go and vote for their conscience, and not to vote for
anybody because of Buhari. Even if Buhari is going to contest election, vote
for Buhari alone, and each and every one of us who wants to contest, we have to
put him on the scale whether that person is capable, whether that person has
performed, whether that person will truly serve after voting him into power. So
2019 is going to be a year in which everyone is going to stand in the dock to
be tried by the voters. So 2019 is not an election time, it is a trial time,
and truly it is a judgment time for our conduct while in office.
Perhaps,
prior to 2019 electioneering campaigns, many candidates will be looking forward
to Buhari to endorse them by raising up their hands as it was the case during
2015 campaigns. What is your advice to Buhari?
I call on Buhari not to raise up anybody’s hand, not
to campaign for anybody, not to advocate for anybody, not to ask anybody to
vote for anybody. I think he should continue with his own philosophy; he
belongs to nobody, and he should belong to nobody. His idea, the strategy of
raising people’s hands has turned out to be acidic to many people. And
sometimes he would think that he has raised up the hands of a Saint, but he
never knew that it is the hand of a devil that he raised. Sometimes he would
think that he has raised the hands of a lamb, but he doesn’t know that it is
the hands of a lion that he has raised. Sometimes he raised the hands, but he
doesn’t know that it is claws that he has raised. In that kind of situation I
am calling on President Muhammadu Buhari to desist from raising any body’s hand
for 2019 election. He should allow every person to stand trial and be judged by
his own people.
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