Governor Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso is the incumbent governor of Kano State, and the All Peoples Progressive, APC candidate for Kano Central Senatorial constituency. In this interview with journalists in Kano he spoke on the exit of former president Olusegun Obasanjo from the ruling PDP, local government autonomy, alleged poor state of health of the APC standard bearer and his ambition to represent Kano Central in the Red Chamber. Abdulgafar Oladimeji was there. Excerpts:
The Senatorial election comes on March 28. You are vying to represent Kano Central Senatorial District at the upper chamber. How are you going to contribute to the nation’s development if elected as a Senator?
I want to say to you that after the APC presidential primaries, which by the grace of God and the support of Nigerians; I came second in the election, which I believe many people were surprised because initially, it was thought that the fight was between our two leaders (General Muhammadu Buhari and Atiku Abubakar). When we came back from Lagos, so many people came here and suggested that under the circumstance, they thought I was much better than the person who got the ticket. In fact, the candidate then was part of the team that came to me to suggest to that; maybe it was based on the experience that I have had over the years especially, don’t forget that I was in the National Assembly as Deputy Speaker of the House of Representatives, I had that experience; I was elected delegate to the National Conference in 1994/1995; and of course, I was governor here before now, I was Minister of Defence; I was in the NDDC and now back in Kano as governor again. I think it was based on this circumstance. I have told you my experience, you can judge to find out who is in a better position to be the senator; but I know very well that the sitting senator now, that we were together with him in the same party. We supported him in 2011 and he became the senator. When we were moving out from PDP, he was one of those who stayed back; and of course, he is not in our party; but he made efforts to come to get the ticket (under the platform of our party) through so many friends, he even came here directly, but I felt at that time it was fair for us to bring him in just because he wanted to get the ticket. Therefore, he had to go back and stayed there and contested to go back to the seat. I believe the senatorial seat requires a very experienced person, somebody who have been tested and trusted and I also believe that my being in the National Assembly again is not just for Kano Central or the state of Kano, I believe is for this country. And as time will tell, we have done well in other capacities and I am sure we will even do better in the National Assembly. There are many national issues that require people with a lot of experience; in addition to what I have told you, don’t forget I was a civil servant for 17 years, and I am sure all these will come together to boost the performance of Rabi’u Musa Kwankwaso at the National Assembly.
Pundits observe that you have not been campaigning seriously for the senatorial seat. Is it that you see your opponent as a walkover or you are banking on APC’s popularity in Kano?
You see, what people don’t understand is that most of us in government are easily being sold based on what projects and programmes one has done over time. I think that is the main thing; we are not going to go round and start making promises—these promises are mainly for those who have not been tested and trusted—that is on one side; on the other side, I am the chief coordinator of all the candidates of APC in the state. I sit down together with them and map out strategies on what to do or what not to do and so on so forth. Even today, I went round the city of Kano, on one hand, inspecting projects, on the other hand, campaigning, seeing my people and asking them to support me. I was in my local government today, I was in the Municipal Local Government; and of course, in between, I have been in other local governments—to talk to people, to give them my posters and so on. Yesterday, I was in Kura, I saw many of our projects, including the five kilometre road project in Kura, the Kano Sports Institute and so on. What we are doing in Kano now is to ask my deputy and the others to work hard on the aspect of politicking itself; and my humble self, I am handling more of projects and programmes that we hope to complete before 29 May 2015 when we are going to hand over. So, we are working together as a family where there is division of labour; but certainly, even the deputy governor, who is leading the team, is still doing his own version of government work. I was to go to Ungogo and Minjibir, I was on my way, just few kilometers to the place and for some obvious reasons, we had to come back; but don’t forget that I was in Gwale Local Government Area recently. I went there and campaigned; and this campaign is still on. It is not yet over because we still have some weeks. I don’t have 44 local governments to cover as a senator, I have fewer local governments (it is just, maybe, a third of that). We will continue to campaign, to talk to people, but I want to assure you that we are very much ready and by the grace of God, we will get our people by our side. By now, I can assure you that, most people would have made up their minds on who to vote and who not to vote. I believe it is just a matter of time that our winning team in this state will come out with flying colours after the election.
The exit of former President Olusegun Obasanjo from the PDP has been described some of the party leaders as a good riddance. What is your view?
I think it is those people who are the bad riddance to the party, the PDP. I think they said the same thing when we left PDP; and I can tell you every right thinking person in this country, especially, within the PDP, now know that for five of us to leave that party—it was a very big blow to it, there is no question about it. Our influence—the five of us — is not just within the states we control. Probably, you must have seen it during the primary election. If others, Sokoto, Kwara, Rivers, and of course, Adamawa had gone through any primary election at the national level, you would have seen their friends from various states of this country. So, I think they very much underrated our importance in the party; and probably, now, unfortunately for them, they are coming to terms with realities. And I can say the same, or even more with our leader, Chief Olusegun Obasanjo—his exit from PDP was another huge blow to that party; for many obvious reasons: Obasanjo has got supporters not only in Ogun State, not only in the western states, but across the country; and for him to come out to say what he said (because most of us who have worked closely with him know that he is somebody who always tolerate a lot of things.), I have not seen him since he decided to leave the PDP, but I can comfortably say that so much must have happened in the party for him to come out to tear his card and said that he has left the party. Some of these people who made those mistake at the time of our exit, now, they are making the same mistake, and I hope that they will handle in such a way that it doesn’t create more problems for them and even for the country. So, I think PDP has a serious challenge now. In those days when we were telling them to correct few things; many of them were telling us that whether we stay or leave, it doesn’t matter to them. Now, they have really realised that of course, there are some challenges. I had one opportunity to speak to one person then who was the National Chairman of the party, the PDP. Then he was telling me that the PDP was like an elephant, if it had one problem or the other on any part of its body, because it is an elephant, you will hardly notice it! Then we were talking in the context of Kano—meaning whether there is Kano or no Kano, PDP was an elephant, and can do very well without Kano; and you can see Kano being the most populous state in this country, anybody that made that statement then, it is like they didn’t understand. Now, the realities are here and I can assure you that they are becoming jittery. Now, this is how it should be, everybody counts, everybody should be important; and it now certainly that the real politics will be played. That time we were thinking of 16 years, they were so comfortable thinking of 60 years—now, let any chairman of the PDP now go out and talk in that direction.
But the Jigawa State governor, Alhaji Sule Lamido said PDP has no business to do with the five governors that defected to APC. What do you make out of Lamido’s views?
Well, I don’t want to talk too much about the Governor of Jigawa State. Everybody knows that he was part of us. He worked so hard. In fact, he was the leader of the group. He took us to a level that we felt there was no going back, and we were surprised that he had different things in mind. He stayed in the PDP and we felt we had no business being in PDP. I think if there is anybody who should criticise our exit, I believe it shouldn’t come from him or the Governor of Niger state. I don’t want to join issues with any of my colleagues. Nigerians are the best judges on our actions and utterances; and of course what we have done. And I believe that that judgment will be part of what will happen during the next election. What we have done is not a secret, it is not something that anybody can hide; and I believe that we have done the right thing, we have deepened democracy. PDP is no more the monster it used to be where nobody was important, where people were not respected, even the governor of the most populous state, who won election almost single-highhandedly within the party to come back as a governor, I was not being respected and they see me as an irritant and so on; but I can tell you, now if there is anything they can do under the sun to take me back to their party, I can assure you now that they know the importance of Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso in Nigerian politics—I have no business talking about my colleagues. You can bring another topic.
There is no doubt that APC is firmly rooted in Kano and the party expects support from the local government areas. There is this rumour that the local councils are not being granted autonomy by the state. How would you describe your relationship with the people at the grass root?
I am one of those who were not supporting autonomy for local governments, at least for now. Local governments need to work with state governments; and they need to work closely. Look at what we have been able to achieve in Kano in the last four years, working together with local governments. We have done so many projects and programmes that are beneficial to the state government and local governments and the good people of Kano State. Most of the local governments today find it very difficult to pay salaries across the country; even the state governments. Now, we are working together, we are giving them the guidelines they require to do very well now, and do more and better in the future. If you look at our programmes and projects that we guided them to do—for example, you take the issue of IPP—generating electricity from Tiga and Challawa dams—government spent billions of naira to construct all these dams, and in terms of power generation, which facility was being provided, nothing was being realised over the years. Now, the IPP is a joint project. We were able to spend N14.2bn to bring in the turbines. They are already on the ground, civil works have gone far, and now, it is just to couple them together, bring them together, and then, build the power house. Some of you can go to Tiga and see what we are doing. Now, N14.2bn investment! This is investment is not for Kano alone, it is an investment that will tap on the billions that have already been spent on these dams. Electricity is key in this country. We will have 10 mega watts from Tiga dam and 25 mega watts from Challawa dam, making 35 mega watts. This channel from Tiga will automatically come to Challawa Water Works and Tamburawa Water works. They require 5MW and the other five will to the streets of Kano in the night and in the morning we sell it to companies who are interested. Now, these things are huge investment that these local governments will be getting income from. Look at the micro-finance banks in 37 local governments in the state—all these have been done and it is an investment for the future of the local governments and of course of the state. We are not talking of dualised roads. It was unthinkable for any local government together with state to construct such roads in all the 44 local government areas—it is a heavy investment. Most of these projects are nearing completion; some have already started putting street lights, of course, drainages are being done. In fact, if not because of the issue of New Year break and some of the contractors who refused to come back because of the issue of 14 February, thinking that there will be problem, most of the projects would have been completed by now. But we are still pushing them to see that most of them if not all of them will be completed before 29 May. Look at Technical Schools—this is a huge investment with class rooms, with furniture, hostels, principal offices, workshops and what have you; so also the schools for Islamic Studies—44 of them, one in each local governments—this is a very huge investment in the area of education. Look at foreign training and so on and so forth, so, we have invested whatever we got as state government—we work together closely with the local governments because these 44 local governments are the same thing as Kano State. So, we work together as partners and we are able to achieve so much in the last four years and these results are there for everybody to see; and I am very happy that our state is probably the only state that is putting on the table every kobo we spend for everyone to see and verify.
There is this issue surrounding the health of the presidential candidate of your party, General Muhmmadu Buhari. As somebody who is close to him, do you think General Buhari is fit to rule this country considering his health status?
Okay, I am sure you must know that I am a civil engineer; i am not a medical doctor. So, my judgment is a lay man’s judgment in that area; but I think the facts now are on the ground for everybody to see. My own judgment is that in the last couple of months, in fact, since the 10th of December when we finished our primary election; there was this very rigorous campaign, rallies from state to state; and I think, everyday, it was two states or so. All these states were being visited by General Muhammadu Buhari. In fact, I was highly impressed that when he came to Kano, he was here very early in the morning. You have gone round the state; you have seen the mood of the state in terms of that visit. We were together with him up to at least, 5 to 6 p.m. on that day; all of us, all most all of us, almost everybody who participated there was tired. On that same day, he left here to go Jigawa by air; and he came back dead in the night by road, after the Jigawa rally. The following morning, together with him, by road, we went to Katsina. From there, I left them, they left for Zamfara, Sokoto, Kebbi and so on and so forth. So, initially, when they were saying he was sick, I was wondering whether he could pass this test! To me, I don’t think those guys were right—because a sick man would not do what I have seen Buhari doing or did in the last few months—and of course, I base my judgment on what I have seen practically; of course I am not a medical doctor, and I have not seen records, so I cannot talk about that; but I can talk about his performance in the last few months from 10th of December, and in fact, even before the 10th of December, he went round almost all the states—and that was one of the success that I think the APC got. You know in those days, then in 2003, some people sat down and gave ticket on a platter of gold; in 2007, the same thing happened, even in 2011—but this time around, he went round like any aspirant and that is how democracy should be.
