Insurgency could be a ploy for tenure elongation –Senator Kabiru Gaya

Senator Kabiru Gaya ( APC, Kano South ) is not new to governance, having been Kano State governor in the third republic on the platform of the defunct National Republican Convention, NRC.

In this interview with ADETUTU FOLASADE-KOYI, Senator Gaya canvasses support for Governor Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso’s candidacy for Presidency and also reveals why the fight against insurgency cannot work. Excerpts:
There’s stalemate in the Senate debate on Presi­dent Goodluck Jonathan’s request on the extension of state of emergency in Adamawa, Borno and Yobe States. Would you support the extension eventually?
Well, I appreciate your question, but it is not a matter of support or not; it is a matter of assessing correctly the situation of things happening in that location. You remember this is the third time they are asking for extension and even if you send your son to school, or give a person an assignment, if he fails the first time, you ignore it; you send him back for the second time. If he fails, you send him back and for a third time, he failed woefully and now you want to send him again? I mean, it is just like a doctor giving a wrong medicine to a patient and the patient hardly recovers from the ailment, yet that patient comes back to that killer doctor. I mean, these are the scenarios we are presented with. You see, with the last request, not this one, the last request granted in May this year, remember we didn’t agree on the same day. We debated and invited service chiefs. They came and told us that they needed the extension as a tool to fight the insurgency and that let us be rest assured that in three months, this issue will be entirely over, there will be peace, there will be stability in those regions and even beyond and that if we don’t give them that tool to work, their hands are tied. We knew that even at that time there was progress, the civilian JTF, in collaboration with the military were working hard, they had sent the insurgents out of Maiduguri town and maybe out of Yobe town and they scattered to Sambisa forest. So, the military knew where these people were; they were supposed to have gone there to attack them in the village before they dispersed to other villages where people were and you cannot even identify them. That was not done. We also asked them what the other problem was, and they told us it’s about money and you remember recently, we granted $1billion apart from almost N1 trillion which was put in the national budget for security. Yet, because we wanted them to stop killing our people, Nigerians, both Muslims and Christians, we agreed on that, even against our wishes, because the prime objective in this country, for any leader, whether president or governor or local government chairman, the main re­sponsibility is to maintain peace in his constituency. And if that prime objec­tive is not there, it means no progress. Nothing will work out. The people can­not even live well if there is no peace . You will sleep with one eye open. Now in Maiduguri, they sleep with even both eyes open, which means they are not sleeping. So, what we are saying is that when we approved the last one, we gave them conditions. The first condition was that they would report to us monthly. On that, we can share the blame that they didn’t report to us and we didn’t call them back but they were supposed to report to us monthly. But after about three months, when they reported, we insisted that our committees on Defence and Security, should meet with them because we had a break during that period and decided that we can’t stop our committee mem­bers from going on break and that they should rather, invite the service chiefs to hear from them. They invited them and the story they heard from them was that it may be difficult for them to fight the insurgency war and win,( in quote,) because they had seen that there was in­ternal sabotage, or was it even external sabotage? So, how can we simply close our eyes and extend this thing again? And the issue on ground now is not just that of state of emergency. The second condition we gave them was that they should involve the civilian JTF, not all of them, screen them, find those who are responsible, who are good enough with verifiable background, who cannot betray the military and move them into the system because they are from that area and know the terrain; use them and give them official backing by employing them. That was not done. We said improve the welfare of those at war because whether we like it or not, whether we pretend to ourselves or not, we are at war; that is the soldiers. Even now, there is a petition on my desk and so many petitions on how their welfare is not being taken care of. So, that one was not done. And you find out that there are conflicting information and stories. In this situation and the world we are in now, with internet accessibil­ity, people are sending information and you can see and know what is happen­ing real time . Our people are being shot at daily, and that if the insurgents are coming, you find that the military are directed to go off the roadblock.
That was what happened in Mubi. The story we heard, may be true, it may not be true. So, there must be problems in­ternally which we need to find out.A nd then two, three days after ammunition is moved to barracks, the insurgents will come in and take the ammunition away…You see, a leader must be con­cerned about the welfare and security of his people. When we had the prob­lem of the Chibok girls, people were clamouring and demonstrating and they made it look like it was political, it’s not political. Therefore, the Senate decided that no, we cannot even grant the state of emergency but if we do not grant, we will be boxed to a corner because the military will hands off the affected areas. We are in a fix; if we don’t grant, they’ll say okay, let everybody go and take care of himself. But we are Nigerians. When we sent the military to go and fight the insurgency in Niger Delta during (late President Umaru Musa) Yar’Adua’s time, there was no state of emergency, but they crashed the rebellion, They crushed the insurgents, and there is peace now. We are putting N150 billion in the budget every year to maintain peace in Niger Delta.
Why are they not taking the same steps here? I’m not being sentimental or talking about party politics, I’m talking about the loss. When you watch the videos, it shows how people are shot like animals. You don’t even shoot animals like that, you slaughter them and you see even human beings are now being slaughtered. Some are even charmed; wherein, you see a human being walks in voluntarily and gives his head to be slaughtered. I mean, you can imagine if that’s your child or brother, mother or father. But people don’t give a damn! This blood, God will make us pay for it. Honestly, any leader that allows the blood of his citizens to be wasted, God will ask of us. If we, as Nigerians can­not ask, the Supreme Being will ask for it and I think we need to look inwards, forget politics and positions.
When the APC was formed, Nigerians believed the party would challenge the ruling Peoples Demo­cratic Party effectively in the 2015 general elections. But there are many presi­dential aspirants. What’s happening?
That is democracy. For example, before the different political parties that formed the APC came together as a mega party, some political parties were not used to conducting primary elections; instead they would impose a consensus candidate as their presiden­tial flagbearer and at the end of the day, they would lose the election. In the case of the PDP, they conducted primary elections and subsequently won the presidential election. Former President Olusegun Obasanjo and the late Umaru Musa Yar’Adua were produced through that democratic process. However, the story has changed now as the PDP had started to borrow from what the ANPP did and lost elections. They are now imposing a candidate against the wishes of so many silent people who cannot speak out, but when it comes to vot­ing, they will express their will! That is why the government has problems and is employing means and ways to perpetuate the current leadership in power beyond 2015. Let us start with the issue of constitutional amendments. Remember the President brought to the National Assembly, a bill seeking powers for the President to initiate a new Constitution. If that had scaled through; that means the country would start a new democratic arrangement afresh, on a clean slate. For instance, my self, Senator Buka Abba Ibrahim of Yobe and others were beneficiaries of the 1999 Constitution. We operated with the 1979 Constitution as governors in 1991. But in 1999, a new Constitu­tion came up.
Buka Abba Ibrahim, Jolly Nyame (Taraba), Abubakar Audu (Kogi) who were former governors contested again in 1999 under a new Constitution and they won. However, after the first term, they wanted to contest again in 2003 but there was a protest which made some people to go to court in order to challenge their al­leged plan to contest after two terms in office, contrary to the provisions of the Constitution. The Supreme Court, in its interpretation, said, since the country is operating a new Constitution, whatever was done in the past, remained a plus for them. Now, if the president should bring a new Constitution, what that means is that, all those years that every political office holder has served since 1999 till that time were null and void and would become a plus to anybody who wanted to contest for any elective post. So, that means if the new Constitution had been allowed to pass through, the president can go for another eight years.
Maybe after seven years in office again, they would introduce yet another Constitution that would qualify them for another eight years, so that when Nigerians are tired, they will retire to fate and the president would then transform to a life-presi­dent. That is why we killed that idea in the senate. We did not allow it to fly. Later, they brought some people to­gether again and organised a National Conference with a view to amending the 1999 Constitution, which was a plot to also introduce a new Constitu­tion but that also failed because we knew that it was a game plan by the Jonathan administration to elongate the system beyond 2015 through the backdoor. The third attempt which is already being challenged in court is the issue of insurgency. We have been fighting this battle, trying to calm it down. Some senators even flew the kite when they said on the floor of the Senate that Nigeria is in a state of war and, therefore, election is not on the table. This statement emanated from some PDP senators.
This message sent serious signal and it generated a lot of reactions until when some people said they did not say it. But of course, a lot of people think that this issue of insurgency is a ploy to elon­gate the system because there won’t be election in a war situation and so, everybody will continue in office with­out the mandate of Nigerians which is totally illegal and unconstitutional. You know, in a war situation, anything can happen just as when we introduced the Doctrine of Necessity doctrine to create the office of an Acting President which is not even in the Constitution, when the late Yar’adua was sick. It was our prerogative and power to make sure that the executive ensures peace in the country.
That is what we are battling now because if you say you cannot hold elections in three states because of insurgency, which is now extending to Gombe and Bauchi States, since they are already threatening to take over Gombe by Christmas, before heading for Taraba. Now, the situation is so bad that if you call the name Boko Ha­ram, the military will drop their weap­ons and start running, not to talk of civilians. So, there must be strength and ability by the leaders to fight the war. People like Governor Rabiu Kwank­waso, for instance, have been sending relief materials to Boko Haram victims through the governments of Borno and Yobe which would soon extend to Adamawa because he is concerned and he is not happy with the situation there. It is not good to see Nigerians running away to another country for food and shelter while our soldiers and govern­ment appear helpless.
Are you saying that the APC is warming up to take over in order to correct the situation?
I am not trying to introduce politics into the situation but we have to tell ourselves the truth. Governor Kwank­waso was a Minister of Defence, and is now a serving governor. Before now, he was a legislator, and rose to become a Deputy Speaker of the House of Representatives. He was also Special Adviser to the President on Dafur. He was a member of the Niger Delta Development Commission, (NDDC) hence, he has the credentials. He is a young man too. He can work for 18 hours a day. I believe that all our elders and leaders in the APC should support him. If you look at the situation in other countries, their citizens are going for young people to become their presidents. In America, Bill Clinton and Barack Obama, for instance, were young men who became president hav­ing youthful hair but grew grey hair in power because of mainly the external problems that their country was facing. We won’t mind if Kwankwaso is elected president and has to grow grey hairs in the course of tackling Nigeria’s internal problems. Look at how he had ensured peace in Kano. He will do the same for the country being a former defence minister. Now, as governor, his budget is 75 percent capital while 25 percent is for recurrent expenditure. If he can come to the federal level and replicate that, Nigerians will be very happy.
Kano is the most beautiful state in Nigeria today both during the day and at night. By installing street lights, the governor has improved the security situation and equally boosted commercial activities in the state because traders stay outside for a longer period, making their sales. At the moment, many of the displaced persons from the insurgency-ravaged states are now taking refuge in Kano because the state is very peaceful. The governor has brought in development by creating an enabling environment for people to invest. He is equally creating manpower development. Recently, he sent out 2,500 youths to go and study professional courses abroad;and become things such as pilots, doctors, nurses and even experts in Information/Computer Technology. Maybe, when the young pilots return, we may not need to hire expatriates as pilots in Nigeria again.
He had built over 3,000 classrooms, established 26 institutions and two universities. If somebody can do that, then, he is a good material. Every day, Governor Kwankwaso starts work around 9:00am, he goes for a break around 6:00pm and resumes again around 9:00pm and works till 4:00am and closes for the day. He is a young man, he can cope. We should allow him to run by giving him the necessary encouragement. I, therefore, plead with other contes­tants on the platform of the APC to step down for this young man and allow him to make a difference in our country.