Can you give an insight on the recent resumption of alliance talks between the CPC and the ACN?
The CPC set up a Renewal Committee last
year to look inward to see what we did during the last general elections
which we could have done differently. And this issue of alliance or
merger or whatever you can call it was very topical on the agenda and
luckily the leadership of the CPC and the Board of Trustees (BOT) are in
support of the new move. Let’s take it that you are aware of the
pregnancy that was aborted.
Let’s take it that this is the real
pregnancy (laughter). We are trying to contrive a new pregnancy and we
are hoping that it will be delivered safely. We regretted the abortion
of the previous pregnancy between the ACN and the CPC. But in doing this
now, they say, necessity is the mother of invention, General Muhammadu
Buhari as a patriot and democrat and Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu and his
own group as patriots and democrats, they have seen what they could do
differently and they said okay how do we now help Nigeria? As of today
Nigeria is sliding dangerously towards a failed state. Nigeria is not a
failed state yet but it is sliding towards that direction.
Is the ANPP being considered in the proposed alliance?
Yes, we are talking to them because we
are saying that if we believe Nigeria has to be saved, the best way to
save it (Nigeria) is through democratic court and the democratic court
is through voting. And if we need votes to confront a monster that PDP
has become, unveiling the Federal Government of Nigeria with the oil
revenue; proceeds from the taxation; custom duties, it means the only
principled maxim is that we must unite this time around. So, a large
number of ACN members and a large number of CPC members agreed that
there are things we could have done differently.
In 2011, it was quite clear that both the ACN and the CPC had an understanding that if they unite, they would be able to vote out PDP. But with this power sharing, we don’t know whether it is an issue now because that was what caused the collapse of the alliance?
No. It wasn’t. I will tell you what
caused it. It wasn’t about power sharing. If I understand your meaning
of power sharing, it is either the ACN is saying they want to be
President and the CPC is saying they want to be President. Nobody did
that. In all deference and honesty to the ACN, the party never did that.
They knew that in political elementary analysis, the ACN is not at par
with the CPC because it is a stronger party.
So, the ACN was very clear about that.
Even when we were talking about the move for a mega party, nobody ever
said that General Buhari would not be presidential candidate. They
concede the fact that he has uncommon integrity and that he is one
person who can stop corruption. Everybody agreed on that. It wasn’t part
of the reasons for the collapse. The collapse happened because the
General himself said that since he entered politics in 2002, some people
had contrived this dangerous trend of religious bigotry. He said for
God’s sake, can we escape from that? He wanted to correct that
notion....By my understanding, that was what happened. So it’s not a
question that the ACN said they wanted to present a presidential
candidate.
But the difference now is that we agree
that given the plight of Nigeria sliding dangerously towards a failed
state, each person, each group should, first of all, forget about their
own special interest and lay a real strategic foundation that will get
the members of the CPC in Oshogbo, Ogbomosho to also key into the
alliance with the members of the ACN in Oshogbo and Ogbomosho. The same
thing will happen in Daura, Mubi, Oran in Akwa-Ibom and Udi Local
Government. Luckily, don’t forget that CPC is a very new party, and
there was 2011 election, so there wasn’t this kind of time to do a broad
strategic thinking. So the good luck we have is that General Buhari has
already gotten all members to agree on this position.
There is this thinking that Mallam Nasir el-Rufai is going beyond his mandate in the CPC. What is your take on this?
Naturally, there has always been that
kind of misconception. A lot of people do not know who General Buhari
actually is as regard democracy. He is one person that if he had a
meeting with the core group of the CPC, he wouldn’t insist that
everybody must say something. But a lot of people do not know. They
thought Buhari will just say this is what will happen and it happens the
next day. No. And el-Rufai himself, in all private discussions I have
held with him, his major position is how do we save this country. So
every authority that exists is based on proper consultations with the
leadership of the CPC headed by Buhari, the Chairman of the party Tony
Momoh, the Secretary and others. But the point of the matter is that I
used to antagonise El-Rufai myself. I had a shoot-out with him in 2006
in America’s Ambassador’s house because he led the government and I led
the opposition. But the point is that he is a very misunderstood person
and it becomes very easy for people to theorise that. More so, a lot of
people did not know that el-Rufai wasn’t really poor before he became a
Minister. He was a top Quantity Surveyor. He consulted for a lot of
projects in this country. A lot of people did not know that.
But the point of the matter is that when
somebody is thinking ahead of you, your tendency is to think that he
wants to advance himself. And I don’t see el-Rufai thinking like that.
One, none of el-Rufai’s friends have said that they are idiots. They
know that we, the CPC is not in the South. And they are also aware that
if tomorrow, Jonathan decides he is not running and the CPC is calling
for a new candidate, won’t our calculation change? If Jonathan says he
is running, won’t our calculation be determined by his ambition to run?
We are all aware of this. Unluckily, Jega has also put INEC as a
department of PDP.
We are aware that PDP will fix the
timetable. And if they fix the timetable and the presidential election
come first as usual, it may mean that we may have to be strategic
enough. So we are open to all these unintended variables that will
determine who runs and who will not run. So I do not see El-Rufai
actually thinking like that and he never told me as well. The little he
has done, I appreciate it a lot. Some in the party are not happy. Yes, I
agree. Some may be doing that because they never see him on the desk of
the accountant trying to collect money to run certain activities on
behalf of the party. Some of these are drawbacks. Between I and you,
both privately and publicly, from what I discussed with General Buhari
and Mallam El-Rufai, they don’t have any discordant tune on this issue.
If you notice as well, you will notice that Bakare was there during
Buhari’s trip to Lagos. So the group is working as a team. They are more
concerned about the survival of the country. What they are interested
in and on which we all have agreed on is that this country must be saved
from the brink of collapse.
One major concern is that few months, weeks or days to the election, the personal agenda that led to the collapse of previous alliance talks resurfaced again among the main contenders. Don’t you foresee that development again?
Your question is very relevant. It is
relevant in the sense that these are human element factors. But that is
why I told you that the little effort we are putting in today is to
block those areas that might prop up that. And I have told you that the
ACN has been very generous in this participation. If, as I said,
Jonathan decides to run, by then we will have finalised everything. The
party will now say who among this group has a better chance because we
are going to study the environment. If Jonathan is not running, the
activities go to the North. For God’s sake, you won’t go to Enugu state
or Modakeke to bring somebody. So these are issues that will be resolved
as we move along.
We don’t have any fear that the issue of
who becomes the presidential or governorship candidate in 2015 will
become a problem. I also accept their fears but don’t forget that the
CPC leadership that failed on her own side to get the pregnancy to be
delivered were also burnt. The ACN leadership that also allowed the
pregnancy to be aborted and went and voted Jonathan had seen that they
threw away their votes.
Written by Muideen Olaniyi
Sunday, 13 May 2012 05:03
Can you give an insight on the recent resumption of alliance talks between the CPC and the ACN?
The CPC set up a Renewal Committee last
year to look inward to see what we did during the last general elections
which we could have done differently. And this issue of alliance or
merger or whatever you can call it was very topical on the agenda and
luckily the leadership of the CPC and the Board of Trustees (BOT) are in
support of the new move. Let’s take it that you are aware of the
pregnancy that was aborted.
Let’s take it that this is the real
pregnancy (laughter). We are trying to contrive a new pregnancy and we
are hoping that it will be delivered safely. We regretted the abortion
of the previous pregnancy between the ACN and the CPC. But in doing this
now, they say, necessity is the mother of invention, General Muhammadu
Buhari as a patriot and democrat and Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu and his
own group as patriots and democrats, they have seen what they could do
differently and they said okay how do we now help Nigeria? As of today
Nigeria is sliding dangerously towards a failed state. Nigeria is not a
failed state yet but it is sliding towards that direction.
Is the ANPP being considered in the proposed alliance?
Yes, we are talking to them because we
are saying that if we believe Nigeria has to be saved, the best way to
save it (Nigeria) is through democratic court and the democratic court
is through voting. And if we need votes to confront a monster that PDP
has become, unveiling the Federal Government of Nigeria with the oil
revenue; proceeds from the taxation; custom duties, it means the only
principled maxim is that we must unite this time around. So, a large
number of ACN members and a large number of CPC members agreed that
there are things we could have done differently.
In 2011, it was quite clear that both the ACN and the CPC had an understanding that if they unite, they would be able to vote out PDP. But with this power sharing, we don’t know whether it is an issue now because that was what caused the collapse of the alliance?
No. It wasn’t. I will tell you what
caused it. It wasn’t about power sharing. If I understand your meaning
of power sharing, it is either the ACN is saying they want to be
President and the CPC is saying they want to be President. Nobody did
that. In all deference and honesty to the ACN, the party never did that.
They knew that in political elementary analysis, the ACN is not at par
with the CPC because it is a stronger party.
So, the ACN was very clear about that.
Even when we were talking about the move for a mega party, nobody ever
said that General Buhari would not be presidential candidate. They
concede the fact that he has uncommon integrity and that he is one
person who can stop corruption. Everybody agreed on that. It wasn’t part
of the reasons for the collapse. The collapse happened because the
General himself said that since he entered politics in 2002, some people
had contrived this dangerous trend of religious bigotry. He said for
God’s sake, can we escape from that? He wanted to correct that
notion....By my understanding, that was what happened. So it’s not a
question that the ACN said they wanted to present a presidential
candidate.
But the difference now is that we agree
that given the plight of Nigeria sliding dangerously towards a failed
state, each person, each group should, first of all, forget about their
own special interest and lay a real strategic foundation that will get
the members of the CPC in Oshogbo, Ogbomosho to also key into the
alliance with the members of the ACN in Oshogbo and Ogbomosho. The same
thing will happen in Daura, Mubi, Oran in Akwa-Ibom and Udi Local
Government. Luckily, don’t forget that CPC is a very new party, and
there was 2011 election, so there wasn’t this kind of time to do a broad
strategic thinking. So the good luck we have is that General Buhari has
already gotten all members to agree on this position.
There is this thinking that Mallam Nasir el-Rufai is going beyond his mandate in the CPC. What is your take on this?
Naturally, there has always been that
kind of misconception. A lot of people do not know who General Buhari
actually is as regard democracy. He is one person that if he had a
meeting with the core group of the CPC, he wouldn’t insist that
everybody must say something. But a lot of people do not know. They
thought Buhari will just say this is what will happen and it happens the
next day. No. And el-Rufai himself, in all private discussions I have
held with him, his major position is how do we save this country. So
every authority that exists is based on proper consultations with the
leadership of the CPC headed by Buhari, the Chairman of the party Tony
Momoh, the Secretary and others. But the point of the matter is that I
used to antagonise El-Rufai myself. I had a shoot-out with him in 2006
in America’s Ambassador’s house because he led the government and I led
the opposition. But the point is that he is a very misunderstood person
and it becomes very easy for people to theorise that. More so, a lot of
people did not know that el-Rufai wasn’t really poor before he became a
Minister. He was a top Quantity Surveyor. He consulted for a lot of
projects in this country. A lot of people did not know that.
But the point of the matter is that when
somebody is thinking ahead of you, your tendency is to think that he
wants to advance himself. And I don’t see el-Rufai thinking like that.
One, none of el-Rufai’s friends have said that they are idiots. They
know that we, the CPC is not in the South. And they are also aware that
if tomorrow, Jonathan decides he is not running and the CPC is calling
for a new candidate, won’t our calculation change? If Jonathan says he
is running, won’t our calculation be determined by his ambition to run?
We are all aware of this. Unluckily, Jega has also put INEC as a
department of PDP.
We are aware that PDP will fix the
timetable. And if they fix the timetable and the presidential election
come first as usual, it may mean that we may have to be strategic
enough. So we are open to all these unintended variables that will
determine who runs and who will not run. So I do not see El-Rufai
actually thinking like that and he never told me as well. The little he
has done, I appreciate it a lot. Some in the party are not happy. Yes, I
agree. Some may be doing that because they never see him on the desk of
the accountant trying to collect money to run certain activities on
behalf of the party. Some of these are drawbacks. Between I and you,
both privately and publicly, from what I discussed with General Buhari
and Mallam El-Rufai, they don’t have any discordant tune on this issue.
If you notice as well, you will notice that Bakare was there during
Buhari’s trip to Lagos. So the group is working as a team. They are more
concerned about the survival of the country. What they are interested
in and on which we all have agreed on is that this country must be saved
from the brink of collapse.
One major concern is that few months, weeks or days to the election, the personal agenda that led to the collapse of previous alliance talks resurfaced again among the main contenders. Don’t you foresee that development again?
Your question is very relevant. It is
relevant in the sense that these are human element factors. But that is
why I told you that the little effort we are putting in today is to
block those areas that might prop up that. And I have told you that the
ACN has been very generous in this participation. If, as I said,
Jonathan decides to run, by then we will have finalised everything. The
party will now say who among this group has a better chance because we
are going to study the environment. If Jonathan is not running, the
activities go to the North. For God’s sake, you won’t go to Enugu state
or Modakeke to bring somebody. So these are issues that will be resolved
as we move along.
We don’t have any fear that the issue of
who becomes the presidential or governorship candidate in 2015 will
become a problem. I also accept their fears but don’t forget that the
CPC leadership that failed on her own side to get the pregnancy to be
delivered were also burnt. The ACN leadership that also allowed the
pregnancy to be aborted and went and voted Jonathan had seen that they
threw away their votes.
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