‘Why APC’s not letting go of Niger anytime soon’
Engr Mohammed Jibrin Imam is the chairman All Progressives Congress (APC) in Niger State. In this interview with he says the supposed defection of his members to opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in some parts of the state was a mere propaganda. H
Daily Trust: Media reports recently indicated that over a thousand of your members defected to the PDP; what is your take on the alleged defection?
I read it on the papers myself. This is the second time this kind of propaganda would be making the rounds. You know we are in a propaganda period. I can confidently tell you that All Progressives Congress (APC) members across Niger State are intact, including those in Mashegu and Kontagora. From what I read in the papers, the defectors were received in one of the secondary schools renovated by this administration. They should have seen the kind of structure we provided in the school, to show them that APC is working.
Incidentally, Mashegu local government council is one of our strongholds where we have invested heavily. The council chairman has also invested heavily in the council. So, for them to say that we did not do anything, that is why people are defecting is a lie. No single person defected from APC and I challenge them to bring names. The names of the people we saw in the report were strange names. In fact, PDP does not have a structure in the whole local government, that is why they received the defectors in a secondary school, why didn’t they receive them in their party office? The same goes for Kontagora.
If you are receiving defectors, the state chairman ought to be there to, at least, give credence to their claim but they didn’t even mention the name of the local government party chairman, they only mentioned the person that spoke on their behalf. We had expected the names of the party chairman, secretary, treasurer, PRO and others to feature in the news since the defectors were up to 1000 as they claimed.
Notwithstanding, we want to assure our supporters and members that APC remains strong in Kontagora, Mashegu and other parts of the state and our government is doing quite a lot for the people. We have achieved a lot and very soon, we will have events that will show that APC remains strong in the state.
DT: There was also report of defection of some of your members to PDP in Kontagora; what is responsible for this propaganda as you called it?
The opposition has lost hope. Even when they were in government, they never received any defector from the opposition, so how come now that they are not in government, people are defecting from a ruling party? This shows that they are out for propaganda.
DT: What are you doing to keep your members intact?
We have a lot of programmes. We are waiting for the ban on campaign to be lifted to roll out our activities. However, at the wards, activities are being organized. APC has been very active in all the wards and polling units. Incidentally, it is only APC that has polling unit executives in Niger State. You will be surprised that our population is well over 500,000. With that number, you can see that the party is very strong in the state.
DT: Can you confidently say that the PDP does not pose a threat to APC in Niger?
In politics, you don’t say anybody can’t pose a threat to you but the way they are going about it is to gain cheap popularity. They should come for tutorial from me who has been in opposition for more than 30 years. Every political party has its own strength; however, our own strength is much more than theirs. If you have 40,000 executives to follow you and the opposition has zero, you will know we are stronger.
If each of these 40,000 can bring 20 people each, that means we already have 400,000, so we are way ahead of them. It is simple arithmetic, their strength technically is weakened. We have more than 40,000 polling unit executives; we have their record and database. If these people can vouch for at least 5 people, that means we already have 200,000 votes and if they can vouch for 10 each, then it means we have 400,000. The party is rooted in the polling unit that is how we know our strength, compared to a party that has zero polling unit executive.
DT: Do you think the government has in any way made APC members vulnerable to be lured by the PDP?
The way we assess achievement is not the same way ordinary persons do. When we came in, there were backlog of salaries not paid, especially in the local government areas. Pension arrears were not paid. We have since settled the arrears. We now have monthly pension payments, you can go and verify. We met a lot of challenges but we are tackling them. In security, infrastructures and health; we are making progress. In terms of education, we have more than 15 schools re-branded. If you juxtapose it with what PDP did in their 16 years after collecting N825 billion, you will know that we have achieved something monumental.
There is no sector that the government hasn’t touched. If you go to Minna-Sabon Gari Road, which was abandoned for over 40 years, you would appreciate what we are doing. In the 16 years of PDP administration, they didn’t do it but we came and completed it. We completed the Bomas-Obasanjo Complex, we also completed the Kits Road project. There is the Gbeganu Road, which we completed. Across the state, there is channelisation of drainages and we are paying WAEC fees. In the education, health and other sectors, the government is trying and in 2018, we are going to improve on what we have achieved.
What we want PDP to challenge us on is a specific project that we haven’t done instead of generalization.
DT: Are you saying that none of your members has been lost to the PDP anywhere in the state?
I can say categorically that we have not lost any member. Instead, we are receiving a lot of defectors from PDP and very soon, we are going to prove that at a mass rally. We are going to prove to the whole world that PDP members are decamping en masse to APC. I can assure you that no single member of APC has decamped to the PDP.
Somebody can be sitting on the fence and call himself a member but he is not. Membership is different from being a supporter; that is the mistake people are making. Supporters can change direction anytime, they have no stake but a member is one that is registered and has cards to prove he is a member. You cannot bring people from the garage and claim they are APC members. The fact that a supporter no longer supports the party does not mean that we have lost our members.
DT: What are your plans ahead of 2019 elections?
We are empowering the local government councils. We just distributed some vehicles to kick start familiarisation tour of all the local government areas. They will start going from ward to ward to educate the people about government’s programmes. We may not have met all the expectations of the people because of lean resources but we are trying to gather information on what they need. Where we have deficiency, we will correct it and where we have done well, we will applaud ourselves and also improve.
The way we assess achievement is not the same way ordinary persons do. When we came in, there were backlog of salaries not paid, especially in the local government areas. Pension arrears were not paid. We have since settled the arrears