Why Vote Buying Should Worry Buhari – Falalu Bello
He Should Punish Ekiti Perpetrators – PRP Chair
How does it feel entering the shoes of Alhaji Balarabe Musa?
I am comfortable. He was in the Northern Elements Progressive Union (NEPU) in the 1940s and the PRP in 1978. He was the governor of Kaduna State and has been in the struggle as far as the PRP is concerned. People like him are synonymous with the party. So, naturally, if you are asked to take such position it becomes a little bit difficult because they more or less have the history of the party; I am just going in. I don’t have that long history in the party. So, definitely, he held on to the party despite all the problems. About twice, the registration of the party was withdrawn and he fought and was able to keep it. Certainly, it is not an easy feat. I hope I would be able to manage. When the defections ahead of 2019 started, a lot of people thought that many
people would come to the PRP, especially from the North. That didn’t happen, how does the party feel about that?
The PRP is a party of ideals and ideas. There is no political party today that has kept its ideals consistently as the PRP. What is going on in terms of defections is that people are moving from one political party to another trying to get positions of relevance and to contest for elections. But I can assure you that quite a number of those people are moving towards the PRP. I would not mention names, but some days ago, the chairman of a particular political party came to my house in Kaduna to tell me that he and his group were moving over to the PRP. That is what we would work on to build the strength of the party. We are a party of the future. Yes, we will contest for offices in 2019. We hope to win some of those contests; but quite frankly, I look at the PRP as a party of the future, and if we build it in the next four to five years, I think it would be a party to beat.
Initially, in its area of dominance, particularly in northern Nigeria, it may interest you to know that in the last local government election in Imo, the PRP got five councillorship seats. It is a beginning. This isn’t Kano or Kaduna, it is Imo State and this is just because there are people there who believe in the ideals of the party.
Honestly speaking, what is going on is not surprising to me. These are people that have been aggregating as political parties to capture power for their benefits, whoever they are. Today I’m in the PDP, tomorrow I move to the APC, next tomorrow I move to the PDP. Does that stand to any principle? And what do these two parties stand for? So I don’t see it as anything. Of course we would want people to come over to us, and I believe people are coming. It is a matter of time. It is only people that believe in politics of ideals that would come to the PRP.
Are there lots of these people who believe in ideals? All we hear is ‘stomach infrastructure,’ people wanting money. When you go to elections people are raising green leaves, meaning that they are for sale. In that kind of atmosphere, would a party like the PRP still have impact?
I believe so. Maybe I would use this opportunity, at personal level, to appeal to President Buhari and what he stands for to fight the nonsense going on in the APC and the PDP. We saw the BBC report of what happened in Ekiti State. Practically, people paid for votes. This same thing happened in Bauchi State, in the senatorial
election. People paid N2, 000 per vote. I would personally appeal to Muhammadu Buhari because he is a man of integrity. It is that integrity that brought him to where he is, and I think he should not allow some of these governors to mess him up.
I am sure Nigerians will see through this; it is a matter of time. Why did he have this massive following? It is not because he gave them money, it is because they believe he has integrity. And honestly speaking, a party of integrity, overtime, will be accepted.
Overtime, we will rule this country because Nigerians have become further pauperised at what happened in the PDP administration in 16 years, and to an extent, in the APC in the last three years. This is a reality. The index of poverty, from whichever source you have, is telling us a story. An index tells us that 92 per cent of people in Zamfara are living below the poverty line, 80 per cent in Jigawa and 82 per cent in Katsina. It tells you and me that these governments in the last 16 plus three years (19) have not helped Nigerians. People are poorer, and if people are poorer, what is the governance all about? It is about making people more comfortable and protecting their lives and properties. But people have become further pauperised by these two political parties. What should Nigerians do? Nigerians should move to political parties that would guarantee not only success for them, but success for their children, success for whatever they stand for and protection for their lives and properties. Personally, I feel it may take a little while, but it will happen. Just as it took a while for opposition parties like the APC or President Muhammadu Buhari to defeat a sitting government with all the resources they had, I believe this is going to happen because it is simple. Who is enjoying in Nigeria today - whether you come from Imo, Kano, Jigawa or Sokoto?
In Zamfara, for example, they can’t even farm. The governor is not even there, and they have become further pauperised. It is really a choice for Nigerians to make. It is left for you and me in the middle class - those of us that have conscience - to mobilise the ordinary people, to tell them that the N5, 000 they give them is just going to be enough for them for one or two days, after which they will go back to where they came from. But if they vote a party that has ideals, principles, and that is controlled by people that have conscience, this is not going to happen, their life is going to change.
Does your party have the capacity to protect the votes delivered at the end of the day, even if you are not running for national positions?
Historically, I will say that if you go by the SAWABA Declaration, the PRP is a movement of the people. And I think that our role as leaders in this party is to ensure that Nigerians are mobilised to form themselves into a political movement to join the PRP, with a view to protecting themselves and changing the laws they suffer from.
The second leg of the question you are asking is: What do we do? It is a simple matter. At personal level, for example, I was at one time in the defunct Congress for Progressives Change (CPC) because it had some inclination to what the PRP stands for. If you remember, in the interviews of President Buhari before he was elected in 2015, he said to Nigerians, ‘Go and do Igabi.’ I will tell you what he meant by that because I am from Igabi Local Government - the CPC won all the six elections that took place in Igabi because we voted and protected our votes. So he was telling Nigerians to do what we did. Not only did we vote for the CPC, we escorted our votes to the counting centre. And we didn’t leave until our votes were counted, declared and written. That’s why we won. So one of the things I will personally tell Nigerians to do henceforth is to do Igabi - they should go and vote massively, protect their votes, make sure their votes are counted, recorded and announced.
My major objective is to mobilise people to take back their party: that is why we are called Peoples Redemption Party. The people own the party, so they need to come back. We will surely release our guidelines. While another party is saying that a presidential candidate is going to pay N45million, our own will definitely be cheaper than that. We want people to come, participate in the electoral process, win and begin to take their positions.
Are we going to see the old NEPU, PRP tradition when members actually contributed money for candidates and paid their transportation fares to go to conventions and meetings? How are you going to do it?
If that doesn’t happen, how can we bring any change? I mean, this is not the party of the rich. We don’t have money.
But you are a former bank managing director, how would you say you don’t have money?
Let us address it after I answer your question. Yes, I had the privilege to head four banks in Nigeria, not even one. I am not saying that I’m a poor person, but I am not rich. I know I am a comfortable person. What is important is that I have a conscience, and I believe you also have.
I am not happy with what is going on in Nigeria, neither are you. So what do we do? Do we just submit ourselves to what is going on in the PDP and the APC? What do we need to do to bring about a change? My view is that we should use our influence, the little resources that God has given us, to mobilise people to take over their affairs. We are in trouble. What has happened in Ekiti tells me that we are in trouble. And if this is what is going to continue, how can there be change in this country? It simply tells me that you cannot do anything; you cannot become anything unless you have tons of millions of naira.
Right now, Nigerians are not thinking ideologies when they think politics; how would you change that perception?
You see, the Hausa man will tell you: ‘jiki magayi,’ meaning that everybody in Nigeria, in the ordinary sense, not in the ruling class, has suffered from what is going on in this country. We have suffered, you have suffered and your body is telling you that something is wrong. Our responsibility is to tell you what made it go wrong. I think that is what we are doing. Through this interview, for example, I am sensitising Nigerians on the need to run away from the PDP and the APC.
If what the APC and the PDP stand for is what you saw in Ekiti, it is not going to solve our problem. I stand to be corrected by anybody. If that vote buying had been perpetuated and supported, President Buhari wouldn’t be in power today. He didn’t have the tons of millions to buy votes when he became president; did he? No, he had the support of people and some of them mobilised resources to help him finance logistics to become president. I don’t think he paid N5, 000 per vote for the 12million people that voted for him to become president. That is why I am appealing to him publicly to probe what happened in Ekiti, find out who did it and punish them because they are killing democracy.
I don’t think I need to go to every village in Nigeria to speak about what happened. I am talking to you as members of the Press to call for the probe of this. Corruption is not just stealing money in one organisation or another. To me, the highest form of corruption is what we saw in Ekiti. The BBC aired it; so it is not hearsay. The clips are in our phones. And unless we stop it, how can there be progress in this country?
Yes, people will come into power. Buhari might come back to power using the same kind of people, encouraging vote selling around him, but they cannot bring about the desired change required in this country. Let people appreciate the fact that what happened in Ekiti through the APC and the PDP is destroying democracy and the fabric of our society. We cannot get to the desired level of developing this country if this is what is happening.
In which of the offices would you field candidates for the 2019 elections? At what point did the purported discussion between the PRP and Kwankwaso collapse?
Was there a discussion between the PRP and Kwankwaso? I should ask you this because I am not aware of it. For positions, we are present all over Nigeria. I just told you of the election in Imo State, which took place about two weeks ago. We won some seats; not many, but to me, it is significant. It simply means that in that part of Nigeria, there are people that are following the PRP. Of course, the governor should have some sense in him by allowing election to take place, for people to vote for candidates of their choice. In most of the northern states, including my own state, Kaduna, there was no election. In my village, in front of my house, there was no ballot box and nobody came out to vote, but results were declared.
That’s what you see all over this country and you people are keeping quiet. I am challenging you because we are being destroyed. How can there be change if there isn’t an election? Wherever there’s local government election, the party in power gets 100 per cent or 98 per cent and you never question or investigate why it happened.
Coming to your question; definitely, we are going to field candidates, we will bring out our guidelines like other parties and encourage people to vote. We hope to capture power in some states and have some members in the Houses of Assembly, House of Representatives, and the Senate. I am sure that if we have 10 senators in the National Assembly, the nonsense going on in that place will stop.
But can you guarantee that they won’t defect to the ruling party?
They may defect, but the issue is: Did they believe in you before coming to you? I cannot guide what you are going to do from the beginning to the end. I can only believe in what you tell me. Nobody is forcing those who will contest in the PRP. We will assume that they believe in what we believe.
Would you give tickets to people who would lose out in other parties like the APC or PDP?
It all depends on who they are.
If they have money, or what?
If they believe in what we believe in; it is not money? We don’t have money to give, that much I told you at the beginning of the interview. It is not money politics but politics of ideals. If they believe in our ideals, why not?
When you say if they believe, is it what they tell you or their antecedents?
Both; because the issue really is, I don’t have the capacity to read your minds. No human being has that capacity. I am going to count on antecedents and what they say.
If you need people with their antecedents, and you have an ideal, you know definitely that their coming to the party based on what they said does not tally with what they have been doing. How would you accommodate them? Will that not affect the chances of your old members?
I told you that we would accommodate those that believe in our ideals, but that doesn’t mean that we would block those that have been with us. No, I don’t see any conflict there. The issue is that it is not everybody that is in the APC that is bad. I don’t believe so. Despite all that have been said about the APC, nobody has come out to say that President Muhammadu Buhari has stolen money, or have you heard anybody say so? If he had stolen I am sure they would say it because they have spoken about some of them that are around him. The fact that he is in the APC doesn’t mean that he does not believe in what I believe in. If Buhari had stayed in the CPC, I would have stayed with him. I don’t believe in the APC and that is why I didn’t go to there.
What is the difference between the PRP, APC and the PDP?
There is. I will give you our document, constitution and principles, what we stand for. That is why I came with it, and I can drop it for you.
But they also have similar, high-sounding wordings in their constitutions.
You are old enough to have witnessed a PRP government in Kaduna and Kano. We are not just a party, we have been tested. Malam Balarabe Musa was in power for barely two and a half years before he was impeached. No government in Kaduna, since 1978 (40 years ago), has done what Malam Balarabe Musa did in those two and half years in terms of opening rural roads and physical development.
But people also say he was impeached because he was very uncompromising. Is that the kind of PRP we expect?
Why should you compromise on your fundamental principles? I would rather die for what I believe in. I don’t have to be in power just because I want to be accommodating and behaving like others.
Ahead of his retirement he instituted a committee headed by Alhaji Lawan Batagarawa to review the constitution of the PRP. What did the committee introduce? Overtime, we will rule this country because Nigerians have become further pauperised at what happened in the PDP administration in 16 years, and to an extent, in the APC in the last three years. This is a reality. The index of poverty, from whichever source you have, is telling us a story
Socialism was part of what you had in the old fundamental principles of the PRP; that has been moderated. It’s not that we have changed what we believe in, but we need to be realistic.
What kind of economy does the PRP hope to build?
Principle three of the PRP reads: socialism. That has been amended to be mixed economy. Workers, organisations, popular groups, women, the youth and persons with disabilities would have a say in Nigeria’s political process. We would preach and practise mixed economy. That doesn’t mean that we have thrown away all we believed in, we are just being realistic.
Do you see likeminded political parties in Nigeria that you may consider going into alliance with?
We have taken a very straight stand and issued a communiqué. There is the Coalition of United Political Parties (CUPP), which is an alliance of over 30 parties. We said we would not align ourselves with the PDP or APC. But we are prepared to go into alliance with any political party that believes in what we believe in.
You mean a kind of third force?
As far as I am concerned, the PRP is going to be a third force in this country, whether they like it or not. That is the reality.
Ahead of defections, many strong forces with semblance of the ideologies of Aminu Kano, such as Sule Lamido, Kwankwaso and many others from the North, wanted to join forces with you, but...
That Sule Lamido and Kwankwaso did not come to the PRP doesn’t mean that the party is dead. They have chosen to be in the PDP; and they are free to do so. That is their choice.
If they had approached you, would you have accepted them?
Sule Lamido belongs to the left, but he has chosen to commit class suicide and go to the right. That is his business. I don’t have to question why he did what he did. I can go to him as a friend, and I have gone to him, but that doesn’t mean I can force him to come to the PRP, neither is he going to force me to go to the PDP.
With your experience in the banking sector, do you have the temperament to cope with the nature of Nigerian politics?
I am not here to make money or contest for position. I don’t want any appointment again for the rest of my life. I believe I should be in the vanguard of developing a people’s party that can fight the nonsense going on in this country. That is what pushed me into this. That is why I am here. I don’t want to become president, I don’t want to be governor; I don’t want to be a minister, I don’t want any appointment. But I believe I have a conscience, I am not happy with what is going on in Nigeria.
Why is the PRP not reaching out to the rich the way it does to the downtrodden?
How do you expect me to reach out? I don’t have to abandon what I believe in and ask you to come because you are rich. We are rebuilding the party and I believe we will succeed. If I don’t believe we will succeed, why am I here? Why am I wasting my time? But that doesn’t mean we would capture the presidency in 2019. We may, power belongs to God, but that is not what I say will happen. But even if it doesn’t happened, that does not mean we would abandon what we have started. We want to rebuild a party for the people in Nigeria more than any of the 91 we have. That is why we are here. We may fail, but it is not wrong for one to try. I will be a happy person that I tried. I will have something to tell my children.
Poverty is in the North. The poorest part of Nigeria is Zamfara, so we should try and tell the people that we are trying to liberate them from poverty. So I am not going to beg anybody to come to the PRP, but the platform is there. What it stands for is known; what we are going to do is known. I am asking Nigerians, through you (the media), to join hands with us and promote a party for the people.
Does the PRP have any special arrangement for women?
Yes, in the race to 2019 we do. They are not going to pay a kobo to get the form.
How much would men pay to get the form?
At least disabled people won’t pay anything.
What aspirants?
of presidential It is not going to be N55million or N45m; this I assure you.
When are you going to start doing things, given that there is an October dateline?
I assure you that we will start before the dateline. It is a legal requirement and we must do it.
Do you have rules that would be fair to both the elite and the poor?
The elite are Nigerians. They have some rights like other people.