Benue/Plateau Chronicle

How did you react to the news of your defeat?

I believe that God gives and he takes and no amount of hard work can earn me what God has not destined for me. So I accepted it in good faith and it has encouraged me to do more.

Are you saying you would again delve into the waters of politics in the next four years?

Yes and no because I am not a regular politician. I was pushed into the waters of politics because of the poor situation in our constituency. If I find things are moving well before 2023, I may not contest but if the status quo is maintained, then definitely I will be a contestant. It may not be for the same seat because I would be 35yrs in few days and that means I would be qualified to contest for the Senate and the President of Federal Republic of Nigeria. What I can assure you is that I doubt if I will aspire for a seat lower than the House of Representative. I would either go for the House of Representatives, Senate or the President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria because I would be constitutionally qualified.

Some people say as a new entrant into politics, you should have started small so as to build a reputation and structure before aiming higher, what do you think?

If you look at the votes, even some of the more regular politicians got lesser votes than I did. I know of somebody who contested for a higher position before coming for the House of Representatives and could not get half of my votes in the same constituency. So it is not all about building political structure; yes building political structure is key but so is learning from other people’s experience. When I decided to join politics, the first thing I did was to learn from the experience of people who have been in politics for decades and that was not unconnected to the success I have recorded.

You were confident of winning at the early stage, but at the end of the day you lost, was the result what you expected?

Never, I expected to win the election but you know there was the challenge of homogenous voting or what we refer to as the sak ideology. People were more inclined towards the ruling party and that affected my chances because few days to the election, people began to talk about ensuring the votes go in line with that of the president therefore the issue of a consensus candidate came up. So there was serious influence by some informal electoral colleges and ordinarily, I could have won but for the interference of major stakeholders within the constituency. In fact, some people began to say I couldn’t defend my votes because there was the allegation that I didn’t have the money to defend my vote which was not true. The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) provided procedures for the security of votes in all the polling units, wards, and there were ward collation officers who monitored and tacked vote. Each party also had their agents with tags that were given by INEC. In the local governments, there were local government collation officers. So the procedure of security or votes was not a one man or one party affair, it was designed by the commission and I believe before the election, I had more than 700 agents who monitored my votes. And if you look at the nature of the constituency, the present serving member was elected under a party which was not as strong as my party today before he later decamped to the ruling party. Again, my party has executives across the 17 local government areas of the state, and the wards of the constituency. Also, almost all my agents were volunteers and it is not easy for a volunteer to compromise because they are people of passion, like minds. I had a PhD holder in Mechanical Engineering as my agent, so how do expect somebody like that to compromise? But unfortunately because of one reason of the other, the informal electoral colleges claimed I would not be able to defend my votes if the community decides to use me as their consensus candidate and this actually affected my chances. I think what we should be talking about is integrity and credibility and it should not be restricted to a political party because we have people of integrity across all political parties. We have to start looking for candidates that are credible because it’s evidently clear that in Nigeria we don’t have party ideology so for anyone to say only the candidate of the APC will sell because of the party is wrong.

Don’t you think if you were to move to a more a prominent party, you could also benefit from the sak ideology next time?

I would prefer to remain resolute with my principles. I have been a critical person and without opposition, nothing good can come to the people. The essence of opposition is to checkmate the activities of the ruling party and if everybody would defect to the ruling party then there would be no organ of checkmating performance. There are many stronger candidates who contested for the seat under the ruling party but were unable to scale through the primaries. However, as a first timer I got the opportunity and this effort I have made under an opposition party has built my momentum. So I will not be guided by ruling party or not ruling party, what I would be guided by is the possibility of making it easier to serve my people. What we have in this country in the last decade are political parties without ideology so I will not be pushed to contest under a party, simply because it is a ruling party.

Some of your colleagues already defected to the ruling party even before the final announcement of results, what next for you?

Actually it is very sad when I see politician defecting. I don’t do politics like that. I don’t understand politics in that line. I am a teacher, a farmer and a freelance journalist so I have a job. I will continue with what I have been doing before joining politics and for me it is like a movement. Our slogan manufarmu, al-ummar mu; Our people our vision, has received many well-wishers and people of high caliber. So what we are planning to do is to convert it into a foundation because we have gone round the constituency and we have seen issues that we can address without getting into power. What we are discussing now is how to come together and add value to our constituency and we have gone far in our plan to make it a kind of community development or association or an NGO to be registered. During the campaigns, I saw communities without access to clean water, primary health and poor education. Almost nothing was working in some of these places so we don’t have to b elected to do that.