Nda-Isaiah: My strongest point is not being in public office
Pub Publisher of Leadership Newspapers, Mr. Sam Nda-Isaiah, who has been consulting with meadia colleagues over his p presidential ambition, visited Media Trust last week and spoke about his mission in politics. Excerpts:
If you say I have not contested any election before, yes, I agree, if you say I have not held any public position before, yes I know and agree, but that is our strongest point. I believe that if I have been part of this mess, then I should be ashamed, and not try to be aspiring for another office
What prompted you to join the race for the presidency?
I will not say that the idea had not crept up in my mind before. But in 2011 when Buhari announced that he would not run again, some members of the TBO, senior members of course, met somewhere. I was not part of the meeting, in fact, I was outside the country; in South Africa when they met. I now received a call from one of them and he said: ‘Look, we are discussing 2015 because Buhari said he would not contest again, and so we want to start preparing early. We are looking at our best shots, and your name keeps coming up. So you should just come back home and discuss it. I thought that was funny, even though the guy who called in did not mention anybody that was part of the meeting. The following day, somebody who is senior to this guy called me and said: ‘look, this guy who called you yesterday, there is a lot to start talking.’ Anyway, I came back home, all of us came back, because that meeting also held outside the country. We started to discuss, I was just listening. I would not say I did not take it very seriously, but after that few weeks later, some people outside these ones, who are not politicians started calling me. I remember one, very senior guy, of course, an elder. He called and said this is what we are talking, then another person. That is how the whole things started. So I knew I had to quickly make up my mind before I am dragged into something I am either not prepared for, or I had not thought of. The first thing I did was to go and meet Buhari to tell him exactly what has happened. I said sir, when you say you are not contesting, some things started coming up. I did not mention names, but apparently, he must have heard, because of the way the thing went. I told him that when people are talking like this, I think I should listen, I think I should go ahead. But the most important thing here is that Jonathan must not continue. That was the crux of the matter. After that I went round all the friends and told them, and then I started organising. That was how briefly I got myself into this strange journey.
So what would be your mission in government?
The first thing is to unite the country. This country is too divided, of course, there is no nation that intends to develop that remains divided. It is not possible. Today in Nigeria, whether you are a northerner or southerner is not enough. In fact, if you are from South South, it is not enough, if from Bayelsa, it is not enough, you are either an Utuoke or Ijaw. We are divided across ethnic and religious lines.
Last year, a Catholic Bishop was sent to a South East village, they rejected him, that he was not from their community, this country is too divided. And I believe that is the simplest thing we’ll do. As president, if you want to unite this country it is very easy. When you say certain things behind closed doors, it will come out. Somebody says if my daughter doesn’t win, I will kill all of you and you just invited him, after some time, another person says the same thing, and now you start going for him, going to his house… you know people will always respond to leadership.
But beyond that, what we are going to offer as government are big dreams, big entrepreneurship and big development.
I won’t tell you that when I become president, we are going to build roads, pay salaries etc. Are we not supposed to build roads, pay salaries? But if we call ourselves the biggest country in Africa, we are 173 million, Ethiopia is next, followed by Egypt with 84, but yet take our seaports for instance. People here still bring their goods through Benin Republic, we are the biggest in Africa, and all this is about corruption. Somebody sat down in a very small country like Singapore, very small that we may not have known it than for its water and decided to have the biggest seaport in the world, and they achieved it, they have the best airport in the world, they achieved it. Everything depends on the leadership. We have more than 200 hydro sites in Nigeria, but we know why we cannot produce 3000MW in Nigeria. When China spent $20bn to produce electricity, they overtook United States, but we spent N37bn. You will notice I did not even talk about corruption; you know if you really want to leave legacies, the first thing you are going to handle is corruption, because if you don’t, how will you achieve what you want?
Nigeria has a housing deficit of 17 million as at three years ago, which means by now it is much more, but they will tell you they are building 500 houses somewhere. I don’t think anyone should plan to build less than 10 million houses in four years and it is very achievable, that is going to cost like N12 trn. The $20bn (missing) that your paper talked about the other day, is within the range of N3 trn. So if you want to achieve anything big, you have to do something about it.
For housing, you can also borrow from the pension fund that is now over N3 trn, which is just idle. It is not done. The most successful pension fund country in the world is Malaysia, go to Malaysia and see infrastructure. So any president who wants to achieve this can achieve it. If you are building 10 million houses now, let me quote their figures, we have 40 million people unemployable youths. 52 percent of our youth are not employed and nobody is thinking. But this 10 million houses will create 35 million jobs, because everybody would be engaged; engineers, quantity surveyors, banks, insurance companies, that is how it is. The housing industry has that kind of effect. These things are very possible.
Why the APC?
If I had joined PDP, don’t you think that you will now be asking more questions? (laughter). So I am still a member of TBO. We started TBO, I am still a member. All parties whether in Nigeria or in the big democracies of Europe or whatever, they have their own different tendencies in the parties and may be different ideals. PDM was formed during the late Shehu Yar’adua and it is still alive. So of course, there is TBO. Nobody forgets his roots, we may not all be together now, but I am a member of TBO, until it is officially disbanded.
How will you look at it, if it is said that Mr Sam Nda-Isiah is one of the northern projections to prevent Goodluck Jonathan?
That cannot be a strategy for me. We want to bring people together, everybody. We want to build a nation. As we are today, we are a country; we are not yet a nation. If you have been following my write-ups, for a long time, I have been against zoning and power shift or whatever. Abiola won his election beating Tofa in Kano. I am a Nigerian presidential aspirant, who just happens to be a northerner and a Christian. But I am also aware, that some, especially the PDP and the President, are using religion to further their interests. You see from the present body language, which is very dangerous. I would not want to be pulled into that, I am sure when the time comes, if the President gets the ticket, he is going to run not because he is from Utuoke or that he is a Christian.
What happens if you don’t get the APC ticket?
We are not thinking about that at all, we are thinking about winning, we have a plan that is different from others. I am sure if you ask everybody here, they don’t know the answer.
The truth of the matter is that we are very positive. Next time you will be talking to us, we would be in the Villa, and we are working very seriously about this. So the question should not be about whether we would not get the ticket. We are focused and we are determined about a new direction, to offer the country what has been missing since the return of democracy.
What about your constituency, considering the fact that you have not contested election before, have you consulted them?
I have many constituencies, and one of them is what I am doing now. If you mean where I come from, of course, I won’t say more than I need to say. If you say I have not contested any election before, yes, I agree, if you say I have not held any public position before, yes I know and agree, but that is our strongest point. I believe that if I have been part of this mess, then I should be ashamed, and not try to be aspiring for another office. So, one of our strongest point is that I have not been part of this mess.
What is your take on the INEC timetable and suggestions that all elections be held on the same day?
I wrote a piece on that a long time ago, that elections should be conducted on the same day. That is clear about what I believe. If I am the one that is doing it, I will conduct elections on the same day, but fine, let them go ahead, people would be saying, ‘ok, Jonathan will force some of his governors, assuming he loses, so PDP will lose all. So using the same logic, why can’t we go and sit down and work? I will not split hairs over this. It is only in Nigeria that you will be told to go and vote and protect your vote, why should it be so? If we find ourselves in this kind of situation, we would do what we have to do to win, and we would do it differently. We would make sure there is no violence.
What about funding, do you have enough to pursue a presidential ambition?
None of the persons that have been president in this country was rich, nobody. The only exception would have been Abiola. You see when you are contesting for the presidency, and you do your work well, there will be funds. As I speak now, just yesterday, we got a big campaign office in Minna, very big. In fact, it was even the guy had left I was told that it was the campaign office IBB used in Minna. I did not know him. Of course, we need money, we need much fund, but it will come, it is just that, in this country, I don’t know whether it is everywhere, the money may not come in the way you want it until towards the end. We want to do things now, because we are doing it differently, but I think that is the only challenge that we have, but I think we are getting some money, not that enough, but we are getting it.
Have you met Tinubu?
I knew Tinubu closely since 2006, so we met, I met him. He is close for me to discuss with him, he is close enough.