2015 Elections Will Be A Litmus Test For APC – Kawu Adesuwa Tsan Nov 20, 2014 Deputy minority leader of the House of Representatives, Hon Suleiman Abdurahman Kawu Sumaila, is a frontline APC gubernatorial aspirant in Kano State. A third-term member , Kawu spoke with selected journalists on the role of Governor Kwankwaso in ensuring APC wins Kano elections, upcoming APC primaries and why candidates must not be imposed by leaders and governors of the party. Adesuwa Tsan was there for leadership How far has the APC gone with preparation for the forthcoming elections? We have now reached the final stage since the party has published its primary election guidelines with the list of delegates for each state. In Kano State, about 8000 delegates will form the electoral college that will elect the party’s candidate in December. That was why we set up a committee of 1,200 delegates from 484 wards and 44 local government areas of the state who will coordinate all our activities by mobilising other delegates for our primary election. Would you say the APC has been accepted by the people? From what we are seeing and hearing, as humans, by the special grace of God, we have been accepted by our people from all walks of life because of what they have seen us doing and our determination to protect their interest. As far as support of Kano people is concerned, it is a done deal because of how different youth, women organisations, labour unions, businessmen, clerics and even politicians are mobilising support for us. This shows that we are headed for victory at the polls already. Also, our people know that we are not moneybags, we don’t give them money because we don’t have such money to give out. We also don’t have godfathers in Kano who are standing for us except the Almighty God whom we depend on. Yet, they are supporting us for what we are and what we stand for. Everywhere we go in Kano you see people trooping out en masse to cheer us up and express their admiration for us. Therefore I have no iota of doubt in my mind that we have been accepted by our people; we are just waiting for time. For more than a decade, we have been consistent in opposing injustice and speaking up on their behalf. This was what the APC met us doing and we won’t relent on it. Before Governor Rabiu Kwankwaso joined the APC, you were seen as the opposition leader of the party in Kano. What is your relationship with the governor now? It is true that in the defunct ANPP, I was one of the leaders and even in the APC. Former Governor Ibrahim Shekarau was our leader, but I was more of an opposition leader then as I never agreed with the PDP government at both national and state levels. But politics and democracy is not enmity. We must come together at one point to salvage our people. I looked at the larger interest of the nation which led to the formation of a strong opposition political party that would give hope to our people. And then, both leaders and followers of the APC expressed their strong desire for justice, fairness and internal democracy. Remember General Muhammadu Buhari and Alhaji Atiku Abubakar had dragged the federal government to court on many occasions all in an effort to make things right in this country. If you talk of Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu who formed the One-Man-One-Vote organisation insisting on true democracy, put together, this gives you hope that a broad-based coalition that will take Nigeria out of the woods has been formed. This was why those in erstwhile nPDP like Kwankwaso came into the APC since they also knew that the PDP is leading Nigeria to perdition. In other words, since our party was formed on the principles of change and justice, it means that we will change how we conduct primary election, change those former ways by which party faithful were compelled to field candidates they didn’t like. It is the resolve of the APC that a true alternative to the PDP was provided for all Nigerians to realise their dreams and ambitions that was why we agreed to work with those who came in from the PDP. But our greatest concern now is that Nigerians are watching to see if the APC will live up to its name and deliver true internal democracy to them. APC cannot afford to fail them because if it does, Nigerians will surely reject it. I was a member of the merger committee that gave birth to APC which adopted the broom as its logo, change as the motto and all these were premised on the desire to bring about the much needed change in our polity. If APC continues on this worthy path, then we will celebrate and thank God. That is why we stayed to work for the success of the party. That we won’t repeat what the PDP is doing where sitting governors impose their anointed candidates on the people by all means. We agreed in principle to work together with Governor Kwankwaso because we expect that he will do justice to all by allowing internal democracy. There’s the party constitution, primary election guidelines and then there is conventional wisdom which entails that you have a moral burden to do justice to all since you too arepreaching and advocating for justice at your level. Are you saying that as one of the aspirants for the governorship of Kano, you don’t have doubts that Governor Kwankwaso will do justice in ensuring for free, fair and transparent primary election? One cannot say what will happen tomorrow, but it is left for Governor Kwankwaso and the APC as a party to do what is right, because if you do right you are helping yourself and not someone else. If they do justice, I think he is helping himself and the party because he too will stand for primary election at the presidential level and if he wins, he will face the incumbent PDP candidate which has the electoral body, police and other security agencies. Therefore, anything anyone does is what others will surely do to him. We are not begging anybody to do what is right; if he likes, he should do it, if he doesn’t, he shouldn’t do it. But it is now public knowledge that our aspiration is a litmus test to the APC and its leaders. Nigerians are watching to see if the criticism they are heaping on the PDP for being an undemocratic political party. They should be reminded that by rejecting same in PDP, they have helped to enlighten our people on what is right and as such, the people too won’t accept such from them. We also know that Kano people who play progressive and classic politics have never accept imposition. If you dare impose anyone on them, they will surely reject you.History has shown that there was never a time that an incumbent governor has been able to impose his anointed candidate in Kano and 2015 won’t be an exception especially that people are even more enlightened now than before. Are you referring to what happened in 2011 elections? Yes. In that election, General Buhari got 1.6 million votes, Shekarau polled 500,000 and Goodluck Jonathan got 400,000 in the PDP with Kwankwaso as the party’s candidate, but in the governorship election, PDP got 1.1 million votes, ANPP got 1.040,000 votes while General Buhari’s CPC got 170,000 votes. This shows that our people are capable of making choices in all elections by choosing candidates and not political parties. It is now left for the APC at both national and state levels to practise what they preach. If they fail to do justice to all people, then Nigerians will know that there is no difference between the PDP and the APC. They will then know that they are two sides of the same coin. As an insider, can you tell us briefly what happened in the then-ANPP that led to its defeat which you made reference to now? Let me correct one insinuation that Shekarau imposed the candidate on us. It wasn’t Shekarau who single-handedly picked the candidate and imposed him on us. It was the party big-wigs of not more than 300 of us who said they had given Shekarau the right to choose anyone he wanted. The mistake we made was that we didn’t consult the people to know if that was what they wanted or not. On seven occasions, we told Shekarau that he should choose anyone he wanted and that we would solidly be behind him. It was after he pointed the person he wanted that some of those who gave him the go ahead to do so failed to go back home to their people to deliver the candidate as people didn’t even trust them. God knows it wasn’t Shekarau who imposed the candidate on us in the ANPP. We should be fair to him because it was the party leaders that asked him to do so, but couldn’t deliver at the secondary election. What then is your advise to the APC as a party now that primary election is here? Again my advise to APC leaders at all levels is that they should know that if they think someone is the governor and the leaders will deny popular people opportunity to fly the party’s ticket, then what happened in Ekiti State is a big lesson for them.
Posted on: Fri, 21 Nov 2014 06:06:34 +0000
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