Alhaji Yahaya Kwande, a chieftain of the All Progressives Congress (APC) and former Nigeria’s ambassador to Switzerland, had predicted confusion in Nigeria’s leadership, and also warned Buhari and the APC to beware of Chief Olusegun Obasanjo. Kwande said in an exclusive interview with MUHAMMAD TANKO SHITTU that the PDP is now looking for other means of remaining in power, not elections, and that with determination and commitment, General Buhari and the APC are going to change Nigeria for good, among other topical issues.
Sir, as politician what do you foresee in the postponed dates?
Well, I foresee trouble and confusion. I am also frightened about the way this beautiful country is going, unless there is a miraculous intervention by God, we that are lay men are really confused and threatened.
And why are you confused and threatened?
You see there have been so many contradictory statements being made and usually from the same source; where you say yes today and you say no tomorrow, leaders seem to be more confused than the followers.
How could it have been, if the elections had been held on the 14th? Will the Senate still be talking about the electoral machine and the card reader being used or not? It appears our leaders are sitting down and thinking and inventing problems. What would he (Senator David Mark), have done if the card reader was used, is it only after the postponement of the election that he discovered? They seem to underrate the intelligence of Nigerians by that statement.
Mark has now shown that he is a die-hard supporter of the President and of PDP, despite the fact that he should have been a neutral person by the God’s will that he is a leader of a parliament – where different opinions are under him. It is strange that we all kept quiet about what has happened at the senate and it is to this extent I initially said we are confused as Nigerians.
Notwithstanding the security issue and the recent development at the Senate, INEC said it will go on with the election under the new dates.
Do you see it becoming a reality?
Did they go for Attahiru Jega, as a simple and weak person? The original concept of Attahiru Jega was very clear at the early stage, even before his appointment, his friends and his colleagues all accepted that he is a very strong character and that was why they gave him that appointment. Now that he is displaying it, he is showing that he is the Attahiru Jega that they sought for and brought into INEC, why should people now be fighting him
He clearly explained that the card reader is part of the process of identifying genuine voter, that the machine itself is not voting, but to accept voter being genuine; and somebody is telling you please don’t use it because we want to cheat Nigerians and this card reading machine would be our obstacle This is the way I read it ; it’s very unfair and people both in Nigeria and outside the nation are reading them.
Jega has ignored such calls and he is insisting on using the card reader…
(Cuts in) Of course , but that is even if they allowed him to conduct the elections; there is no going back in using the card reader. He said so, but I also heard him saying that there are two sides to the coin – that he is conducting a free, fair and transparent elections, but other things are beyond his powers – that is the issue of the security; as was the case recently. This means that there are some other aspects of the general election that are not under his control and that is security.
What was your immediate reaction to of the last postponement of the elections, following the NSA’s proposal?
(Cuts). I reacted to that development. I did because this thing is preplanned and I did mention clearly that in London, a week or two before even the 14th, the leader of our security, the National Security Adviser of our country Col. Sambo Dasuki, said: “the Election will not hold and if they are to hold it, let them hold it and we will see,” arrogantly, I said and this is the time that you should go back and ask him again are we going to have the elections?
But he did say that there will be no more postponement?
Then fair enough and thank God., hearing this from him we are grateful, that we are going to have elections. But some of the cronies of the President are still going round and talking about, insisting of having 100% distribution of permanent voters card, and I ask how is it possible? Whereas; even as we are now talking and by the display of event, where the distribution of permanent voters card, is going on you can still see thousands of these cards that are there, do they expect Jega to carry them on his head and look for People to come and take them, why are you talking about the ones that are not even been printed when you have the ones that are even printed and people have not come to take them? Now we want to know the percentage of those that are on the ground and those that have not been collected.
Why do you think that the PDP doesn’t want INEC to use Card reader in the first place?
Well, no but it’s a clear matter. You see if you don’t want election you are already defeated in your mind – any politician, any candidate – will like election to hold, so that he will win, but the fact that a candidate is saying don’t hold the election is a sign of defeat. As far as I am concerned the PDP has given up, and they are now looking for other means of remaining in power, not elections because it appears that they have accepted defeat, they have surrendered to APC.
Sir, do you think Nigerians will accept a situation where elections would be put on hold?
Well, you know we Nigerians are wonderful, we are not Kenyans, we are not South Africans, we are not Latin Americans; we can’t face the government.
The government is taking the citizens of this country for granted, so they do what they like and that is why some of their actions are done with impunity. They don’t mind who hears it, they don’t mind who sees it and they don’t mind who is acting it.
In recent past the former President and also a chieftain of the PDP, General Olusegun Obasanjo has dumped the party and even went further to tear his membership card, what does this portend for Nigeria democracy?
I am not chief Obasanjo’s admirer; I have never been; particularly, at a time when he was taunting my idle Turakin Adamawa Atiku Abubakar, unjustifiably and unnecessarily – just because he wanted something else – I had always seen him as a bully. He takes what he wants and denies a person, what that person wants for his personal interest.
But today I am beginning to asses him as a leader, a patriotic Nigerian, a man that can gives his life to this country as he did in the past when he was in the army, because when you join the army, you join to die or to kill, to protect people who are sleeping on their beds. Now am beginning to see him in that light despite the fact that I thought, that this man should have really been told that what he does is wrong, because he turns round and bite, where ever he sees the person that he doesn’t like.
There was a statement he made, that I couldn’t believe it, they were talking about somebody else, there was nothing to do with Atiku, but he will go round and hurt the person he want irrelevantly, that I don’t like of him, this man you never know where he goes, I am even now studying the situation and I am warning Buhari to be careful, I don’t like Obasanjo to drag him to a shooting range, because I observed this is one of his method, if you are too far he doesn’t like it unusually he brings you with his sweet mouth only to shoot you at close range.
I remember what he did with my idle leader Atiku Abubakar, when he invite the man to his house, though he(Obasanjo), is not a Muslim but he used the Islamic verse in the hadith, to say that; “You cannot keep malice permanently against your neighbour,.” He brought Atiku into his house and when he was entering his house there was nobody outside.
But when they finished inside and he was going out, there were hundreds of journalists, and the first question put across, he answered it, saying that; “He didn’t know why the man was with him,” just to disgrace him. We know him and we know what had happened. So , APC, Buhari/ Osinbajo,should beware of Obasanjo.
A lot of things have devastated in the Nigerian system, and how do you think the APC, if elected, can fix all these problems?
When things are so bad you will take time to put it; it’s not going to be a day’s job, nobody can do it in one day, it is impossible. If you are doing some building however strong you are, you will allow some of the marked you’ve cemented to dry before you put another thing on it.
So therefore, I believe with the determination and commitment of our candidate General Buhari, the APC and the promises they are making to the citizens of this country, they are going to change Nigeria for good.
New dimension has been introduced into the country’s politics where peace pacts are being signed by candidates; do you think these pacts can avert electoral violence?
It takes two to tango and because of that we know we are winners and we are working very hard not to provoke anybody, into fight. And even if we are provoked we will not respond; we need peace to win. The person that will prefer disturbance is a person who thinks he cannot win unless the disturbance is in place.
The APC is working, we are pacifying them, please lets o the elections, the elections are in your hands, so do it and the reasons why we are persuading them to the do the elections is because we are so sure that the ordinary citizen of this country is ready for change and he is going to change for good. Once there is fairness, justice and credibility in the elections, there won’t be any cause for alarm. Even without signing any peace pact, I believe the elections will come and go peacefully.
Now coming down here to the local politics in Plateau state, as former chieftain of the PDP, and looking at the 16 years of the PDP-led government, do you think the desired change, is visible in the state?
Our change on the Plateau is very personal than the policy of a political party. We have double problems on the Plateau, one problem is the policy of the PDP, that is the impunity, the second problem is the strong-headed leadership that is so parochial in handling the affairs of Plateau, and because of that it appears they have made it easy and possible for the opposition to take over.
Nobody talks about PDP freely here again, things are happening and the man is so arrogantly sitting in his office and believing that miracle will happen; yes miracle will happen and you will see it on the 28th of March and 14th of April.
What should the people expect if the APC wins the Plateau governorship?
A big change, we are not going to be parochial, we are not going to be discriminatory. But we are going to make Plateau a center for tourism, because God has endowed us with everything here, even if Calabar or Akwa Ibom, that they are talking about today, they may have structures, but wouldn’t have our climate; you cannot buy it, you cannot even have our kind-hearted character and the behavior and love of strangers of our people.
It is only a single person sitting down there and thinking that when he dies, he will go with Plateau. He is so jealous of Plateau that he thinks the state is for him and his family alone; and he is making a great mistake, he met Plateau and he will leave Plateau here.
