Chief David Sabo Kente, Chairman Board of Trustee North East Development Commission (NEDC), is a governorship aspirant on the the platform of All Progressives Congress (APC) in Taraba state. In this interview with ANDREW OJIH in Wukari, he speaks on his plans in 2023 to answer the call of Tarabans to come and save them from leadership deficiency in the state.
Sir, what has Tarabans seen in you that at every election they put a clarion call on you to contest for the number one seat of the state?
Thank you very much, Taraba has had a lot of deficiency in leadership and, therefore, most Tarabans are looking forward to a messiah not comparable to Jesus Christ anyway but the messiah that would help them come out of the doldrum and they have been searching for one and I am sure with what is happening, they seem to have found one in me and that is why they clamour for me to come and lead the state. I am not saying that our past leaders have not done well but our past leaders have done their best but they feel they should do better, and I am the one they feel can help the state do better.
Sir, long before now, you have a vibrant foundation that has touched the lives of millions of Tarabans, what informed your decision to always extend good gestures to the needy?
Yeah, its always been a question coming from journalists each time they interview me, they asked me what has prompted me into running the foundation. It is the zeal to put back to the society what God has given me and the penchant to serve humanity that drove me into the humanitarian services. I came from a family where we are so bothered about other people and I have said the story over and over of how my dad and mum believed so much in giving out to people. I tell people that my dad, we named him “have” at a point in time, reasons been that whatever you give to him, he always give out half of it before he sleeps, otherwise, he will not be able to sleep in the night, so we inherited that from him and I must be honest with you that is what makes me happy when I give out a lot.
In this Christmas, I will tell you I had the cause to sleep very well because of the number of people I touched. At this Christmas, I distributed 3,500 bags of rice, over 50 cows and 2,000 rappers from my widow programme. All put together amounted to about N16,000,000 and that is makes me the happiest person at this season. I was also able to spend N60,000,000 in puting smiles on the faces of people in Taraba state
Sir, i remember in 2015, General T.Y Danjuma set up a committee to look at the credentials of the most qualified persons, you were seen as the most qualified but along the line, there was a ganged up against you. How are you working on this crops of people who ganged up against you in 2015?
Yeah, leadership comes from God, so if God says is not yet time, It would not happened. In 2015, it wasn’t my time, yes is been said everywhere that they was a ganged up but has the ganged up paid? It has not paid off the people that ganged up, by God grace, I am much much better than the people that ganged up against me. The ganged up came from politicians who new they had failed and they see me as their stumbling back, even that time, I called them, i told them look, let’s share this things among ourselves, you go to senate, you, go to house of representatives and you go for governor among others and that would have helped us, but they felt I was their stumbling block and they tried to edged me out thinking that they were going to be better off, now they are paying dearly for the ganged up. All of them would pay dearly for it and they are already seeing it. Some of them are running around, they even have no political party, they are already going round and they are thinking they can come and hijack the other people’s party, the structure of other people. We are waiting for them to come and hijack if they are hijackers. I was in the PDP, they ganged up there and they sent me packing, I brought SDP they still went on blackmail against me even in SDP. I now switched over to Apc and brought the party to where it is today in the Southern part of the state. Anybody that wants to take APC from me would pay dearly for it , I will have nothing to do to the person but God will show the person way out of politics. Some of them would retired if they come to Apc on their own without anything coming from me. The assurance I am giving is like I said power comes from God and I am making an attempt again, if God says is my time fine, and if God says is not my time, I am good to go. I am one of the politician that have never gone down for even an inch, even when I never want down, each day that passes, God gives me an opportunity to even do better than yesterday, so for me, I am grateful and if God decided not to give me power, I am still grateful and I know God will give me something better than what I am looking for.
As it is in Taraba now, APC has a bright future from current analyses to coast to victory by 2023, and now, there is crack in APC, what is the party doing to ensure that their internal crisis is resolved?
I don’t think we have more crises in APC than the PDP. PDP is having the worst of crises, the PDP Senators in PDP are not working together; they are not working with their governors. The members there are trying to decamp somehow and some have decamped from PDP back to the APC. There is even more confusion there than we have in the APC. The APC, under the leadership of Senator Yusuf A. Yusuf has tried its best to bring everybody together. Of course, you don’t expect in a political party for everything to be as smooth as you think because in the absence of crisis in a party, it means that something must be wrong. I assure you, I know the things happening, we are all working together, and mind you, we have a brand new minister, the former Minister of Power was supposed to provide us with leadership, in addition to what Senator Yusuf was doing, but he came with a wrong concept or an ideology that didn’t work out, but we now have a brand new minister whom we believe will be able to work with us to unite the party.When he arrived the state, he moved straight to the party secretariat. That is a party man, from there, he moved to see the Emir of Jalingo and further went to government house. That is how a party man should work and he is willing to work with everybody and we are also willing to work with him, and therefore, the crisis in APC, as far as I am concerned, are not crises, we have only one APC and we are all working among ourselves to make sure we clinch the government house in Taraba come 2023.
Sir, in Taraba, people looked at you as man full with ideas that can bring a new structure in the state. If given this opportunity, how do you intend to make difference from what is on ground?
Yeah, some of the things I won’t want say is the fact that you know; I will not speak of my business secret. Businessmen keep their secrets, I will try to keep what I can do, but at least, from antecedent, you should know that I am not just an ordinary person, I can turn many things around and I am an entrepreneur, I have served in the public service, I have served in the civil service and I am currently serving as the chairman Board of Trustee North East Development Commission (NEDC), Educational Endowment Fund. I have a lot of experience and a lot of things and as I told you, if by my ways of doing things, you should know that the stuff is there. It is not been proud, you know the stuff is there, some of the things are left for me to implement when I become a governor or implement them in my private outfits. I have heard of some politicians saying they are tired of giving the state to entrepreneurs and I said imagine how people are having myopic thinking in the whole world. The world is being given to entrepreneurs to manage. One local politician is saying he doesn’t want entrepreneurs to rule the state. The era of distributing oil money on the table and stolen has passed, now you need people that can seat down, think and generate income and then regulate spending and that is what I have been doing. The salary bill of my companies is 17,000, 000 monthly and I paid as when due, I try to do my best to pay my staff salaries, so every single month that passes, my total bill locally and outside the country put together is about 35,000,000 in one month. So it means in every single month in a year, I must generate 35,000,000 to pay my staff locally and outside the country.
So, what else do you expect from that kind of person, what do you think about people that are collecting money from the federal government and cannot even pay the salaries. I mean this is very clear. I have alway told people that it is my sincere wish to serve the state, they should give me an opportunity and see what we can do, there are many things in this state that can be harnessed to generate income. I have travelled to many countries of the world, I have made some little connections with investors here and there and we can do a lot to increase the revenue of the state. You know very well there is no more oil revenue available for people, so these are some of things that I need to do because I won’t tell people of details how I will succeed. I tried to leak out some in recent time and they have started stealing my ideas and I don’t do that again.
Finally, what is your message to Tarabans as the state move towards 2023 general elections?
Yeah, we are preparing to get into 2023, my plea is for Tarabans to leave in peace with one another in an atmosphere devoid of conflicts and disputes. I plea with all sons and daughters of Taraba state that 2022 would be the beginning of an electioneering process, Tarabans must be careful with people who come around to tell them of what they have. If somebody comes around and tells you he want to contest for a particular position, first of all check his credentials, what he has done for the people as an individual, I don’t want people to score the offices they are holding, I want people to score Aspirants as based what they have done in the past even when they are not in government.
They will come with their plenty gifts and try to deceive people and most of the gifts that are been shared are monies that are meant for projects for various communities. Some of the projects are sold and even sold to outsiders and cash collected, we have evidence to show, some of our elected officials sold what is given to them in terms of projects for their constituencies and bring the cash, maybe they take one third and shared to people.
