Inexperience responsible for mis-governance in Adamawa – Gundiri

Engr. Markus Gundiri, has twice contested governorship elections in Adamawa in 2011 and 2015 on the platforms of the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) and the Social Democratic Party (SDP), respectively. Now a chieftain of the APC, Gundiri speaks on Atiku Abubakar’s defection and other issues. Bode Olagoke brings excerpts.
Is the APC in stable condition in Adamawa?
The former Vice President, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar has decided to go back to the PDP. He must have weighed the pros and cons, and like any other person decided to make a choice.
He is just an individual but some of his supporters in the APC will join him in the PDP. It does not destabilise the APC in Adamawa state. Just as some individuals are going to the PDP, some people in the PDP are moving into the APC to fill in the void Atiku has left and there isn’t any type of destabilization in Adamawa state as at now.
It is even getting stronger because there are more people coming into the APC. We should understand one thing that the PDP in Adamawa state, I think has worse problems than any other state of the federation because I am in the APC and I wouldn’t talk much about other states.
So, there are so many factions of the PDP in Adamawa state, so a lot of work has to be done to make that party stable in Adamawa state. The APC is much stronger.

Considering the relationship between Atiku and the incumbent governor, Jibrila Bindow, does the APC in Adamawa state still trust in the governor?
For sure, there cannot be any trust because it’s just like a husband that divorced a wife who eventually got married another man, do you think the two husbands will trust one another?
Probably once in a while, the wife could sneak out to the previous husband or vice-versa, there is that possibility of leakages coming in from either side of the divide. I don’t think I can trust the governor of Adamawa state. He may be an agent now in the APC. Unless he proves otherwise, that’s my stand.

Do you think the former Vice President made the right choice?
He is very mature, he is one of the political icons in this country, especially in Adamawa state and for a person like him to make that choice, he must have seen something that he feels he can achieve better in the PDP. I think he must have thought about everything before he made the decision.

Mr President thinks if election is held today he would win considering the large crowd that welcomed him in Kano, do you share the sentiment?
Yes, I am. I share the same feeling. Who today in this country can stand election against President Buhari and win? I don’t think there is any. You have to look at the antecedents, achievements of the President in this few years. It took the PDP 16years to establish a system and you cannot expect the APC in 3 years to establish that type of position, it is going to take some time. If we give the president another 4 years, then we can know for sure if he can do better than what the PDP did in 16years.
He came into governance at a time that Nigeria was in a serious problem, economically, security wise and all other problems associated with living condition in this country. Time is needed to truly understand the situation and put the right people in the right places to be able to tackle this problem. He has ended insecurity.
Though, there are pockets of terrorism here and there, but that is expected of any country in the world, even in the United States of America, all the big democracies in the world have those problems.

Quite a number of people in this government were also in the PDP government, some wonder why these same people are blaming the government they were apart of?
I am not in a position to tell you who these people are but if the President can fish out such people and if the government knows that these people are part of those that brought down the country to the level it is today, they should not be in government.

Some members have complained about the national leadership of the APC, there are crises in the APC?
There is no political party in the world that has no crisis, go to any nation of this world, you will find crisis in the political establishments and in the government itself. It is not something new for you to have problems in a political party, but the thing is the APC came to being about 4years now.
It’s just like when you have a stone rolling down from the mountain, it has to be able to settle down, then you have rounded solid rock and that’s precisely what you are supposed to expect out of a political party. So gradually, things will settle down and the rough edges would now be properly grounded and you’ll have a very strong and viral party.

Should Mr President rejig his cabinet as proposed?
It is up to him, if he is not getting the right result. The President must have agenda: what he wants to achieve, have time frame for whatever result. If any cabinet member has not been able to do what the President wants, then he can easily change the person.

Governor Bindow had been there for two and half years now, are people satisfied with his performance, so far?
The governor constructed some roads in Yola north LG, very good, but he did it at the expense of other local governments. He has done roads in two out of the 21 local governments.
So, where are the dividends of democracy for people living in those local governments? He has forgotten education of the young people in the state that yearn for education. He has forgotten about employment that these people yearn for.
Unless something radical is done in Adamawa state, believe me, it is not going to be easy for the people. We will continue to have willing pool in the hands of Boko Haram recruitment agents in the state.

Aren’t you criticising the governor because you are interested in his office?
No, I am just criticizing the governor because I know what to do, there must be a manifesto on how to bail out the people. The first thing is not infrastructure, the first thing is educating the people, giving them health facilities, creating jobs, improving their sources of livelihood, guaranteeing good life, then you can now gradually marry that into infrastructural development.
Mind you, roads are not the only infrastructure you can think of, you have to supply power, water, health facilities and all the likes. So, it is not because I want his position, it’s just because I know.

Do you now want to correct this in 2019?
Yes, if I am the governor of Adamawa state, yes, definitely because the way I do things would be different from the way he would do things because I have the experience to do them.
I thought he would tap talents from people that know what to do, not necessarily from people that surround him who may not have that experience, let him reach out.
I am not saying he should reach out to me but there are people that are even better than I that he can reach out to, to make meaningful contribution for development in Adamawa state.

What do you think is responsible for the growing insecurity in the state of recent?
There are so many things. The issue of Boko Haram, you cannot separate one from the other. Insecurity is insecurity! Boko Haram had been there for a long time and I am not going to discuss that now because this is not the forum.
The same applies to the so-called herdsmen because sometimes I don’t believe that they are just people that rear cows. They are actually people coming in across this country. This started in year 2000 when people came from Chad, Niger, Northern Cameroon and from Sudan as groups of robbers and bandits. They would come and rob villages, trying to get money for revolution in their countries and they have grown to a stage that they mix so much with the local people.
Sometimes, the cattle they move with are stolen cattle. These are the people that move around to get what they want and fund the revolution in their country.

As an engineer, why don’t we have confidence in our own trained engineers?
Funding has been the problem. The banks in Nigeria do not back these people, they cannot easily access money to implement these projects. Now, most of these multinational companies have access to banks in their own countries and that is the only difference, otherwise, if you look at most of multinational companies, fifty per cent of their staff are Nigerians.
It is not issue of confidence. It is funding, because we are as knowledgeable as any of foreign engineer. We trained in same school abroad and did better than them in class.
There are actually so many Nigerian companies that have capacity to handle any type of construction work. We are now living in a global village and can form a consortium with others. If we have a job, a World Bank job possibly somewhere in China, we normally form a consortium with other foreign countries that know the terrain and we succeed. If Nigerian companies can be given some opportunities, they will do better.

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