In 2007, Senator Saidu Dansandu spear-headed the group of National Assembly members that fought against President Olusegun Obasanjo’s tenure elongation plan. After defeating ‘’third term’’, he announced his retirement from politics after about 30 years of active service. Last week, he staged a comeback as the national chairman of the newly registered National Rescue Movement (NRM). In this interview with BODE OLAGOKE, Senator Dansadau reveals why he returned to politics, the vision of his party and why the Peoples Democratic Party(PDP) and the All Progressives Congress(APC)- led government can not fight corruption.
Why did you return to politics after you retired about ten years ago?
As part of our repentance to God, a group of patriotic Nigerians, under my humble leadership, decided to give Nigerians for once, a party with an ideology. We applied to INEC for registration as a political party, in the name of National Rescue Movement (NRM).
Thanks to our Lord, the Almighty God, who guided INEC to consider us worthy of registration as a political party. As a newly registered and bonafide political party in Nigeria, NRM is set to change the approach, style and leadership recruitment process in Nigerian politics.
What difference is NRM going to make regarding the way politics is being played and the prevailing despair and poverty in the country ?
If you observe, part of the problem of governance in this country is that you have professionals and credible people, selfless and patriotic people who are willing and ready to serve this country selflessly, but leaders don’t want to see the faces of such people. They prefer sycophants and hypocrites who will be singing the songs of sycophancy and this is a serious problem.
That is why we want to make a difference not only while in governance, but also in leadership recruitment. All Nigerians are entitled to be members of this party if they so wish. But to get a ticket to contest elections at all levels, a person must prove himself to be credible, God fearing, selfless and is accepted by his people. NRM leadership will not sit here in Abuja like other parties and impose candidates on the people. We feel that until and unless there is justice, all that we do as a political party and as leaders, will be fruitless because there can’t be peace and prosperity and good governance unless the people are allowed to make their choices.
That is why anybody who wants to contest election in this party should know that there are strict and rigorous processes of screening before he can be allowed to contest any election. The task of rescuing Nigeria from where it is today is a task that all patriotic Nigerians must be part of in order to have a better Nigeria and be able to catch up with its peers across the globe.
How does your party intend to fight corruption which is seen as one of things that is impeding the nation’s progress?
For us in NRM, we see no difference between the APC and the PDP in terms of the issue of corruption, implementation of the budget and prudent management of the nation’s resources for the common good of the Nigerian people.
What is your opinion on the ongoing controversy about the approval of $1 billion from the Excess Crude Account, by the Nigerian Governors Forum for the federal government to fight Boko Haram?
Well, that money belongs to the 36 states and the federal government. The governors are the chief executives of their respective states and are the custodians of the resources of their respective states, while the Boko Haram issue is a security challenge that affects the entire nation.
Yes, the insurgents are being fought in the north east, but its economic and social consequences are all over the country. So, for me, I think it is worthwhile as long as the money will be prudently used for the purpose that it is allocated. So, I don’t think there is nothing wrong with it. The federal government and the National Council of States should put in place a special mechanism for monitoring how that colossal amount of money is going to be used.
The Nigerian government has a very good opportunity which they don’t want to use. We have professionals who have retired, who are credible and willing to offer services free, but they are not being utilized because people in government want to do everything.
The government is setting up a technical committee to handle something and appoints governors and ministers as members, when they have not been able to discharge their primary responsibilities satisfactorily and yet you are giving them additional responsibility when we have professionals with the technical expertise to do that job. I want to appeal to the government to put a special team in place outside government bureaucracy to monitor how every cent of this money will be spent in fighting Boko Haram because that is where the problem is. It is not allocating money that is important, but how the money is spent and how effective it is. That is what is lacking in the APC administration.
We have several political parties in the country and many of them have never fielded any candidate but always endorse candidates of other parties. This has led some Nigerians to make mockery of the recent registration. Will your party depart from this anomaly and field candidates in all elective positions in 2019 ?
I want you to write it in your dairy today that an NRM presidential candidate will be sworn in on May29, 2019 to occupy the Presidential Villa. We are determined and serious. I don’t blame Nigerians if they make mockery of the registration of 21 political parties because from our experience, most of these small political parties don’t make any impact. For us in the NRM, we decided to form this party because we are not satisfied with the performance of the APC.
We have discovered from a survey we did, through some consultants, that Nigerians are disenchanted and are losing hope. That is why we say, we hope to rekindle the hope of Nigerians and carve out a political party with an ideology.
In Rwanda, after the genocide of 1990, people wondered how they were able to fix their country in just 20 years and they are today, the pride of Africa. If you go to Kigali, it is like you are in Europe and here we are in Nigeria, telling ourselves that Nigeria can not be fixed. I don’t believe in that. We are out, determined, resolute and committed to making the difference. All we want is cooperation of the Nigerian people.
We are going to present credible, patriotic Nigerians who are honest, God fearing to contest elections at all levels because we believe that they are there are all over the country. The only thing is that these people have been running away from politics because they don’t have the kind of money required to contest election or get the PDP or APC tickets. We re going to fish out those people and provide the platform. They will not need to have money. Their asset will be their credibility and acceptability by our people. So, we are set to make the difference.
You have alleged elsewhere that not more than seven persons have cornered the resources of this country, how did you arrive at this figure? Can you name names?
I am just using that as an example and not talking about the exact figure. You are the one who came up with the terminology of cabal. We have had cabals in this country on several occasions and the Nigerian people have alleged that the cabal are cornering the resources of this country. In the states, it is one person cornering the resources. Even a deputy governor has no access to the money.
There is the clamour for restructuring of the country. What is your party’s position on this?
All the socio-economic problems we are having in this country should not have risen if we have good governance. My belief is that the clamour for restructuring, agitation for Biafra, Boko Haram, cattle rustling and many others are all manifestations of bad governance.
For me personally, I don’t believe in restructuring, but I believe that at the appropriate time, the party will come up with its position on that. I believe in good governance because the moment you provide good governance, there will be no agitation. You are hearing about agitation for restricting because few people who are not more than seven, have cornered the resources of the entire nation and they do whatever they want. They take the money outside the country and that is why people are saying let us restructure.
So, when you restructure the nation, you will also have to restructure the resources and allow every region manage its own resources. It is because of this gale of corruption that brought about all these agitations. So, for me, providing good governance is the answer to all these agitations and our socio-economic challenges in this country.
You said that one of the principles of your party is to ensure national integration. Considering the fact that this country is divided along ethnic and religious lines, how do you intend to achieve this?
The solution is to ensure justice and fairness. But more critical is the issue of leadership recruitment. We are definitely going to change the approach to leadership recruitment.
From 1999 to date, whatever happened, Nigerian politicians must take responsibility for that. We must take responsibility for the state of the nation today. If that is the case, what do we do? It is to answer that question that we need to change the approach. For us in the NRM, among the present conventional politicians in the country today, only a negligible few will be able to secure NRM ticket. Before you are able to get NRM ticket as somebody who has been in politics for a long time in Nigeria, you must be someone who has been acknowledged as credible, patriotic and selfless. It is only then that you can secure ticket under NRM.
Our first point of call for recruitment is religious leaders. We are not saying that Cardinal Onayekan should come and contest election, but what we are saying is that they should bring out their disciples that they know are credible, patriotic and God fearing to come and contest election because they will not need to bribe anybody to have the ticket. They must make that sacrifice because the time has gone when politicians will just come to religious leaders and say pray for us to win election. Religious leaders should take this message to their followers.
Our second port of call will be the traditional rulers. We are not saying that the sultan should come and contest election. They know within their domain, the people they can trust that will not betray the reputation and credibility of the royal houses. Our third port of call will be the professionals who have either retired or are still serving. We have already drafted letters to all professional and trade union groups, women and youth groups, religious leaders and traditional rulers. We will give them our manifesto and ask them to make input into it because what we have today is an interim manifesto. For example, we will tell the Nigeria Economic Summit Group to make input to our economic policy and other professional groups. Then we will aggregate these views. We will have interaction with them because the state of the nation today calls for sacrifice and so, all hands must be on deck. When we have professionals in the National Assembly, they are going to enrich the quality of governance and fast track law making. We must have credible people in leadership and that is what we are out to do for the country.
Don’t you think that these traditional rulers and religious leaders you talked about emerged from the same political system that you want to change?
One thing you must know is that all of us have a hand in the state of the nation today. I have said that we will fish out the credible ones among us. We have credible people in all cadres of the Nigerian society and these are the people we are out to look for. That is our fundamental difference from other political parties.
